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Maintenance matters most

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The cliche that got a lot of people mad at me at the end of 2022 was saying, “years don’t really matter much, decades matter much more”. To make people even madder at my, I pointed out years are only meaningful in how they contribute to the decade. A whole is the sum of it’s parts. But that’s so true.

One thing I’m seeing over and over about healthy eating, it’s much like investing and personal finance. Each little investment isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things, you will never have a secure future or retirement with one investment. But over time, that buck or two here and there, every day adds up. Likewise, each calorie consumed adds on to the waistline, each unhealthy food eaten leads you closer and closer to an untimely death.

Future goals are big and distant, as they are the sum of so many parts. But each part is meaningful as it contributes to the future. It’s true that life is like a flywheel in an engine, an occasional misfire here and there won’t add up to much. But that should not be an excuse for operating an engine that is regularly misfiring, as damage accumulates. People often think it’s okay to give excuses for occasional misdeeds or misfires — that occasional slice of cake or cup of store bought coffee– some liberties to lighten life up, but that is a dangerous practice.

There are things out of your control that you can’t address — like the a downturn in the market or that cup of coffee on the road you need to stay alert to drive home safely. Maybe you have to go out and have an unhealthy meal with some friends. But you should avoid incidental bad behaviors whenever possible. Misfiring in an engine is harmful, as it to your goals. Just because you can survive an occasional misfire, doesn’t mean you should build into your life.

The best thing when it comes to self-improvement is automation. I have a set investment and savings plan, I rarely look at it or give it much thought. A few times a year, I’ll check on my net worth but normally the money comes out of my paycheck and is invested. Each morning I go for a walk at 6:15 AM and each evening at 7:00 PM, regardless of weather, because it’s important to get my default 10,000 plus steps in. Likewise, I just make it the default option to buy healthier foods, and follow the one bowl or plate rule. As I don’t eat out often at all, whatever I buy is what I end up eating. I continue to learn to be a better cook and eater, but it’s not because I intend to be thinking about it non-stop, but because I want to make sensible defaults that make eating healthier the default option.

A lot of people think it takes willpower or effort to do the right thing. But that’s not the truth. If you want to do something, it’s best to automate it and give it as little thought as possible. And just move forward.

Thematic Map: Cedar River Flow Campsites
Thematic Map: Stillwater Reservior Campsites
Map: Monty\'s Bay Wildlife Management Area (WMA)
Map: Cascade Lake

The paranoid-style of politics …

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I have always been very fascinated by the now quite old Richard Hofsteader essay. While his decades-old essay is mostly about the right-wing movements of the earlier centuries, paranoia is a central part of “fringe” politics. Sometimes it’s distrust of monied interests, sometimes it’s Hollywood or big business, sometimes it’s a distrust of a religious group, race or political party.

The Mayo Clinic defines paranoia as a “An unrealistic distrust of others or a feeling of being persecuted”. 

If you look hard enough at any community, you are bound to find some people aren’t completely honest. There is a lot incentive to cut corners and we all develop cliques and have close connections that sometimes blind our objectivity. Sometimes there is outright corruption or criminal activity, but they tend to be a lot less frequent then the paranoid imagination would imagine. Most people don’t engage in criminal conspiracy, simply because of the risk to their own reputation and the fact that most institutions are built in ways to actively discourage criminal behavior by having audits and positive reinforcement for good behavior.

Out groups often don’t see that. People who believe the politicians are ignoring their wishes are likely to believe that the reason that representatives aren’t representing them is because they are somehow corrupt or evil. That’s ignoring the fact that politicians often have very active feelers on public opinion — elected officials read and study the newspapers and regularly conduct public opinion polling to ensure that they are acting in ways that the public wants. After all, if a politicians isn’t representing the public will, they are likely to get voted out of office, which means fired from their jobs. And most elected officials want to be loved, not hated by the public if only to stroke their egos.

Sometimes people just have ideas that are different then the majority’s view in their community. The farther you go out and up — the county, the state, the national level — the more diverse the electorate and the more likely to have a majority opinion different then your own in-group. Seeing one’s own political ideals ignored and snuffed out can be alienating, and lead people to search into the depths, looking for evidence that they have been defrauded and that their opponents are not playing honestly, using deceit and other illicit means to achieve their power and prominence.

Often I see paranoia being emphasized as a right-wing phenomenon, but if you look at many of environmental, labor, housing, and anti-war movement activists, you will see many of the same paranoid trends on the left. Some of it might just be rhetoric – often political rhetoric is more paranoid-sounding then actual belief. But you can’t look at the far-left activist and not hear many of the same conspiracy theories you hear on the right.

Are the fracking companies really working to poison your drinking water?

SVGZ Graphic: Largest private acerage owners in each county
Thematic Map: Difference from NY - Daylight Savings Time