Inspiration and Motivation.

Digital Minimalism.

I’ve talked before about my interest in Digital Minimalism. You would think that a guy that loves technology as much as I do would be enthralled with all the bells and whistles we have on our devices these days, but honestly, I find much of them unnecessary and distracting.

I also identify as “exhausted”.

I believe much of the “glum” feeling I experience from time to time stems from spending too much time online, and more specifically, getting wrapped up in social media. As a geek of a certain age, I don’t particularly enjoy the GUI (Graphical User Interfaces) we have today; I grew up on character based interfaces and I still enjoy them today. For example, my preferred way of reading email is through the character based application called Alpine.

Now, I enjoy taking photos and making videos and doing all the things today’s modern technology allows me to do, but I really dislike the feeling that I’m being swayed by an algorithm. And if we’re talking about disliked feelings, I absolutely despise advertising. I always mention this an ironic declaration coming from me, because at one time I worked for a radio station owned by an advertising agency, and it was my job for a while to write ads. My income was based on ad generated revenue.

Oof.

Because the U.S. is all about capitalism but the bulk of manufacturing and other building of “things” has left the U.S. for cheaper opportunities across the pond, capitalism today is based on selling services, convincing people they need to be have the latest and greatest, and advertising said services and convincing propaganda, we have entered an unsustainable cycle on consumption. I think about this when I toy with the idea of convincing my husband I need to buy “just one more video camera” or “upgrade to a new computer that will give me everything I need for at least three years”, only to fall foolishly as a victim to advertising from computer companies convincing “thinner! sleeker! faster!” that turns out to be the same old, same old.

And then I feel guilt.

I’m typing this blog entry on my 2016 Lenovo ThinkPad T460s and it’s a wonderful experience. It does everything I want it to do and I don’t find myself lacking because it’s not as instantaneous as the experience on the M2 Mac Mini Pro I use for video editing. I have my M2 MacBook Air sitting upstairs and I haven’t used it in nearly a week; I’ll probably end up selling in the coming days.

Part of my digital minimalism efforts includes getting rid of redundant tech.

There’s a lot of things I can do in the digital consumption space to calm my response to the chaos. Long form writing is a tremendous help for me. I should focus on doing it more often.

Losing Our Soul, Losing Our Curiosity.

It’s less than a month until my next birthday and it’s the time of year that I tend to be at my most existential. One of the things I’ve struggled with in my mid-50s is this feeling of, “is this it?”. I feel like I’m constantly searching for something bigger in my life, something more magical, something that I seem to be missing, something more I should be doing in the way of contribution. It’s not a feeling of sadness or depression, but rather a myriad of thoughts floating near the top of my grey matter. I look around me, see folks going through their daily lives, zipping through drive thrus, waiting at red lights that have stopped traffic for no reason, and all the people out in public looking at their smartphones instead of engaging in something I personally find absolutely fascinating: people watching.

I stumbled across this video on my Mastodon feed today. Already not feeling content with watching videos on my phone, this video felt like I should fire up the YouTube app on the big television, so I watched this video in all its 54-inch glory on the Samsung. If you take the time to watch this video, and you absolutely should, there’s a bit of ironic foreshadowing of my viewing choice in the video.

In this video, courtesy of the Design Theory channel by John Mauriello on YouTube, John discusses how the “soul” of everything has been designed right out of just about every aspect in our lives. One book mentioned during the video, “Dopamine Nation” by Anna Lembke, is already on my “must read” list.

Please take the less than 30 minutes to watch this video. I don’t know if you’ll find it as fascinating as I did, but I hope it garners a spark of curiosity for you; a curiosity of how the world is operating around us here in 2025.

Riverrock.

I have always enjoyed most of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural designs. Earl and I have toured by Taliesin, his home and studio in Wisconsin, and Taliesin West, his home and studio here in Arizona. In fact, we’ll probably be making a trip to Taliesin West soon because now I feel inspired.

I was happy to stumble across this article. “Final Usonian home” by Frank Lloyd Wright was completed earlier this year. Some modifications have to be made “under the skin” to bring the design into compliance with modern codes, but otherwise it’s true to the original design.

VIdeo: Hiking Guthrie Mountain.

I’m trying out the “Premiere” feature in YouTube. My next hiking video will be officially premiered at 18:00 EDT/15:00 PDT (6:00 p.m./3:00 p.m).

Last weekend I hiked up to the top of Guthrie Mountain in the Santa Catalina Mountains. This was my first time using my new DJI Osmo Pocket 3 camera for a hike, since I just got the camera in the mid part of last week. This camera is highly recommended by many YouTube content creators, and it was also highly recommended by Jamie, our resident professional photographer in the family. He’s a smart man and I respect his artistic opinion a lot.

One of the reasons for getting the Pocket 3 was so that I wasn’t completely reliant on my iPhone 16 Pro for camera use. I like being able to get quality video and photos without using the phone. It’s much easier to slip an SD card into the computer for file transfers and I’m not seeing any distracting notifications when I’m in my creative mood.

I’ve hiked up Guthrie Mountain once before. The hike on Saturday was very enjoyable, but something that I’ll only talk about here (not mentioned in the video) is that I had a bit of an “overwhelmed” feeling for a few moments when I on top of the mountain. I felt like I had pushed myself beyond my physical capabilities of the moment and that I would have difficulty getting back to the car. For a few fleeting moments I had visions of trying to text someone (via satellite) to wrangle up a helicopter to pluck me off the peak. Of course that didn’t happen, but I had to have a strong conversation with myself to find my motivation to start working my way down.

It’s best to psych yourself up in a positive direction.

It was a good learning experience, both from a technical perspective and, more importantly, from a personal perspective. As I inch my way into what could be termed as “solidly my later 50s”, I need to respect my body but I don’t need to let it get soft.

I appreciate any sharing of this video and viewer feedback. Even the part I mention in a blooper at the end of the episode.

Go With Your Gut.

I woke up this morning with the intent of going hiking. I had a plan of hiking a trail I’d explored only briefly a couple of months ago. The hike would have taken me up around 1500 feet and would have promised some great photo and video opportunities.

I just wasn’t feeling it this morning. The rain looked to be moving off to the east but something in my gut said this wasn’t the morning to go hiking.

So I went back to bed and took a nap.

It’s two hours later and there’s impressive rain showers (not in the forecast) passing through with a couple of lightning strikes showing up on radar. 

Always go with your gut.

As I type (and the shower is passing through) this I would have been at the furthest point away from the car. It would have been quite a wet experience, which is fine when I’m chasing storms and near the car, but not at the moment on a mountain with a few lightning strikes in the area. 

Instead, a decent cloud shot will suffice. My hike would have taken me toward the highest peak in the distance in this shot.

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Verb.

“Doing the verbs, not trying to be the nouns.”

This phrase in this video by Ryan Holiday really struck me in a motivational way when I heard it this morning. I have followed Ryan Holiday’s work for some time. I was happy to see his video come across my feed from BigThink on YouTube.

Let go of the labels.

Truthfully.

Kevquirk recently shared a blog post highlighting A Nun Answering Questions in a YouTube video. I watched the entire video and found it absolutely fascinating. 

I have always found nuns a little scary because I’ve heard the stereotypical stories about knuckles being slapped in Catholic School and in other anecdotes they’ve always been described as so stony and hard.

This video changed my perspective quite a bit. I am happy to have watched this video.

 

Unplug.

Reposted from Cal Newport’s Blog (original link):

I’m writing this post about eighteen hours before the first polls open on Election Day, and it feels tense out there. The New York Times, for example, just posted an article headlined: “How Americans Feel About the Election: Anxious and Scared.

Based on extensive interviews conducted over this past weekend, the Times concludes:

“Americans across the political spectrum reported heading to the polls in battleground states with a sense that their nation was coming undone. While some expressed relief that the long election season was finally nearing an end, it was hard to escape the undercurrent of uneasiness about Election Day.”
These results probably come as no surprise.

The question then becomes what to do with this anxiety. The first step, of course, is to vote — and not just vote, but to approach your decision honestly and dispassionately. By the time you read this, you’ve likely already completed this step.

But then what?

Here I have a suggestion that I think could be healing for all points of the political spectrum: use the stress of this election to be the final push needed to step away from the exhausting digital chatter that’s been dominating your brain. Take a break from social media. Stop listening to news podcasts. Unsubscribe, at least for a while, from those political newsletters clogging your inbox with their hot takes and tired in-fighting.

I suggest you switch to a slower pace of media consumption. Don’t laugh at this suggestion, because I’m actually serious: consider picking up the occasional old-fashioned printed newspaper (free from algorithmic optimization and click-bait curation) at your local coffee shop or library to check in, all at once, on anything major going on in the world. I think I might setup a Sunday-only paper subscription as my main source of news this winter.

Equally important is how you redirect your newly liberated attention. Consider aiming it toward real community, with real people who actually live near you, to retrain your brain to stop thinking of the world as hopelessly fractured into vicious tribes. (If right now you’re scouring this post to seek evidence as to whether I’m friend or foe, then you’re already severely suffering from this malady. )

Consider reading books again. There’s a pleasure in the conquest of deep ideas that’s been lost as we thrashed in a digital sea of churning distraction. Spend more time in nature to discover that despite the apocalyptic tenor of the online world, its analog counterpart persists, and is beautiful.

The Republic will still stand without our constant digital vigilance. But it’s unclear if our mental health can survive the status quo.

Voted outside 640px.

Achieving Our Desires.

Fellow blogger Cole B wrote a blog entry I find quite inspiring. In the entry he shares his thoughts around a post he saw on The Art of Manliness, which is about the mindset and intentionality around achieving our desires.

To win and secure the thing you seek, your desire must be potent enough to energize and animate, but not so all-consuming it smothers and corrupts. You must want it, but not need it. – The Art of Manliness

I encourage readers to take a peek a look at Cole B’s entry. I hope you find the same motivation I felt while reading his post.