...sort-of "quiet time" where we either read or play with the baby or talk or do almost nothing at all, but just sit there for a few hours. We don't *try* to be productive. A few days lately we've been making clay things in the morning at this time. Then we eat breakfast.
9-5pm: work work. While the weather is good I might also work outside for a bit at lunch
5pm onwards: different things every day. We often spend a long time cooking, up to 1-2 hours daily, but with baby we've had to scale that back a bit.
later at night: work on other projects, do some reading or writing. After baby is asleep = the quietest time so I might stay up late if I'm really doing something, otherwise I get in bed between 9-10pm. Usually I can't sleep that early so reading is better, sometimes.
Before baby, I used to get up earlier and go to bed later, paradoxically. In the summer one wants to get up early because the sun comes up. In the winter, because you need to light the fire.
Getting up long before you have to is very underrated.
On weekends, lots of projects lately. We try to get 1 or 2 "serious" things done on a weekend.
If it seems like I have a lot of time it may be more likely what I'm not doing: I don't watch TV or play hours of games. We watch a movie sometimes.
I try (sometimes feebly) to not use twitter while the sun is up on weekends, either.
There are probably lots of other things I/we don't do that other people do, but how can I know what they are? How people spend their time is a mystery to me, really.
We often try to take one "trip" on a weekend, to the coast or a city (ha, not lately) or a faraway friend or something, but nothing really extravagant.
So how do I think about pace of life things? I don't really know. I think we live a fairly slow, tame life, but people sometimes comment saying they wish they had our lives or that we're somehow adventurous which has somewhat puzzled me.
if you want to live like me simply simultaneously relax and also have more projects than you could ever possibly complete.
I have no idea what I'm doing in half my projects and still do them, how hard can it be?
I am realizing that I really truly have no idea how other people spend their time or their money.
When I think about what I do know of other people and how they order their lives it all seems crazy to me. I feel like an alien because none of their choices make sense.
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Everything is minimal. Everything is spare. Even landscaping. Everything built is "midcentury" and "modern". There is no fat left to trim.
Whatever begins a new aesthetic movement will not make economic sense, because it will involve us valuing things beyond the economic, again.
I find it weird that the well-intentioned war on stuff, instead of casting out bad stuff, turned to things like the tiny house movement. Minimalism: your-life-this-time edition.
I want busier, greener, more vital things. There's no vitality in all this new art. It lacks scent and taste.
I truly have no idea how other people spend their time and money, sometimes it seems baffling to me when I get glimpses, so it's hard to know just how differently I (we) live. I do not think I'm particularly prolific.
The answer is we just try stuff. If it doesn't work you can always try something else.
Simi wanted to learn to dye, so she reads about it, puts down the guide and tries it. (you guys have been saving your acorns and onion skins to boil, right?)
There's no substitute for doing.
We got some chickens and I built a coop after learning the basics of building from videos and just fooling around with materials. I had no idea what I was doing. This doesn't always go well, 8 of our chickens died in a coyote attack due to poor pen design
Consuming news online is spiritually unwholesome. If you absolutely must read the news you should go down the street and pay with coins for a paper. Then keep walking and read it in a cafe. When a friend comes in you'll remember how little the news matters and put it down.
even better just buy one newspaper, ever, and read it over and over for a few years every time you feel compelled for news. This may cure you.
the guy wandering alleys downtown picking up used cigarettes to find the good ones left has keener powers of observation than a person who is compelled to be 'informed' by the news
There's a similar problem with newspapers. People read them thinking they will go from being uninformed to informed, instead of simply becoming misinformed.
Most newspapers do not trade in information, but in specific worldview confirmations. A couple examples follow.
What do you think about the general views of economists on school vouchers? The narration wants you to think that economist are, on-net, against vouchers, so they couch it as "only a third agree" But...
It turns out 36% agree, 37% uncertain, and 18% disagree. The honest framing is not at all "only a third agree", its really that *twice as many economists agree with vouchers than disagree, plus a wide amount of uncertainty.*
I wonder how much crazy guerilla marketing goes completely unnoticed. Imagine e.g. trying to drive the adoption of something like Cash App: you have ppl reply to *every single* FB marketplace and craigslist ad with "I want this, do you use Cash App?" and then never message again.
Would it increase adoption? Some percent of them would download the app! Would anyone be able to tell you were doing it? Potentially never, unless people talk.
So my question is how many campaigns do crazy footwork like this, where we might never know unless people talked?
Reddit (famously) faked users early on, which is probably common and the only adjacent real life example I can think of.