Notes on stuff I'm thinking about. For short-form posts, visit the stream.
I’ve been thinking a lot about emotional management, particularly after a challenging year of depression and anxiety. I’ve lived with both for most of my life, but it wasn’t until recently that I was formally diagnosed. About a year ago, I hit rock bottom. Since then, it’s been a slow but steady climb, thanks to therapy, medication, and a lot of introspective work.
Musk has made it really easy not to go back to Twitter. Props for that.
Threads is slowly creeping into being a true replacement for Twitter, toxicity and all. It may come as a surprise to no one that the problem isn’t the platform, but the people pouring their shit into it.
Instagram is still the one app I’m using to go watch ads with scattered updates from my friends.
This quote from Leif K-Brooks, Omegle’s Founder is spot on and feels painfully prophetical:
I worry that, unless the tide turns soon, the Internet I fell in love with may cease to exist, and in its place, we will have something closer to a souped-up version of TV – focused largely on passive consumption, with much less opportunity for active participation and genuine human connection.
See you on the other side (after the ad break).
With each day that passes, I increasingly remember the pandemic with a positive twist.
It was far from good. It wreaked havoc on my mental health at first, but perhaps it is a blessing that my mind chooses to retain the positive aspects and bury the rest
I miss being all day at home with my wife and my kids. Rationally I know it was difficult, especially with a three-year-old rightfully demanding attention, but I miss it anyway. Those times evoke feelings of intimacy, closeness, and profound love. Such immense love.
Today is the last day of my 30 days without social media. These are some bullet points of my experience:
There is this quote from drummer Keith Moon I heard from Ira Glass and deeply resonated with me:
I am the best Keith Moon-style drummer in the world.
It reminded me of my approach to work for my first few years of employment at Nearsoft, a company that heavily promoted self-management. I divided my work into two categories: tasks I had to do and tasks I wanted to do. Although both types of work were part of my daily routine, I prioritized completing the "had-to" tasks quickly to ensure I had more time for the "want-to" tasks.
I used to believe that social media kept me connected to the people I love, like, and enjoy, but I now realize that this couldn't be further from the truth. Although social media gives me the impression that I'm in touch with many individuals, broadcasting random thoughts and out-of-context ideas ultimately leads to a lack of genuine communication. The worst thing is that this false sense of connection provides me with temporary satisfaction that prevents me from forming real connections with the people I care about.
After six and a half weeks in lockdown, I’m not anxious anymore. I don’t crave going out, and video calls have replaced face-to-face meetings very well: they no longer feel fake. I don’t perceive the screen anymore, but the person on the other side.
Habits are changing. I can’t go out to the supermarket when I’m bored (yes, I do that, or used to, anyways) or call a friend to meet at the neighborhood bar, but I took on Animal Crossing New Horizons, and as a distraction it’s a lifesaver. I’m making more music, I’m drawing more, and I play with my kids a lot more than before the pandemic.
A tale of good intentions and either ingenuity or plain ignorance.
When we moved into the house where my family and I live, it occurred to me that it would be super cool and educational to have a solar system model in the ceiling of my kid’s room.
And it would be a lot cooler —I thought— if the distances between the planets’ orbits and their size were proportional to their real-life counterparts, the light bulb in the center of the ceiling being the sun. I got really excited.
With all the excitement still in me, I got in front of my computer to calculate said distances. That’s when it hit me: I knew nothing about the solar system size.
I constantly find myself looking for free PSD mockups to present work, usually for small things like stickers, mugs, or posters. Today I couldn’t find a decent one for a set of stickers, and instead of buying a premium one, I decided to scratch my own itch, make my own and share it with you.
Before photography was invented, people could only see that in front of their eyes. To experience the rest of the world, people had to physically travel, or, if they couldn’t afford it, to use other’s interpretation of remote places via narrative or painting.
That’s why the invention of photography was so huge for the human race. It removed a limit that most people didn’t even thought was there, and it opened the possibility of exploring the physical world beyond our reach.
Today we don’t believe anymore that everything important was already invented, but we have an attitude of cynicism to every new thing that comes along. In 2017 we even have cars that drive themselves, and we aren’t excited at all.
These are two (now) very basic inventions that occurred during my lifetime and changed me forever.