almost_usual

Action as in starting a company or working for someone else?

Operating at high intensity has a large physical, psychological, and personal cost.

There’s a reason why professional athletes train mostly in low intensity with reserved days for high intensity sessions.

Maybe the jobs themselves were not enjoyable physically but the satisfaction of a day’s work was.

Many jobs also improved your fitness unless you were injured. Anything manual required more aerobic capacity and strength hence making you more fit.

Modern people are sleep deprived, weak, and aerobically deficient unless they spend time outside of work focusing on these things. We simply aren’t meant to sit around all day staring at a screen only to then sit and drive a car.

I’d argue modern life is much more comfortable but counterintuitively there is a constant discomfort that is chronic because of it.

Another way to think about this is that humans are meant to suffer everyday. If you are not forcing it through physical exertion it slowly leaks and if it is not exhausted it is constant.

As I’ve reached middle age I’ve realized that controlling my suffering keeps me grounded.

The suffering will come out no matter what everyday for me personally no matter how comfortable the day is.

For years now I force it out with intention every day. I push to a discomfort for an hour or more a day usually doing some aerobic activity.

When my body starts failing as I get older I’ll need to explore other options but this is where I am now.

Surprisingly my brain has been rewired over the years to look forward to this controlled suffering and counterintuitively it’s made all of life much more enjoyable.

Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life by Nick Lane.

The consistent best thing you can do for yourself and family is sleep well and exercise to increase your aerobic efficiency.

The Fed purchased Treasury securities during COVID QE. Those securities had low yields and cash reserves were created during those purchases.

Those cash reserves are held by banks which the Fed funds rate pays interest on (what was hiked).

Meanwhile the fixed rate debt from QE remains the same.

Long term bond yields are not directly tied to the Fed funds rate.

The problem is the debt purchased by the Fed during QE had extremely low yields (COVID era) the reserves held by banks created by the Fed during QE now cost more to service by the Fed.

Or proof of work to at least deter the increase in transfer volume. Neither are environmentally friendly.

The existing models and higher layer protocols of the web will likely break down over the coming years.

I’m not exactly sure what will replace it yet but communication infrastructure built for humans isn’t going to scale with the volume of communication created by artificial intelligence.

There might be some solutions requiring proof of work to introduce friction but that comes with a real environmental cost.

I’ve personally spent the least amount of time over the past three decades on the Internet this recent year. There are some niche corners I frequent but I find the overall experience more draining than rewarding lately.