On the first night of SlutCon, brimming with energy, I wrote up some vignettes from the first day. As is so often the case with events like these, the rest of the weekend was a lovely blur. I’ve taken some time to process and reflect, and I want to share some of what I experienced and learned. More Vignettes Saturday I wrestle with a friend of mine as onlookers play music on a Bluetooth speaker: first Duel of the Fates, then Careless Whisper. It’s a hard-fought match, and we both get sweaty and scraped up. At one point, I have him in a headlock, but inexperienced as I am, I worry about hurting him and let up. After the bout, he calls me out on this, saying that he likely would have tapped out and given me the win if I had followed through. I reflect on the parallel to flirting; it’s hard to go for what I want if I’m not sure I can trust my partner to enforce their own boundaries. ...

Some stories from my first day of SlutCon. All names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the people involved, except for Nick, who is one of the organizers of the event. I go to a talk on men’s fashion. The presenter points to me as a positive example, someone she would see and be intrigued by. This makes sense; I’ve been getting a lot of compliments on my cloak and matching dyed face hair. ...

Take a moment to think of something beautiful to you. Not something morally correct or widely appreciated, but something you delight in. For me, this could be a friend’s smile at a party, or a steaming bowl of delicious stew, but I can’t say what brings you joy. Got it? Good. Make the world have more of that. You are good, your tastes and values are good, and the world should be shaped in your image. You are good, because you are the source of your values. Recognizing yourself as good is the basis for making the world better. Notice how you want the world to be, and fix things that are out of place. You don’t have to fix everything; indeed, you aren’t obligated to fix anything. It’s just that the more you improve the world, the better the world will be. And I reiterate, “better” means more in line with your own vision of a good world, not what anyone else says you ought to work towards. ...

Bleh, I really don’t feel like writing, but I didn’t write yesterday, and the commitment for Halfhaven is a post every other day. This one’s gonna be 500 words of low-effort stream of consciousness, just to clear that bar. I’m not obligated to write, of course. I don’t really believe in the concept of obligation. I hope to do a high-effort post on this at some point. For now, I recommend Nate Soares’s writing on the matter, which heavily influenced my own view. No, I don’t have to write, so why am I doing so even though I don’t feel like it? Well, I want to follow through on Halfhaven. I’m looking forward to the feeling of pride about my 30 blog posts at the end of two months. I’m against self-coercion, but sometimes hard or unpleasant things are good to do. The trick is to remind oneself of why one is doing it. For a while, I just didn’t do hard things, and it turned out that only doing easy things wasn’t a recipe for happy thriving. Ever closer to my dao! ...

Index of posts for Halfhaven Treading Water, Oct 1 Introducing Halfhaven, Oct 3 Some Nonsense For My Third Halfhaven Post, Oct 5 You Are Good, Oct 8 SlutCon Vignettes: Day 1, Oct 11 More About Slutcon, Oct 16 Good Grief, Oct 20 Letter To My Past, Oct 23 Free Writing, Oct 24 CFAR Workshop: Day One, Nov 6 Too Busy, Nov 7 Veil of Ignorance, Nov 13 My Thoughts On Nangs, Nov 16 Why Is Writing Aversive?, Nov 22 Boredom, Nov 28 ...

I signed up for a membership at my local YMCA a couple days ago, inspired by this post. The YMCA is full-featured, and remarkably cheap remarkably cheap by Bay Area standards, as far as I can tell. My plan is to start a strength training habit of some sort, but I haven’t done so yet. Instead, today I took advantage of the pool. I was low on energy today, due most likely to some mix of poor sleep habits and the drain of ongoing emotional processing. Whatever the cause, with the clock approaching 7 p.m., I found myself lying in bed, ruminating on some issues in my life and staring at the overdue “Exercise” on my to-do list. Luckily, when the inspiration struck that I could solve both problems in one fell swoop, I still had enough motivation to get up and give it a shot. I grabbed my bathing suit and a towel, and walked down to the gym. ...

The world has a shortage of people doing things. I think one reason for this is that people are afraid the things they do won’t be “good enough”. Something is better than nothing; don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Lower the bar for ideas As I’ve previously discussed on the blog, it’s possible to write more by writing worse. I’m publishing this rough collection of tidbits and references, rather than publish nothing because I haven’t written “enough”. ...

I’ve been struggling to figure out how to make money lately. I used to be a software engineer, you see, but that line of work isn’t holding my interest these days the way it used to. In my younger years, people joked about me being a robot. I’d always been somewhat fixated on logical rigor, and while that cognitive habit sometimes held me back in matters of friendship, it made programming easy and fun. ...

I thought I hated mushrooms, but yours are making me reconsider. – My brother Mushrooms are one of my favorite ingredients to cook with, bringing rich umami flavor and a delightfully meaty texture to dishes. Because they can be so delicious, it makes me sad that so few people seem to get them right. I’ve seen even nice restaurants serve pale, watery mushrooms, which is a travesty, especially when the fix is so simple. ...

I want to share some communication advice my dad gave me recently. I had been telling him about some uncertainties I had around a work situation and a dating situation, and the advice was relevant to both. Really, it’s a general technique to help resolve any interpersonal uncertainty. The communication technique consists of a few components: Ask questions. Share information. Use simple sentences. Ask Questions In an uncertain situation, you’re missing information about the other person’s internal state. You want to know what they’re thinking and feeling. Instead of wondering and guessing, you can just ask! The other person has more insight than you into their experience, and will often be happy to tell you about it. ...