Extending time

Our culture is obsessed with prolonging our time on this planet - with very mediocre results if judged by the stagnating or even declining life expectancy in the West.

One simple and underrated way to actually extend our time of being alive is to pay attention. Pay attention to each passing moment. Pay attention to each little distinction in our experience. Pay attention to the field of awake awareness.

Of course paying attention is not something we just decide to do because someone on the internet tells us to. Like everything else it requires dedication, practice and the creation of the right circumstances.

If you’re still buying cheap sats and those sats are not in self custody, there’s a chance those are not sats at all.

Great Terrence McKenna quote. Great post. Thank you!

What account is providing the best stream of events from Nashville? #bitcoin

Joining clubs that don’t want me as a member

“I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member.”

Groucho Marx’ famous quote rings both funny and true. Most people would like to be accepted to only clubs that are more prestigious and higher status than themselves.

However, I’m personally finding this quote accurate and insightful from a slightly different angle: I am seeking out experiences, clubs and products that are not actively looking for members… not because they are secretive but because they are relentlessly focused on quality rather than marketing.

Let me give you an example. When I lived in San Francisco, I would frequently play Tennis on the Dolores Park courts on weekends. Often after our match, my Tennis partner and I would relax in the park for a little bit. On one particular day, we saw a group of people practicing acrobatics on the grass, one of whom stood out with some incredible manoeuvres. We walked up to them and found out that he was teaching the rest of the group in a discipline he referred to as movement practice.

What was remarkable to me about the encounter was that my friend and I clearly showed interest in joining his class but rather than being keen on getting us onboarded, he was barely forthcoming with any additional information. He clearly was not interested in selling his product and neither was the very basic and bland website he had set up. Instead he was clearly focused on his craft first and foremost.

And yet he clearly had an avid following. This combination was what convinced me to try out his class and it ended up being one of the most enriching experiences of my time in San Francisco.

Over and over in my life, I have found these rare clubs and products, the ones that don’t advertise but just focus on quality, among the most worthwhile. And so I will keep pursuing clubs that don’t want me as a member.

What's the contrarian belief you're most confident about?

Besides the ones that are pretty obvious in this community?

Proof of run! Back under 5 min/km

The lost art of pandiculation:

If it is meant to be sustainable, physical movement and exercise ought to be intuitive.

The average training consists to a great extent of “mind over matter. This only gets us so far as it usually results in build-up of muscular tension, poor posture and eventual breakdown.

What does intuitive movement mean? I would define it as movement that 1) is associated with a corresponding feeling sensation and not performed unconsciously and 2) expresses an intentionality of our being.

There are many approaches and modalities to re-embrace more intuitive movement including for example the Feldenkrais method, Qi Gong and Tai Chi or movement practice.

One simple and underrated way to regain a more intuitive physicality is pandiculation. Pandiculation is simply the process of stretching and yawning after waking up. It’s a lost art. And it is critical for sending biofeedback to our nervous system, thereby recalibrating the level of muscular contraction and avoiding build up of tension.

If you want to try it, don’t start by taking a “mind over matter” approach of checking pandiculation of your to-do list. Instead, just take the time in the morning for a few minutes to feel into what your body actually needs and what movements feel natural. Instead of creating another habit, try getting out of your own way for a moment.

Wassily Kandinsky’s “Composition VII” (1913)

Wimbledon — order & passion

Today marks the beginning of Wimbledon. It has to be, without a doubt, the greatest sport event to attend in the world. The football World Cup, the Olympics and even other Tennis Grand Slams simply pale in comparison to the level of satisfaction and excitement experienced by visitors of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

Why is this? To credit it merely to the lush grass of SW19, the Strawberries and Cream or the Royal Box would be missing the point.

The best way to summarize the magic of Wimbledon is order & passion.

Wimbledon is perfectly ordered. Its order of play and patent-worthy system for queueing are among the most British documents you’ll ever read. The flawless choreography of the ball boys and girls, the pin-drop silence as players are preparing to serve, the white ballet on the court as a rally is underway — these all contribute to coherence and harmony.

Unlike many other great traditions, however, Wimbledon is not ossified and rigid. Its order is not procured at the cost of passion and enthusiasm. It serves them.

There is a learning for all of us here. When we organize our days and hone our habits, it is ok to want order. But it should never be an end of its own. Instead it should serve the purpose of creating space for and revealing our passion.

George Bellows’ “Tennis at Newport” (1919)

Does having a “stealth” startup mean that you have no idea what you’re doing? If yes, then I think I may have some use for this term in the near future

It's good to be back on #nostr after a little leave of absence!

My favourite quote of the day comes from my seat neighbor at a Maryleborne Café this afternoon:

“The only thing that graduating from Central Saint Martins [a prestigious London arts and design school] has given me is ADHD”

This is an equally funny and insightful statement. Too often do we treat mental disorders as something intrinsic, rather than something inflicted on us by our circumstance.

It’s an important distinction. If ADHD is something intrinsic, then we need to treat the symptoms. And we do. For many children and from a young age. With amphetamines.

If instead we recognize it for what it is: a condition delivered to us by a very unnatural environment, then we create a possibility and a responsibility: A possibility to actually address the root causes of ADHD and many other conditions instead of creating more problems by drugging our children. And a responsibility for all of us to change the environment we live, study and work in.

Marc Chagall’s “I and the Village” (1911)

it’s time 🚀

the comparison to bitcoin keys is flawed. Even if you lose your bitcoin keys, you usually have a backup and can transfer it to another amount.

The same is not true for your nostr identity. Once it’s compromised you can never transfer it elsewhere.

#bitcoin price development of the last few weeks feels distinctly like market makers fucking around. I suspect they will soon find out.

Psychedelic movies

Movies are amazing. They can change how we see the world over the course of 2 hours.

To do so, it has to be a movie that takes us out of our comfort zone. If your comfort zone is a circle with radius r=0, this is not difficult to achieve.

However, if the movie is in a whole different orbit than your heliocentric comfort zone it may miss the mark.

So the art is in picking a movie that is far enough out there to influence you in a meaningful way, but not too far to be obtuse.

Below is my selection of great movies on scale of 1 (mainstream psychological) to 5 (psychedelic):

Mainstream Psychological:

The Matrix (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski)

Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

Fight Club (David Fincher)

Psychological Mystery:

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)

Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)

Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Iconoclastic:

Contempt (Jean Luc Godard)

Mother! (Darren Aronofsky)

The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci)

Existentialist:

Pierrot le Fou (Jean Luc Godard)

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)

Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper)

Psychedelic:

Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)

The Tree of Life (Terrence Mallick)

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)

Technique is everything:

This may not be news to most but when it comes to exercise, technique is everything.

I used to not pay too much attention to this. My approach was to perform an exercise by meeting its general criteria and increasing the number of repetitions over time.

Squat? Lower my upper body while keeping my heels on the floor, done.

Downward facing dog? Hands on the floor, feet on the floor, lift the hips and try to approach the floor with the heels, done.

Rowing? Just pull the oar towards you and push it away by using both legs and arms, done.

Over time I realized there is much more to every exercise I’m engaging in. In fact there is a whole internal landscape to be explored. Small feelings and sensations that deserve attention and that can make all the difference when it comes to performing an exercise efficiently and safely.

An exercise not done with the correct technique is an exercise not worth doing. In fact, it may be counterproductive in the long run as bad habits eventually accumulate and cause injuries.

Helmut Newton’s “Lisa Taylor and Jerry Hall” (1975)

Sick has become the new normal:

I’ve been listening to this excellent podcast conversation about Ozempic between athlete and podcaster Rich Roll and author Johann Hari.

The conversation perfectly summarizes two diametrically opposite views of our current healthcare system:

On the one hand have you have Hari, who has been studying (and ingesting) the Diabetes-drug-turned-weight-loss-drug-turned-panacea and is a proponent, though, to be fair he also cautions about some of the side-effects and general enthusiasm.

Roll, on the other hand, is a former alcoholic and fast-food enthusiast who has turned his life around to become an ultra-marathon runner and is a proponent of a holistic and preventative approach to health.

The most telling moment in the conversation occurs when Hari talks about the benefits of Ozempic, goes on to call a healthy lifestyle “the alternative” and Roll calls him out on it.

Our assumption has become that it is no longer possible to be mostly healthy and that we all, from a young age, must rely on medication to live a tolerable life. Living a healthy lifestyle has become a secondary, far distant alternative, not really accessible to most of us.

In some sad, matter-of-fact way this is true because many of our fellow citizens are now effectively socio-economically locked out of a healthy lifestyle.

But when we talk about aspirations for our health and that of future generations, we have to aim much higher than a dystopian world in which we are all hooked on medications for life.

Jacques-Louis David’s “The Death of Marat” (1793)

nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m Just downloaded Tidal for iPhone (13 mini). The app is not starting.

I honestly think "Sapiens" is a brilliant book. I'm surprised he so badly misunderstands Bitcoin