Writer, musician, wizardly guide to platform independence
Four years ago, after I stayed up way too late watching the results of the 2016 election, I got out the door for an angry run. It was around three miles, in about 32 minutes, light rain, high 40s.
Things haven’t felt right since. Unceasing dark days. As of late, 1,000 Americans dead everyday.
Good grief.
Love this, in the most depressing away ever…
… office workers have come to think of email as non-work, or partial-work, or at least work that shouldn’t necessary be compensated, or performed during work hours. In her study of office workers, she hears a similar explanation over and over again for why employees spend their Sunday nights and weekday evenings attending to their inboxes: it would be wasteful to spend the workday emailing, and clearing an inbox ahead of time means the workday itself is less stressful.
how email became work
I make a point during the week to close all my email (and Slack) to work on specific tasks. If I don’t, the allure will be there to check, to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
People will say, “I HAVE TO ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE!”
But you’re not available when you’re at the dentist. Or in a work meeting / zoom call, right? When you take your animal to the vet. When you’re driving.
Those are all things where you need to be fully present, yet doing our work – the thing we get PAID TO DO, to earn a living – we allow ourselves to be semi-present, constantly being distracted by incoming notifications.
Well, England is locking down again. Germany is locked down.
The COVID-19 virus is rampant, cases up everywhere, things are very much not “back to normal.”
Twice in the last week I’ve seen totally unmasked people in my local grocery store. SIGH.
I told the cashier I kept my distance from the one person without a mask, and she replied, “does that even work?”
“Well,” I replied, “I’m not in the hospital, so I’m gonna stick with it.”
Oh, and this: ‘More than 2,500 new COVID-19 cases reported in Pennsylvania‘
The Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed an additional 2,510 positive coronavirus cases Saturday — bringing the state’s total to 208,027. Officials said the state’s daily increases are now the highest they have been since the pandemic began.
Is there such a thing as a new-event fatigue? I mean, every time I glance at my social media feed there’s a dozen new announcements for virtual conferences, events, races, and live streams.
Adobe Max just did a thing, with a bunch of great speakers, and it was all free, and like, I just did not have the bandwidth to pause for an hour and watch something… in the middle of the day. I guess I could go back and watch, but there’s probably 13 new things for my eyeballs to ingest in the past hour.
I’ve signed up a few virtual races and every one of them is a nervous vomiting of emails, with links, dates, codes, and mystical instructions, some of which include screen shots (like a fucking WikiHow article).
Emails about signing up for new health care, too.
And I think I need to renew my car registration.
Oh, and I think I need to plan for a coup, too? And stock up on survival gear, and a AM/FM radio in case civilization collapses next week.
Wait, will that interfere with that virtual 5K I signed up for?
Will Philadelphia burn the ground?
Will another Black person be gunned down by police in the next 12 minutes (probably)?
Will more disinformation spread? Will any of this shit get better?
Gotta stay on top of my inbox, though. Good thing I signed up for a virtual seminar for “Staying Productive While Your Country Implodes Upon Itself Like a Dying Star.”
This is madness:
Medical professionals have publicly called on the president to discontinue his rallies. Seventy-five doctors led by the Committee to Protect Medicare, a health-care advocacy group, signed a letter last week asking Trump to cancel one in Erie. And on Monday, Meaghan Reid, an emergency physician in Drexel Hill, hosted a virtual news conference again asking the president to stop.
Trump blitzes Pennsylvania with 3 rallies as coronavirus spikes lead to calls for him to stop
Seventy five DOCTORS – people who went to school for a zillion years, paid a boat load of money, working long hours, made so many sacrifices – got together and said this!
I think the biggest thing I keep coming back to during these *unprecedented times* is this; there was a time when you could go to bed at night knowing grown ups were running the show, and watching out for everyone. Sure, there are policy differences, but we still listened to science.
“We cannot rely on herd immunity,” (Pennsylvania’s health secretary Dr. Rachel) Levine said. “That is not a good public health strategy.”
Like, we’re seriously not wearing masks. And then when a vaccine is available, there’s going to be so much disinformation out there on how it was developed by liberals, or aliens, or Hollywood elites.
I mean, 2,751 case today.
Timely words from track and field Olympian Tianna Bee:
“Whatever it is you’re facing-whatever the adversity or the obstacle- there is a solution. Yes. There is. The question is- are you going to take quitting off the table in order to free up the space needed for the creativity and new perspective to find it.”
Unbroken
During this season of a maddening political world, a national shit show during a pandemic, racial injustice, poverty and about a million other things – quitting isn’t an option. Not for Bee, not for any of us.
There are days of rest, tears, and eating cake out of a baking tin at 9pm on occasion, but then it’s back at it.
Quitting is off the table.
This from ‘The Death of the Artist,’ (via @SorayaRoberts)
Anyone can easily market their own music, books, or films online, drum up a thousand true fans, and enjoy a decent living. We see proof of this, time and again, in profiles of bold creators who got tired of waiting to be chosen, took to the web, and saw their work go viral.
The artists tell another tale. Yes, you can produce and post your work more easily, but so can everyone else.
William Deresiewicz
From the early 2000s until now, there has been no shortage of music, which is why there is no shortcut to getting your stuff out there. Unfortunately everything is stacked against the artist – rent, time, space, COVID-19. For every Marc Rebillet, there’s probably 1,000 artists who got two plays on YouTube today.
This is not some moral failing of the artist with two plays. The entire system is broken, art is de-valued, and oh yeah, almost 250,000 Americans are dead from a runaway virus.
I wrote about “Soft Running” a few days ago, and the idea has kept with me. Enough so to start a Substack newsletter for the idea, the concept. The idea behind the Soft Run Substack newsletter (sign up here) is to have it’s own home, a space, to explore the idea a bit more.
It’s been a weird time for running in 2020, especially if you’re just getting started. There’s no run groups, no local 5K races to join with your friends. So how do we get started, and keep going? That’s what I’m going to be writing about.
From James Clear’s recent email (read it here):
What is the little bit of extra work that has huge upside?
I need to look at this from the running angle, because I don’t always want to write about work stuff, but I guess it’s gotta be stretching.
Not stretching is easy, but making time to stretch is absolutely extra work. It’s a routine, it’s formative, it’s just a darn good idea.
Just like soft running, sometimes you need a soft ride. I’ve been going hard these last few months, trying to lose weight, get faster, and all that other pretty fucking typical stuff. Then came a 10 mile trail race and I realized I didn’t have that much fun. It’s time to recalibrate.
Left the house and it was around 70 degrees, but sort of cool on the bike. I actually rode slow enough to be chilly; like, just riding so easy that I wasn’t really warming myself. It was a nice feeling. I slowed, looked deep into the woods, scanned the creeks, stopped to smell some pine trees.
Just like we can’t focus on work for 8+ hours, at least not in a healthy way, we can’t always workout hardcore either. I mean, if you’re young, cool! Do you! But it’s also nice to just switch it up.
Stop and smell the roses is cliche for a reason.
And I’ve discovered in my journey with outsourcing, there’s been some quiet time. There’s been moments in the day where shit is actually done, caught up. Nothing to do. It’s glorious, but also terrifying. It’s just not something I’m familiar with, having gone pretty much full tilt since 2018 when my Close Mondays operation really took off.
Tonight it felt unsettling to just get away on the bike, but it was absolutely everything I needed. The best ideas come in the shower, or those quiet moments just staring at the mountains.
Avoiding those moments isn’t advisable for me. I need to keep searching them out.