LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 2 No. 1
Nick's LIFESTYLE Newsletter
Japanese office culture?
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone (new and old subscribers to the LIFESTYLE Newsletter). It's been a lot of weeks. A lot of sad, happy, introspective and ever changing weeks.
- Holy crap there are a lot of new board games out now and coming out. HOW DOES THIS INDUSTRY NOT COLLAPSE? (I suspect white, 40-ish, affluent, Christian men are the answer)
- Related: MY WIFE IS ON BGG! How amazing is that? Click here <--- I can definitively say that the graphic design is the best element of any Chip Theory game.
- I did an extensive redesign of the LIFESTYLE newsletter. I changed the font to match my input method (see item below). BOOM.
- It's been a pretty good year in new music so far. It's going to be hard to top my #1 song and #1 album right now.
THIS IS THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION.
4 THINGS THIS WEEK (A NEW RECORD!):
ITEM THE FIRST:
SADNESS (REPRIEVE). When we closed out Vol. 1 of LIFESTYLE things were really fucking terrible. Like really. They still are, just to less of a degree. I'm sure I am not alone in this struggle. For a while, I was at the bottom. GOOD NEWS - I am not still there. I am treading water at least. Somedays, I even float. It took a lot of time and a lot of care from the people in my life to help me. SOME OF IT WAS NON-CONSENSUAL because you didn't even know you were helping. THANK YOU. Thank you for all the check ups, thank you for the kind emails and thank you for helping a friend in need and not asking too many questions (WITH SOME EXCEPTIONS...).
I lost control of my aspie ways a few times and I think that scared Melonie. Thankfully she is patient and understanding AND WONDERFUL. What once was a funny quirky party trick became a very real reality to us. Things that we were able to laugh off in the past actually needed to be addressed. WE ARE STILL WORKING ON THIS. Everyone says that communication is key in a relationship and I think we took that for granted because we thought we were so fucking good at it. In retrospect, WE WERE NOT.
Most days I just want to sit around and be sad, but I'm pushing myself to not be. Dealing with the reality that things may never feel the way they once did is an ever present danger that sits on one side of a teeter-totter in a park. On the other side is the danger of nostalgia and over idealization of how things used to be, which grows stronger every day. I want to run and hide in the sadness tunnel, but I have to go to work to have health insurance instead. WHAT A SHITTY PARK. Hanging out with people is still a bit of a struggle. It is unbelievably hard to look at people you love and not be able to share things that are destroying you or feel the love that you intellectually have for them, but emotionally feel nothing. BUT WE ALL STRUGGLE and that is ok.
I'm still trying to pick up the pieces and part of that is learning to be me again. I really lost myself since I lost my pillars of stability (which continued again in April when my sweet boy, Johnny, passed away). Some piece like my confidence and trust are taking a long time to return. To help define me, I created a set of personal values that I can use as a rubric to analyze actions and activities. I will share them in a future update.
I guess this is an opportunity to better myself? I'D RATHER JUST TRAVEL IN TIME BACK TO LAST SEPTEMBER.
Anyways, again, I have to be vague, but know that if you are getting this it is because I value you and you ARE AMAZING.
ITEM THE SECOND:
CLICK CLICK CLICK. I've been on the look out for a new hobby, something where I can use my hands. I love board games, I love playing bass (but couldn't for months because of item the first) and I love learning Japanese (except when I feel like King of the Dum Dums because I can't remember the on-reading for "plant" (植) for the 8th time today). Over the past few months I have become increasingly frustrated with the overpriced fancy keyboard wirelessly paired with my fancy overpriced Apple computer. I was browsing the web and got sucked into the rabbit hole of mechanical keyboards. AS I DO, I read and studied everything I could. Did you know it takes about 80g of force to activate a buckling spring keypress on an IBM Model M? Did you know there is a significant different in not just the force, but the pressure curve in the different Cherry MX switches? No? GOOD. WHY DO I KNOW THIS?
Anyways, my extreme pushback to the nice, flat Apple keyboard resulted in me now having 3 IBM Model M keyboards. You may remember these, they were pretty standard until the early-mid 90's AND ARE LOUD. And by loud, I mean beautiful. I was hoping it wasn't a nostalgia thing for me, which I actively try to avoid. It is not. This thing is so satisfying to type on. Having some resistance under the fingers is nice and the tactile feedback is pleasing to my fingers AND MY EARS. Now, I would not recommend this for gaming (mainly because it only supports 2 NKRO (LIKE YOU EVEN CARE WHAT THAT IS)). Also, it can be a bit tiring on the wrists.
The hobby part is taking them apart, giving them an AMAZING clean, modifying some of the electronics and replacing some of the older, prone to failure parts with metal parts. It is a long and tedious process, but it's been a pretty fun journey so far and I'm hoping to have my first one fully done soon so I can work on the one I am typing this LIFESTYLE newsletter on. CLICK CLICK CLICK.
If you happen to see any Model M keyboards out and about let me know!
ITEM THE THIRD:
THE ACCOUNTING OF FRIENDSHIP. As part of the terrible times of the last 9 months, I have been taking stock of myself as a person and paying acute attention to people around me. One of my epiphanies is that in my desire for egalitarianism, I was causing a lot of issues with myself and my perception of friendships. I was treating inputs and outputs like a ledger and trying to balance things. When things did not reconcile it would cause stress.
There are people in this world that I consider friends that I will NEVER be useful for. When you are surrounded by such amazing people, it is sometimes sad to know that while you call them for help with things they think are menial and simple, that you will not get a call for them. AND THAT IS OK BECAUSE FRIENDSHIP IS OFF THE BOOKS. They know my skill set and maybe someday they will want financial advice or want to know everything about mechanical keyboards, retro video games, home servers or Japanese pro wrestling (probably not, though).
I've seen people be sad or upset that so and so didn't call back or didn't do this or didn't say thanks for the thing they did. I WAS ONE OF THEM. People are all going through their own shit and sometimes we unintentionally forget about a person or just don't have time to give them the emotional commitment you want to give them. It is (probably) not completely about you.
Buddhists have a concept, dukkha, that I have always found beautiful. It is generally translated as "suffering" but, much like concepts in other languages, is more complex. It is also a distress or unease about expectations. There are 3 categories of it, but Sankhara-dukkha is the most relevant here. It is the intentional formation of thoughts, which we then use as judgments against ourselves and others. Sankhara-dukkha is all the "it's not fair that..." or "I did this, so this should happen." thinking. I fell into this trap by trying to account friendship and experiencing this dukkha when my friend bank balance and my friend book balance weren't matching up. MY QUEST TO QUANTIFY LED ME ASTRAY.
I don't know if you are doing this. Only you know if you are doing this. Knock it off. Life is too short to balance these books. To all of you, I will promise TO BE BETTER.
ITEM THE FOURTH:
Deepfake technology (covered in Vol. 1 No 10) will ruin the world. If you think calling something "fake news" is bad, wait until the news is faked. Until then, enjoy these two videos that made me very happy.
Mike Tyson Family Matters
Full House of Mustaches
We can shut down the internet down now. IT WILL NOT GET BETTER.
GRATITUDES:
Will return next issue.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):
May return next issue.
FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK: Graveyard Club
Graveyard Club is a local band, their new album is called Goodnight Paradise. It is amazing. There are two singers and the band has a real Smiths meets Cure meets New Order feel. They did a 3 song session on the Current. This is my favorite song, please check it out. The album is amazing, Witchcraft, Finally Found and Red Roses are some of my favorite songs.
BALANCED BOOKS ARE GOOD.
FRIENDSHIPS ARE BETTER.
IT IS UP TO US TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN.
THAT IS ALL.