motivation – Batfort

Tag: motivation (page 1 of 5)

Anticlimax

Tomorrow is the launch of a project I’ve been working on for months.

There will be no fanfare. There’s no event or afterparty.

Just…me doing work.

I’m trying to steel myself for the letdown that always happens when I get to the end of a project, which I know will be exacerbated since there’s no event or end product to feel satisfied over.

It’s funny how things that take up so much mental energy in our heads end up being pretty much nothing.

Anyway, here’s a famcazing Korean music video featuring the best guitar-cameo I’ve seen in a long time.

A Cure for Crohn’s Disease

2019-02-05 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I’m going to do it, guys. I’m going to find the cure for Crohn’s disease.

First, a few premises:

I have Crohn’s disease. I was diagnosed over 20 years ago. At this point, “having Crohn’s disease” is a pretty entrenched part of my identity.
Second, I’ve done the drug merry-go-round to manage my disease. Guess what? It didn’t work. In fact, it made my life much worse. SIBO.
Removing all the fiber from my diet and finally getting an infected dead tooth out of my mouth have allowed my body to eradicate most of the excess bacteria.
I’m in better health than I’ve possibly EVER been in my life, without drugs.
And yet, I’m not perfectly healthy. My guts are still messed up.
And even more yet, when I score myself on the Crohn’s Disease Activity Index, I score a 70—IN REMISSION.

Now we can plough on to the meat of the matter. From Guru Anaerobic:

Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis are particularly vicious types of inflammatory bowel disorder (IBD). According to medical experts (and support organizations like ‘Crohn’s and colitis UK’) both conditions are life-long and irreversible. Current opinion is that they are caused by a mix of genetics, autoimmune derangement, environmental triggers, maybe microbiome – whatever.

Very often the sufferer doesn’t realize they have a problem (there may have been signes which went unnoticed) until a major flare-up occurs. For serious flare-ups a short course of steroids may be prescribed, but not for too long due to side effects. Once the flare-up has subsided the general advice is that a life-time of immunosuppressants or ASA’s (a certain class of drugs) are required – the rationale being these drugs will help prevent future flare-ups recurring (they don’t). Without drugs another flare-up may not occur for years, no one knows.

In between flare-ups the sufferer is said to be ‘in remission’.

The sufferer will always be in remission even if they never have another flare-up. ‘In remission’ makes the individual a life-long victim, a life-long sufferer. In the case of IBD they are a victim even if they are completely asymptomatic. If drugs had no downsides there would be no problem, take them like smarties.

After an injury (or disease) the last thing to heal is the mind; I realized this when I had a running injury (one of many) which had healed. Whilst I was warming-up for an 800m race a friend shouted to me, “Mark, why are you limping?!” – even though my injury had resolved I still held it in my mind and was unknowingly (sort of) taking my weight off the leg where the injury had been.

Ok, one could argue that “in remission” means ‘to take care what you do so the condition doesn’t return’, but we all act in a certain way so we don’t suffer from something don’t we? You don’t eat cake, chocolate and jelly beans everyday because you might get fat [If you were once obese and lost weight, are you in remission?]. I don’t smoke as smoking is related to a host of diseases and conditions – is my life diminished because I don’t smoke?

The alcoholic is not an alcoholic, the IBD sufferer is not an IBD sufferer. If they are not suffering from any effects they are no longer a sufferer. They are not in remission – they do not have the condition; they are cured, they don’t need any drugs. Could they one day suffer from the condition again? Possibly, if they don’t acknowledge there are certain things they shouldn’t do, But this doesn’t make them a life-long sufferer, in the way that I can’t constantly eat sh*t or smoke.

We need to get rid of the term ‘in remission’ and replace with ‘free from’. Being in remission makes you a victim, it’s like a slavery mindset.

Much like I refused to be a slave of the modern medical system, I refuse to be a slave to Crohn’s disease. For my whole life, I’ve refused to let Crohn’s define who I was, or what I could do. After a while, it started to feel like a shackle that prevented me from living the life I wanted. I was in danger of succumbing.

Now, the sheer wonder of my body’s ability to heal has me looking to the stars again.

What does this tell me?

It’s time to preemptively work on getting Crohn’s out of my head. Time to summon everything I know about mantras, and do the mental work while my body does the physical work of healing and rebuilding.

“I am free from Crohn’s Disease.”

That way, my mind doesn’t have to catch up to my body. God willing, they can heal together.

You steer where you look, so it’s time to look at a cure, at healing—at freedom.

Stop lying to yourself: you know what you want

2019-01-28 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

This is a pep talk for myself, but you’re welcome to listen in.

Look.

I know you play the “I’m still trying to decide” game when you talk to other people. Like somehow it’s more socially acceptable to be undecided. Maybe you think it’s a conversation starter. People can help you think through options. Whatever.

Bullshit.

You know what you want.

You made some of these decisions years ago, but your life hasn’t caught up to them yet. You haven’t put in the work. You’re still adding 2 and 2, hoping that somehow this time they’ll equal 5.

That’s not how this works.

Maybe it’s not ~God’s perfect timing~ either, but there’s not a dang thing you can do about that.

If the key to having clear eyes and a strong backbone is the truth, you have to stop lying to yourself.

Even if you haven’t 100% committed,

Even if there are other options out there,

You know what you want.

And the longer you lie to yourself about it, the less time you have.

The Reader: SUB PEWDIEPIE, loud restaurants, body transformations, and changes in the fashion sphere

2018-12-02 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I spy Prada with my little eye

I’ve been sick(ish) this weekend, and watching more YouTube than usual, so there’s some fatty videos at the end of this post. It’s one of those times when I can’t tell if this is a real upper respiratory infection, if my body is processing out yet another round of SIBO toxins, or if it’s something else—perhaps the physical manifestation of a mental transformation? Weird, I know. I still wonder. I’ve watched my mind and body chase each other around enough times that it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Anyway, there’s lots of interesting stuff on the internet this week.

» Literally everybody is getting behind the SUB PEWDIEPIE campaign (btw, while you’re reading this, consider subscribing to Pewdiepie)

» The “Why I left Buzzfeed” of the beauty industry. Fashion and beauty editors are discovering the power of the personal brand, and are “defecting” to join the ranks of bloggers that they once railed so hard against.

Some editors say they ask their managers before agreeing to appear in a campaign or post sponsored content. Others say they often agree to work with brands and ask for forgiveness afterwards, especially if the brand is from outside their beat.

Steinherr did not ask for permission from Condé Nast to sign with the agency Storm Models in 2016, but she informed them afterwards and says the company was always supportive of her partnerships with third parties, which she identifies with “#ad.” “I have my own code of conduct,” she says. “I don’t find it difficult because I’m used to it — to say this is editorial, this is advertising — to me, there are no blurred lines.”

» From the other end, ROOKIE is shutting down. Tavi was a blogger who became the editorial establishment, so we’re kind of coming full circle.

» We all knew it was coming: CRISPR babies. Pray for these children.

» True confessions of a trans person. I appreciate the honesty, even though I can’t begin to wrap my head around how this is a good thing. Then again, I have spent my life getting my body to heal, so it’s unthinkable to deliberately inflict a wound upon myself.

» The media’s credibility is dead (but we already knew that)

» This one is long, but worth it (and funny to boot): On diet, health, and the wisdom of crowds

» Overly obsessed k-pop stalkers (sasaengs) are nightmare fuel

» Why restaurants are so loud (hint: you’ll see this pattern in other arenas as well)

The merger of fine and casual dining seems to show no signs of abating. As a result, even moderately quiet restaurants have become few and far between. Things have gotten so bad, there’s even an app for helping potential diners find quieter places to eat. The culinary establishment once aimed to dismantle the stuffiness and high cost of dining out by blurring the line between casual and fine dining, eliminating classist dress codes, and make dining a more collective experience. But ironically, that democratization of eating out has produced a new and more hidden tyranny: making people tolerate unhealthy, distracting noise for good food—and then duping them into spending more, drinking more (along with the risk of vulnerable situations that can result from alcohol), and shouting over the din to socialize. By comparison, the worst thing that could happen at one of the upscale establishments of old was using the wrong fork or running afoul of the dress code.

» Reverse Foundation tutorial…but really an interesting ramble on personal beauty.

» I like how Gabbie Hanna describes the process of change. It’s never linear, and always includes setbacks. The mental transformation is the toughest part. If you’re going through any sort of major change, you might find this helpful.

» Gary Vaynerchuk always provides food for thought (edited slightly for clarity):

There’s a reason that people are struggling mentally, and I’m telling you: everybody wants to blame social media. It’s bullshit. It’s parents creating fake environments for children. We’re building zoo animals. When you take a tiger from the Bronx zoo and you put it in the actual jungle, he dies in one second—because he’s not grown up in the actual environment.

You take kids who think they’re good at baseball, because in school up until 12th grade everybody’s good, and then you actually go and play baseball and get struck out 900 times in a row, you go back to your dorm room and start doing cocaine.

“Oh come on, Gary, it doesn’t work like that.”

That’s exactly how it works. …

Creating fake environments is an issue that needs to talked about much more. “[Don’t create] fake environments” doesn’t mean be mean, just don’t create delusion.

A quick and dirty review of Ben Settle’s Persuasion Secrets of the World’s Most Charismatic & Influential Villains

2018-11-13 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I’ll keep this short, because to go long risks the review being longer than the book.

This is not a book of persuasion techniques. If you want to learn how to be a PUA or a bomb-ass copywriter, this is not going to teach you any “tips and tricks.”

Instead, you’ll find 10 lessons that teach you (or remind you), of the successful frame from which a villain operates.

Becoming a villain doesn’t actually require any villainy, no lawbreaking, no nefarious deeds—you just have to be the kind of person who most people say “that guy is a selfish asshole,” who upon further inspection is a good-hearted dude with a backbone and little patience for fools.

If you are the type of person who wants to forge strong relationships but hates “hanging out,” this is a book for you.

This is the “Little Golden Books” of pocket motivation. Pull it out for a refresher every couple of months.

Persuasion Secrets of the World’s Most Charismatic & Influential Villains is available on Amazon.

BTW, this is a good heuristic: if a lot of people (especially online hate mobs or liberals) say that someone is an “asshole,” go check them out. I guarantee you there will be something real underneath the persona.

The Reader: Media Smears, Social Skills, and GaryVee

2018-11-03 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

source

When I came up with the idea of #storyvember, I didn’t think about this series that I’ve started to feature on the weekends. Because this format doesn’t lend itself well to story, I’m not going to worry about smashing it into the “story” format just yet. I’ll chew on it for a while, and maybe by the end of the month I’ll modulate this list into a story of its own.

» IRB doesn’t apply in research online by social media companies, and now it’s starting to fail in real life. I don’t know if this is a win for dismantling outdated institutions, or a loss for humanity. Please be alert and aware in any medical setting.

» They did it to Mike Cernovich and co earlier this week. Now they’re coming for Julian Assange. Caitlin Johnstone is always worth a read.

The point is to create public revulsion for Julian Assange, thereby killing sympathy for his unconscionable persecution and dampening the impact of any future WikiLeaks releases. The point is to marry Assange’s name with the idea of bad smells, so that the public will begin to find themselves increasingly disgusted by him and everything he stands for without quite remembering exactly why they feel such disdain for him.

» Socialite Magazine is an interesting read, for those of us who struggle with social skills. I find that for myself, it’s not the actual skills involved (I can get along with anybody if I have to), rather it’s the realization that I need to deploy those social skills and that I could, in fact, make a new friend at any given point in time. Perhaps that’s the difference between Extraverted Feeling (me, even though it’s weak) and Introverted Feeling (the ISTJ who writes Socialite Mag)

» A little birdie told me that Colourpop’s Boss Brow Gel is a dupe for Glossier’s Boy Brow. Ordering some now, I’ll report back when I have an opinion.

» Hawaiian Libertarian has graced us with a new post. Look past the gloss of “tinhat conspiracy theorist” and look for the big picture—Keoni knows what he’s talking about. Read and learn.

» K-pop has avante garde music, too

» In honor of #storyvember: What is a Story?

» Watch out for the goo-roos slipping blood into your taco (read this if you’re trying to launch a business or sell a product)

» Intro to Visual Culture (warning: lots of academicese)

“Visual Culture” studies recognizes the predominance of visual forms of media, communication, and information in the postmodern world.
Has there been a social and cultural shift to the visual, over against the verbal and textual, in the past 50 years, and has it been accelerating in the past 10 or 20 years?
- Or are our written, textual, and visual systems continuing an ongoing reconfiguration in a new (recognizable) phase?
Study of visual culture merges popular and “low” cultural forms, media and communications, and the study of “high” cultural forms or fine art, design, and architecture.

Taking Stock

2018-10-14 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

In this world of data, it can be easy to forget that productivity looks just as much like moss growing on a tree as it does an automobile assembly line.

I tend to forget this.

Forward motion doesn’t need to be strictly linear to be effective. In fact, I would argue from the place that since many successful people have entirely different personality types, “productivity” can look quite different depending on the person doing it.

What matters is that you do the work.

Today I took myself out to breakfast, spent time reading, did laundry, unpacked my kitchen stuff, and attempted to unclog the sink. That’s not nothing.

Was I super-regimented about it? No. Did the stuff need to get done? Yes.

My thinking-centric self needs to remember that other forms of work are equally valid. Not everything needs to be crunching over a desk or curled around a book.

This is why I want to add drawing and art back to my daily routine. I always feel happier when I do this, and yet it terrifies me because I have so much to learn and practice.

One of the hard parts about being an adult is being fully aware of how much you suck at first instead of the childlike “look what I did!” mentality.

So my friends, don’t do what I just did and talk about doing work.

Go and do.

11 ways to improve your life, according to the post-it notes on my fridge

2018-09-22 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Are you the type of person who writes “notes to self” on random pieces of paper? I am.

My past is littered with random back-of-envelopes, receipts, scraps of paper, pages torn out of magazines, and all sorts of other miscellaneous objects. I’m working on corralling all my random ideas in a bullet journal. Post-it notes are a step up for me—at least they’ll stick to something permanent.

I’m packing today, and pulled a treasure-trove of post-its off my fridge, where they have been for months and which I have not looked at since I put them up. Let’s find out what my past-self’s idea for self improvement was.

Take a week in the mountains to test drive your ideal life

I say I want to live on property with trees and mountains and a creek. But is that what I really want? Better to test it with an Airbnb than to go all-in with a huge loan and a bunch of property that I don’t actually want.

Make your home 200% you—functional and interesting to look at

One thing that I’ve always regretted from every placed I’ve lived is that I left it unfinished. There were always plans for what I could do with the space that I never carried out. Now it is true that these days I have 200% more energy than I used to, so it is time to turn that extra energy toward making a cohesive living space. The defining idea is me and my goals–healing, investigation, creativity, hospitality.

EXHAUST YOURSELF EVERY DAY

I often don’t want to go to sleep at night (case in point, I’m writing this post at a time when I should be in bed). Some nights, I can’t wait to go to sleep—usually those are after days of hard work or hiking, when I’m physically exhausted. My intellectual brain thinks that it would be a good idea to tire myself out more, either through physical work or through creative work. Not sure how sustainable this is, but it’s worth a try.

Working out 3x per week has certainly helped with this.

Practice drawing—do you want to do art, or not?

Some of the boxes I’m packing are full of art supplies. Sewing, embroidery, drawing, painting, printmaking, calligraphy. I like doing art, in theory. But I don’t make it an everyday practice. At some point in the past few months I set an absolutely insane goal of doing a gallery show of my own work in 2019. If I’m going to meet that, I need to get to work.

And if visual art isn’t something I should be doing, I should bid goodbye to my supplies. Buying art supplies is like buying crack, though.

Try eating only chicken, pork, and fish for a week

Though my health has improved considerably since my switch to an all-animal products diet, my body composition is not where I’d like it. I’m not fat, but I’m fatter than I’d like to be. Building muscle has helped, but I’m still dialing in a good meat/fat/fast ratio for my goals. One strategy would be to eat leaner meats for a while. (However, I’m considering putting myself back into ketosis.)

FINISH STRONG.

I’m good at starting things, and less good at finishing them. I have to push myself if I’m going to cross the finish line with dignity.

Weekly Sunday ritual (singing hymns, nature)

When one can’t (or won’t) find a suitable church, one starts to come up with all sorts of excuses and rationalizations for what one could be doing on a Sunday to center oneself on the Lord.

I know that no church is perfect, but its looking like my bar for “good enough” is too high.

Start collecting actual photos of what you want—dream board

A few online guru types have recommended this. Start an actual inspiration board for the life you want. This is one of those ideas that’s so obvious that it hurts, and yet it’s so obvious that I don’t want to do it. Maybe I need to do this before spending a week in an Airbnb in the woods.

What else do you do because it feels like “you have to”

Oftentimes when I socialize with people I get disillusioned. I’m often socializing with people because “it’s good for me” or because “It’s just something that you do,” rather than because I genuinely want to. I try to avoid those types of social interactions.

This is a boundary I want to set up in other areas of my life.

Do ballet again even if you’re fat

Back in the day, I started lifting weights because I wanted to get in shape enough to do an adult ballet class. Lo and behold, I’ve never reached an “in-shape enough” stage to feel comfortable doing ballet again. I took a class a few years ago, but had to quit when I got pneumonia. It’s time to try again.

Spend only the necessary time at day job

I’m a very task-oriented person, who tends not to focus as much on the clock as I do on what there is to do. As such, I can sometimes get distracted at work and forget to leave on time. If I want to succeed at my out-of-work pursuits, I have to spend time on them. That means leaving work on time.

This is a good list. It’s very much influenced by self-improvement Twitter, but it’s my list. I like that. It makes me want to put these into action.

Shifting Priorities

2018-07-29 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Things are afoot. (But you knew that.)

Funny things start happening when you start seeing results. For the first time in my life, I am motivated to go to bed early.

I am actually taking action to make sure that all my tasks are completed before they have to be.

This is almost as big of a deal as when I realized that what I ate actually had an impact on how I feel.

The healing is happening in my body, and I want it to continue.

This isn’t some shallow “want” like “I want those Gucci slides that I’ll do nothing to try to get.” This is the type of WANT that goes straight down to the bone.

The problem is working through all the little schedule adjustments and sacrifices to get there. Less time on Twitter, maybe. Cut out some YouTube. Make way.

Gotta have room in your life in order to grow.

This coincides with a breakthrough in my ability to make money for myself.

I don’t believe in coincidence. This is a great opportunity to turn my whole life upside down.

And for a while I’ll be productive in the style of a wobbly little lamb, but I trust myself to build out a new routine.

One centered around sleep and productivity and healing instead of self-gratification.

Waiting

2018-07-16 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I feel like I owe someone an apology. This blog? The Google algorithm? You, dear reader?

via Bon Appetit

Please view this rad photo of Julia Child (apparently after she dropped a plucked chicken down this staircase!) instead.

I like Julia Child. She accomplished things in her life. She married later in life, even though she was awkwardly tall and overly-intelligent. She infused her life with wit.

Anyway, I’m will be finishing up a project this week and then I hope to devote more time to making Batfort bouncing between three or four side projects great again. As usual I’m, but I’m putting them all on the back burner to grind this one out.

Cheers, and Happy Monday.

Batfort

Style reveals substance