There is so much to take notice of that it's hard to know what matters. What really moves us anymore?
That's almost to the point I think I'm trying to make with the blog post I'm writing besides this daily one. I've been trying to focus more on sitting down to write and fight Resistance.
It hit me today when I was listening to a podcast although I'm not sure the podcast had to do with it. I've been thinking quite a bit about this weightlifting concept called "greasing the groove". It's a term coined by the powerlifting coach from Russia responsible for bringing the kettlebell craze to America. The "grease the groove" method is simple in concept and simple in practice. If you want to get better at doing pushups, for example, you should do a lot of pushups. Seems bro simple, right? But the "grease the groove" idea comes from the fact that your muscles and nerves are trainable, and by doing a few pushups every hour, for example, you can stay well-rested, active, and still put in work to re-sculpt and train not only your body, but your mind.
Taking that bit of exercise science away, I've been thinking about how often and how I write. It could be another form of Resistance but I think a lot about how I can make the process of writing the easiest and most disciplined it can be so I don't make other dumb decisions instead of writing. Like if I wake up to sprint or lift or just roll around every morning instead of writing even a ten-minute blog, I'm failing to Resistance. And in thinking about this whole discipline and process, I realized I'm throwing myself in the deep end. I'm writing every spare minute of the day, and possibly burning myself out, instead of being satisfied with showing up every single day, not unlike training at the gym.
I think the same can be said about diet too, right? If you want to eat healthier, the best diet is the one you keep for the long-term. It's not about crash dieting to lose some poundage. Almost any diet can do that steadily in the short-term. If you want to be healthy, you need to make something work every single day for you.
And with that being said, I've been happy to be writing. Even this nonsense.
What did I read about today?
There is this idea from a designer that all other tech designers should be licensed professionals, specifically for the way they are able to affect individual and societal behavior. They don't go to school for any kind of ethical design. It is literally possible to call yourself a designer without any credentials or experience, and people can believe you. And now the things our world, our society is designing has real-life consequences, like the person that was killed by the automated car in Arizona.
We need to do better. For the betterment of everyone else.
I read a tweet that nailed a bit of how I feel financially about the millennial situation. She was a financial planner of some kind but she hit it on the button. My generation has been forced to take on student debt, graduate into a recession, pressured to purchase a house and a car and raise some kids. There is more that I can't remember, but I think even that's enough. We're in a pickle and although society is not maliciously out to get us because it's society after all, there are much larger forces out there guiding this ship in an unfortunate way.