Project 35

1:00PM Let’s say I’m a public figure who wants to hide something. It can be something that I’ve done that it’s illegal, something immoral, or something about which I personally …

1:00PM

Let’s say I’m a public figure who wants to hide something. It can be something that I’ve done that it’s illegal, something immoral, or something about which I personally feel ashamed—it could even be something about which I feel protective and worried it might get ruined by too many people knowing about it. Regardless, there are many things I may want to keep secret.

Assuming I’m a public figure, that means I will know a lot of people, and more so, a lot of people will know me and know me quite well. They also will probably want to know me even better than they do. Therefore, they will probably try to learn as much as they can about it. If I’m a public figure that is making decisions that impact their lives, even more so.

So how do I stop them from finding out this secret?

First, I can try to hide it. I think this is the strategy of most of us: put it in a place where people won’t find it. While this may work for an Easter egg hunt with a few kids, when we talk about thousands or millions of people looking for something with lots of time, money, and energy, this strategy may prove futile.

Second, we could lie about it. We could say that it’s Y when it’s really X. We can say something is bigger/smaller than it is, longer/shorter, a different color, a different time, with different people, etc. We can add new details, change existing details, or remove details. These are all lies about the thing itself. Again, if people have enough time, money, and energy, they could probably sift through that and find the secret, although it probably will take more time than if we just hid it.

Third, we could lie about other people’s secrets. We could use all of the tactics from the previous paragraph, except doing this for many other people. We can lie about a secret of Alice, a secret of Bob, one of Charlie. If the people want to investigate the veracity of those secrets, they start to use their time, money, and energy on uncovering those secrets and not mine. By the time they realize that those were lies about the other people, I can create more lies about other people, sending them in a long, expensive spiral to find the truth. Even when they do discover that, I can still bury myself in lies, so that they have to spend more time, money, and energy uncovering my truths.

I believe that fake news and disinformation is a tactic to hide our secrets. We lie about other people to protect things that we don’t want the world to know. If we are rich and famous, then we may do this to a larger extent, employing people to do this on our behalf.

I believe what scares us the most is showing our humanity to others. I believe we need to start having the courage to do so.

1:10PM

9:00AM I woke up this morning and tried a new tactic to relax my body—I tried to reach my arms down as far as I could by my side. I …

9:00AM

I woke up this morning and tried a new tactic to relax my body—I tried to reach my arms down as far as I could by my side. I have noticed I carry a lot of tension in the back of my neck (maybe actually in the muscles at the front of my neck) and also in my neck/shoulder muscles. I tried this technique and I felt my neck relax, shoulders relax, bones start to realign, and even more air flowing into my lower abdomen.

I think about why I may be having this tightness in that area and if I think hard enough about it, I realize that it could be my phone. I used the phone for about 6.5 hours yesterday. That is 6.5 hours of holding the phone up in front of my face with one or both hands, involving the flexing of those exact muscles. It involved most likely reading things in my head, which I believe is an exercise for the eyes in focusing, the larynx in speaking, and basically the rest of my body turning off the senses that may distract it. I was also faced with a lot of uncertainty, not knowing what I would read and at which time, which could have caused even more tension in the body. Oh, also, I tend to do things at an accelerating pace on the phone, especially as I feel different emotions—as I get more angry or excited, I tend to read faster and type faster, my eyes and fingers flying, respectively.

I don’t know how often we pause to see how our habits our impacting our body, especially our habits related to technology. As I type this here, my shoulders are again up, my neck is slightly down, and my forearms are pressed against the edge of the desk. I’m slightly hunched over, closing off my diaphragm slightly and leaning back a little in the chair, somehow. I’m not sure about others, but I know that when I’m on these devices I can get into a zone and forget about my body and the discomforts. Well, maybe I don’t forget about them I just overlook them—if I want to be “productive” on these machines, maybe I downplay the side effects.

Maybe it’s deeper—an overall overlooking of my emotional and physical health. Maybe it’s not recognizing the importance of taking care of it. The large impact that these two things have over what I do in life, especially the emotional health. If my tense shoulders cause me frustration, how that frustration bleeds into the conversation I have with the stranger at the supermarket or the essay I write that day. If my diaphragm is blocked, how that prevents me from breathing well, which may make me feel short on breath, which may make me feel thirsty and tired, but then may make me think that I’m hungry so I eat more and gain weight.

While I believe that these devices can help us so much, I think they can hurt us as well, and want to be more mindful to take care of myself.

9:10AM

5:00PM As I walked near my old middle school, I noticed that the fence around tennis courts had been torn down and orange barrels were blocking off the space. I …

5:00PM

As I walked near my old middle school, I noticed that the fence around tennis courts had been torn down and orange barrels were blocking off the space. I saw some of the concrete busted up and I thought back to when I used to play tennis there and the raucous games of street hockey we’d have. It got me thinking about whether they were going to build something new there or were just doing work to maintain the quality of the courts—this got me thinking about the issue of build vs. maintain.

Build vs. maintain. Over the last few years, I’d say that I’ve strongly preferred the former: build. I’ve built new websites, new logos, new brands, new romantic relationships, new friendships, new business partnerships, new podcasts, and many new things. On the walk I thought about how it has been getting out of hand. For example, when I built iFeelio, I really loved using it. Then I built a website for it and built a personal website. Then I created Emotional Self-Defense and built a website for that. And then a podcast for that. And so on and so forth. Over time, iFeelio started to fall apart—the phone operating systems evolved and the code no longer worked. Because I hadn’t programmed in a while, my skills at programming had also atrophied, no longer keeping up with the new languages that people were building.

I believe life is actually more about maintenance than building. That when we come into this world, we’re given a body and a life that works, and over time, we have to maintain it. By that, I mean strengthen it, protect it, and repair it. I think most of civilized life is about maintaining as well. If I build a house, if I’m lucky, it will stand for a while, but things will start to break inside or animals will start to find holes and invade or weather (wind, snow, rain, sunshine) could degrade the outer materials.

I feel a bit relieved to think that life is about maintenance. It’s not about finding the right person, it’s about maintaining the relationship. It’s not about building the best solution, it’s more about maintaining it.

I walked through the neighborhood and saw many lawns looking more unkept that I’ve ever seen them. I wonder how keeping a lawn mowed is really a practice for maintenance. I wonder how quickly society would fall apart if there were no maintenance. If the roads weren’t fixed, the internet protected, the water pipes strengthened. If things were left to just fight against the elements. I imagine it would be a different world, one more natural, but with less of the stuff we take for granted and truly appreciate.

Maybe if we stay in quarantine long enough, we’ll see just how important maintenance is. Who knows?

5:10PM

1:00PM I was just reading an article talking about Hitler, Stalin, and other leaders who tried to shape society, especially in the direction of a utopia. While the article didn’t …

1:00PM

I was just reading an article talking about Hitler, Stalin, and other leaders who tried to shape society, especially in the direction of a utopia. While the article didn’t mention it, I was reminded of one principle I read somewhere: evil is trying to get rid of evil.

I found it to be a peculiar statement—that the essence of being evil is about getting rid of evil. I don’t know how fully I agree with it and yet it’s something I want to explore here.

I believe that what we call “evil” is something that makes a vast majority of humans feel bad, in the most simplistic definition. Now, perhaps it’s not about the vast majority of humans, maybe it’s just about the humans to whom one feels very connected. For me, evil has this relative quality to it. Would it therefore be evil to do something to someone to whom you don’t feel connected? Maybe we don’t need to feel very connected to that person, as a parent to a child, but maybe it will feel evil if we recognize the emotional and human capability of the receiver.

So then, how would it be evil to get rid of evil? I can’t recall how the original author put it, so I will continue to hypothesize and play. Perhaps it would be evil to get rid of evil because again, evil is relative. So I may think that someone crashing a plane into the World Trade Center is evil, while the person who is doing it may think that the Western culture is evil and thinks that crashing the plane is a way to get rid of the Western evil. Who is right about what is evil?

I think this is where I get excited to talk about how I see the world in terms of relative subjectivity. By this, I mean that most of the things we describe with adjectives are not objectively one way, but subjectively so. For example, I may step outside and say that it’s cold, whereas someone else may say that it’s warm. It’s the same temperature and yet we say two different things. I believe it’s because I feel cold and the other person probably feels warm. I think this applies to so many other contexts—e.g., that person “is attractive” seems to be “I feel attracted to that person.” However, saying it from the subjective experience can reveal a lot about our own personal beliefs and state of being, which may scare us if we don’t trust the other person with that information.

Back to the point about evil getting rid of evil. I think it probably stems from our different definitions of what is “evil” and our not recognizing that our actions may be considered evil by the other person. In training through scenarios of rejection, I have seen that very often when we feel rejected, the other person has no idea they did that. In other words, the receiver perceives it as rejection and the giver doesn’t.

1:10PM

9:00AM In just a few moments, I will head to the local supermarket to pick up our order. We reserved a time slot approximately one week ago and placed an …

9:00AM

In just a few moments, I will head to the local supermarket to pick up our order. We reserved a time slot approximately one week ago and placed an order for all the groceries we would need. In one way, I feel amazed that technology has progressed so far in my life that this is possible just by the internet on my phone. In another way, I feel really surprised that my family has shifted to this mode, but when the environment really changes, I guess so do we.

I read about the many states that are starting to open up more and I don’t know how I feel. I want to feel grateful and yet a big part of me feels really suspicious and worried. I understand that we can’t hunker down for one year to fight off this virus, at some point we’ll have to come out of our caves. I hope that we’ll get more informed about who is most at-risk and prevent these people from coming into contact with others who are actively carrying the virus, leaving it just to the people who were previously exposed (assuming they now have temporary immunity, which we don’t know yet). I hope that contact tracing will actually work. I hope that a drug treatment or other type of treatment will arrive that will reduce the severity of the virus, preventing people from dying and having known long-term side effects—we still don’t know if there are any long-term effects for people who are asyptomatic.

I think I worry the most about who we’ve deemed the “frontline workers.” The people in the supermarkets, hospitals, police, fire, food banks, and other places that have to interact with the public, and sometimes the knowingly sick public. I worry that, as we open up, there will be more cases, and we may again flood hospitals with patients who are likely to suffocate to death in front of our nurses and doctors. I worry deeply about the well-being of these people who have to see death over and over again, and what seems like a gruesome death—starving for oxygen while no loved one can be by their side.

Again, I understand there are downsides to every decision. I understand that we can’t all just sit at home forever—the fact that I have been able to do so rather comfortably shows just how fortunate my current situation is. I just want to keep my heart open to those who may have to feel the brunt of these policies. I can’t imagine seeing what looks like a war zone happen, while surrounded by what looks like peace. This hidden, invisible war happening, while the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, and everything looks normal and vibrant.

So I’m grateful that the supermarket does pickup. I don’t have to leave my car, they bring it to me, and as a result, I’m not exposing them to my potential sickness and they hopefully feel more safe in their jobs. Feeling very grateful.

9:10AM