No. 90 Last year's predictions + more!
No. 90 • 12/16/2022
Today's 90th edition of The High Pony will be the last of 2022. These weekly jauns will pick up on Friday, January 6 at 12pm et.
Ninety frickin' editions of The High Pony!
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Last year's predictions for 2022
At the end of 2021 I made some predictions about three areas of society coming into 2022: social media, social justice, and the state of our centralized governing system. Here's how I did:
Social Media
What I wrote at the end of 2021:
Social media is dead. We are long passed the honeymoon stage. People no longer believe big tech social is a way to "bring us together." In 2022, people will start to reconsider the value of interpersonal relationships over parasocial ones.
What I think now:
Well done, past-self Bob. Thanks in part to Space Karen, people are moving off Twitter and other platforms en masse and looking for alternatives to online social engagement.
Social Justice
What I wrote at the end of 2021:
The other "social" is as destitute as the previous. "Woke" began like a bomb, bringing with it a multiracial Gurdjieffian "wake up-ness" that was inspiring in the way so many movements born out of historically marginalized communities are. However, also like so many leftist movements, woke quickly morphed into a miserable parody of itself within weeks of its arrival, thanks mostly to white people co-opting the narrative, and, once again, being the loudest, least informed, voices in the room. Now, people of all political persuasions are tired of it.
Smart, heart-forward people will come back down to Earth, will wrench their heads out of their asses, and will remember that "infinite critique" is a bad way to exist in the world.
What I think now:
The tone of the past six years of white-left-activism has become like nails on a chalkboard for most left-leaning comrades I know. People on the left seem somewhat more forgiving and willing to work with one another without reading every political difference as an indication of a fundamental corruption of their very being.
Honestly, I think people are both tired and maybe a bit more aware that in this world you have to make difficult choices, and we need to allow people the room to do so.
Centralized Politics
What I wrote at the end of 2021:
The Dems will lose the House, and Republicans, which are an illegal, fascist regime that should be banned from engaging in political discourse, will try to eff up everything.
What I think now:
"Tis the season.
Are you in a rebound relationship?
One of the inherent problems with rebound relationships is that the person who has recently broken up with someone goes into their next relationship expecting it to start off where their last relationship ended. They expect their new relationship (at least subconsciously) to be further along than is possible. And, this causes problems and unnecessary stress for the new partner.
No longer on Twitter
I gave Twitter a try this year after hearing so much about its "high level" of discourse. This, after abandoning big social media (Instagram for me) altogether. And, while I don't believe in jumping every time a billionaire farts, I also don't want to be aligned with platforms that are run by fascist enablers.
I believe people should be given time to suss out their relationship to "bad stuff" in their own time. And, I really wanna keep in check the impulse to judge others who don't make the same choices as me in the same time that I made them. But.... Word to the PKMers, TPOTs, TFTers, and "mindful productivity" crowds: Your silence on politics in general and Elon's pro-right activism is incredibly telling. It's not a good look and looks worse every week. That said, I get it. Capitalism can be a very convincing motivator.
For those interested, I'm parking myself over at Mastodon for the time being. @bobdoto@pkm.social. Although, I am quickly losing interest in "feed media" entirely. So, we'll have to see how long that lasts.
Reading is an interruption
I very much dislike reading on Kindles and iPads. But, recently I gave it a shot. I wanted to get a hold of a couple books quickly and not have to wait the couple weeks for delivery of hard copies. And, guess what? I think I've finally figured out why I don't like using devices to read books.
I don't like reading on an iPad (or any other device) because, when I do, nothing changes. Being on devices all day (as I often am) means that when I go to read on yet another device, nothing about my behavior shifts. Nothing changes regarding my location and posture. It's just more device time. What I realized is that, for me, the joy of reading is that it's an interruption. It interrupts tech-capitalism's hold on my behaviors. If I choose to read on a device, this interruption never occurs.
Teach to know
If you ever want to know whether or not you have a comprehensive understanding of a subject, or, better yet, want to develop a comprehensive understanding of a subject, pretend you're going to teach a course on the subject and make a detailed outline of the class(es) you would teach. Then, when you're done, you'll both realize how smart you are and will have a class ready to teach.
Do dates vs Due dates
"Do dates" indicate the date on which you'd like to do the task. This can be as loose or as fixed as you'd like.
"Due dates" are the dates that completed tasks are required to be done by.
In my mind, due-date-tasks need to be completed on the date given to them so that the person waiting on the other side of the task can get started.
Do-date-tasks are tasks that I'd like to get do or start on a certain date, but where another person is not depending on my completion of said task.
When it comes to project management, it's important to know the difference. I push do-date-tasks around my calendar all the time. It took a minute to not feel as if I was doing something wrong, but I got over it.
Inspiration is cray
My therapist is fond of saying that falling in love is a form of mild psychosis. Ingrained habits shift, better judgment is thrown out, impulsiveness increases. Outside the context of love, these behaviors would be shocking to friends and family. But, they're par for the course when the blood is flowing and those good feelings start vibing throughout your body.
Inspiration can be seen in the same light. Outside the context of writing, making art, or working creatively on a project, the behaviors that come with inspiration seem questionable: lack of sleep, bouts of mild mania, excitability, forgetting to eat, etc. The inspired state is an altered state. It's life+. And, when you're engaged in life+, people close to you may sometimes think you've lost your mind.
Rando Pone
And, that's that! See ya in 2023.
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