Hello, fellow humanoid.
I don’t have a meaningful story this go around for you. Although, I am trying to think of more stories to regale you with in future iterations of this newsletter. Many that I think of are not necessarily family friendly. I suppose that’s ok. My parents don’t read this, thank God.
Anywho, below are some musings and observations from the past two weeks of sobriety and content logging. As always, I’m always all ears on thoughts, feelings, feedback, and love. Excelsior!
With my recent foray into logging the content (a word I hate) that I consume, I’ve noticed some things.
First, I listen to a lot of music. That I knew to be true. Still, it’s cool to see how much music I actually do listen to. That music tends to skew classic / indie rock and male-created. I am trying to assuage that last bit. I do know many a great woman artist and want to prioritize listening to them more. Some that come to mind are Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, Courtney Barnett, and Rosali. If you have any other recommendations on women in the music biz that you think I’d like, hit me up yo.
Second, I have not been reading nearly enough as I’d like to these days. I’ve found, over the past couple of weeks that when I sit down to read an article or book my attention span is shot to hell. I’m on my phone way too much and that fact has taken its toll over the course of the years. I cannot sit still and read an article on my laptop or sit with a book silently. If I have my laptop out, which I invariably do, I’m always looking for the nearest red notification badge or new tab. I always want to be doing something and that something tends to skew towards checking Instagram or the infinity text threads I’m on. What can I say, I’m popular.
It’s a wild realization, to know how our technology has taken its hold. I don’t like it. In fact I detest it. I’m sure you could have guessed that. When I think about someone like Steve Jobs and his impact, was it for the best? Who’s to say? Whether or not Jobs existed is moot anyway. Someone would have come along and made the iPhone one way or another. Still, I wish it was created more…mindfully (despite how overused that word is today).
I will caveat the below with the simple fact that the past two weeks I’ve been on the edge of hypomanic (I’m diagnosed bipolar type II for the uninitiated). That has certainly played a role in my outlook on this experiment thus far.
Observations on two weeks into Sobriety Month:
I suppose the first observation I’ve had is, damn, I should keep this going longer if I can. It makes you feel good, to put two feet on the floor in the morning and not feel hungover or weed-induced-groggy. The latter is a game changer for me, considering how much I was smoking. I don’t need half the day to get right mentally anymore.
Second, I’ve been more conscious of my feelings moment to moment and have noticed when I’m tempted to drink or smoke. Temptation is the result of boredom, which is the result of unaccounted for free time, which is the result of simply not planning out one’s day. Now, I’m not saying you need to plan your whole day like a neurotic person. However, I am noticing that when I have preconceived thoughts about what I want to get done with a given period of time, I am much less likely to think about bourbon or reefer.
Third, I’ve found that alcohol is actually quite easy for me to quit. I haven’t missed it all that much. The only time I was truly tempted was when I was at a bar with some friends socializing. That tracks to me, being in the belly of the beast itself. Still, I’ve been happy with how, in a way, easy it’s been so far booze-wise.
Fourth, I’ve found I’ve been more aware of when and how much I’m eating. I’ve been eating less and only when hungry instead out of boredom / drunkenness / stonedness.
Fifth, and lastly, I’ve been sleeping like goddamn shit. That may be the hypomania talking but I can’t help but think it’s a bit of detoxing from the weed.
There has been quite a bit of handwringing about ChatGPT and its ilk the past few weeks. I wanted to share two articles that go into it with a more human / optimistic outlook than I may have. I do agree with these two articles in that the reason we create art and consume it is to reckon with our existence as human beings. If a machine could write A Little Life, it’d be stunning. But it wouldn’t be human.
“What Chatbots Can’t Do” by Becca Rothfeld - The Point - February 24, 2023
“We don’t write books (or paint paintings, sculpt sculptures and so on) just because we want to end up with them in hand, but because we want to spend our time wrangling with the phrases and wrestling with the imagery.”
“Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT” by Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts, and Jeffrey Watumull - The New York Times - March 8th, 2023
“The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.”
Long live homo sapiens.
Remember this song? Damn, I listened to this song so much after a breakup in college. Good times!
That’s the word, bird.
Best,
Rob
P.S. I’m giving blood today. You should too.