The theme in my life goes something like this: The ocean is rich. The forest is wealthy. Boredom is bliss.
In 2018 I adopted a day called “no electronic days,” coined NED for short. Something I began to reclaim my time and my life, NED is simple: all electronic devices are off for 24 hours. It’s digital fasting.
It’s pure coincidence that N.E.D. is also the name of Ned Ludd, the legend who led the Luddites of the 19th century against technofacism.
“The Luddites challenged the emerging capitalist system—which centered on efficiency, maximal productivity, and ultimately human redundancy—and instead championed other human values of finely-honed craft skill, community, worker solidarity, and a living wage.”
So what motivated NED? Well in 2018, it happened from dissatisfaction with our growing dependency and adherence to all things digital. I was saddened by our deteriorating human connections and community in real physical spaces. So, naturally and obviously I went to grad school to make art. (Also so I could teach :))
In one of my projects, “AutoSalvation,” I used Photoshop to isolate subjects in medieval paintings. The computer registered contours as blocks of information, resulting in dismembered / disembodied hands.
I performed this experiment with other early middle age paintings, staring at the floating arms and hands for hours. It felt prescient. At the same time, it was ancient knowledge: that the world would be saved or destroyed by the hand of man. I personally don’t believe this myth, but we can see how it prevails today.
Today we seek neo-salvation with a prophetic god in our hand.
Sedentary multitasking is what machines do, but ever since the pandemic, that’s all WE do. Are we becoming computers? Do we exist just to perform knowledge-systems labor?
We are:
1. Synchronizing activities
2. Entering and exiting schedules
3. Perfecting chocolate chip cookie recipes
⭐⭐⭐Let’s begin:
When doing all life activities in one place, such as a domestic setting, synchronizing everything into one master schedule is tough. Your perception of time stretches and contracts depending on the task… writing a project proposal versus nodding dutifully in an online meeting. Did they said three or five? What’s the topic now?
2. Our work-life reality has flattened. To transition between tasks, we must re-expand space with our bodies, not just our minds.Reset and prep for the next task by walking around the house. 5x across the room. Go down the street. Remember to come back. Take an object you will use later—a remote, pen, measuring spoon—and deposit it in the mailbox. When it’s time, retrieve it. This “commute” reboots intentionality. Can a computer do that?
Put a chocolate chip cookie in the mailbox and take a nibble out of it each circulation for dopamine. Can a computer byte? I mean bite? Can the sugar dissolve on its tongue binding to receptors T1R2/T1R3s giving that sweet sensation?
3. There’s no such thing as an imperfect chocolate chip cookie recipe 🍪 as the CCC is perfection itself.
🍪CCC = Perfection🍪
Chocolate : loved and consumed by millions of humans who are not computers.
Chip : you can add any kind of chip into your cookie: nuts, sprinkles, dried fruit, cpus, gpus, ram, or despair that is not made by computers.
Cookie : round, a great and popular shape loved by millions of humans across time but possibly also computers.
Make something, and make it with love. Or destroy something, and destroy it with relish.
Do yourself a favor and clean up later. I mean, wayyyy later. Let the sweat equity show, look at the mess and materials behind the final product…pencil shavings, paint sploshes, apple cores strewn among the date pits. Striving for the end result is great for follow through, but is it sustainable? There has to be some appreciation, dare I say, enjoyment, in the process, production, labor.
If there is no visible sweat equity in your work, do a thing that does have it (counterbalance). For people who can’t seem to restore their energy, it’s important to balance intellectual/mental labor with physical/emotional labor. Make something, and make it with love. Or destroy something, and destroy it with relish.
An aside: What’s the difference between a task and a project? While tidying up after a task is always good for workflow, don’t confuse a project as a task. Set aside the appropriate space(s) for a project to inhabit. Subsequent “messes” of work-in-progress projects might be unsightly, but necessary. The small amounts of energy spent putting away and taking out projects adds up.
Leave projects out in the pasture to live their lives.
Another point: don’t overlook the small things, but don’t let the small things run the show. While micromanagement is good for detailed analysis of net efficiency, once it is built into the workflow, it is appropriate to break it occasionally. In fact, it is necessary to break it.
Back to replenishing energy: Make a physical thing…with an emphasis on “make”. Get your hands involved. Since we have to eat, a classic one is cooking–either your favorite recipe or a fun new one, but it’s important that it delivers pleasure for you. Maybe cooking or baking isn’t your form of enjoyment, then make a different thing.
I will expand on this for a moment.. “Making” is a creative act, which will be different for everyone. Playing music is a creative act for some, playing a sport is a creative engagement for others. (We can argue that one “makes” the shot into the basket or “makes” a play.)
Find a making that requires a few muscle groups. It is easy to fall into an avoidant style dynamic with screens so save video games for another area of life.
Another thought: positive and productive activities that replenish are : self initiated, intentional, and helps you be “present” with yourself and your body. They are responses, not reactions. Many times I have witnessed people reacting to stressors by using the screen to “tune out”. This is not a restorative act and alienates, thereby turning off the ability to be truly present.
So go hang out with your body and make something! 💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫
We brush our teeth twice a day, shower every other day, groom ourselves, and eat with some semblance of regularity. Hygiene and health are part of life — they get done with regularity (otherwise we can get sick.)
Exercise, on the other hand? Not always so automatic. Even if we know it’s good for us, it might not come naturally. Stick to the same low-stakes, noncompetitive activities — the elliptical, a fitness video, running loops around the block, or a weekly yoga class — and it can start to feel like a chore. Motivation wanes.
Here’s a simple trick: sweat before you shower. Make the act of exercise an unskippable part of clean, refreshed skin. You’ll feel the reward immediately afterward.
If you want to make movement more habitual ritual, try these:
Rally with a friend — sanitize a tennis ball or badminton birdie and get competitive.
Swim in the ocean — snorkel, explore, wave to marine friends. If you can’t find a calm cove, swim along the wave breaks. Survival instincts kick in and heart rate rises naturally.
Hike and immerse yourself in nature — choose a trail with elevation gain (1,000–2,000 feet) or varied terrain: stream crossings, chaparral, alpine meadows, boulder fields, canyons, or desert trails. Diverse landscapes challenge differently and connects you with the environment.
Home movement — if you’re stuck indoors, dedicate ten minutes to movement before getting clean. Jumping jacks, push-ups, dancing to a few songs. Spike energy and support immune health.
(This is similar to habit stacking, for example, one can Exercise + Brush Teeth – Do a set of squats or stretches while brushing teeth.)
So next time you’re about to jump in the shower, ask yourself: did I sweat before shower?
laughter comes from a place deeply human, so they say.
for example, the Ancient Greek and Roman physicians believed the 4 humors- bodily fluid type yuckies- affected human health and disposition. there were only 4 of them: choleric, melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic–and they were tied to seasons or elements, similar to Indian Ayurveda medicine doṣas, (pañca-bhūta): earth, water, fire, air, (and space).
They typology is as follows:
Blood (sanguis) → associated with air, spring, and a cheerful temperament (sanguine).
Phlegm (phlegma) → linked to water, winter, and a calm, sluggish temperament (phlegmatic).
Yellow bile (choler) → tied to fire, summer, and an irritable, aggressive temperament (choleric).
Black bile (melaina chole) → connected with earth, autumn, and a melancholic, depressive temperament (melancholic).
But what do the humors have to do with ha-ha humor?
I first became interested in the forms of humor like sarcasm and parody in 90s TV shows and literature, wondering how we humans developed a sense of humor. it’s a very subjective and human / biological activity– like crying or compassion, but I find it more elusive than other emotions. just as diverse as our personalities, what we find funny differs- from farts, Ren and Stimpy, to Mr. Bean and cats.
but do we only laugh because something is ha ha funny? no.
because after some click-clacking, i found sardonic as a form of humor that comes from the Greek “sardónios, refering to someone curling their lips at danger, laughing in its face.
from wikipedia: “a sardonic action is one that is ‘disdainfully or skeptically humorous’. a form of wit or humour, being sardonic often involves expressing an uncomfortable truth in a clever and not necessarily malicious way, commonly with a degree of cynicism.[3]”
an uncomfortable truth you say? So one has to be devoid of humor to face a truth but at the same time hold an incredulous expression to convey the inhumanity of it all?
furthermore look at this grim and dark origin of sardonic: “among the very ancient people of sardinia… it was customary to kill old people. while killing their old people, the sardi laughed loudly. this is the origin of notorious sardonic laughter (eugen fehrle, 1930).”
violence is a natural response to structural oppression of many forms. language, cultural, social, political, institutional, but killing our elderly? what could be the reason for this? is it an act of mercy knowing that the end of one’s material existence should be relieved of suffering and indignity? one could not mercy kill without having an incongruent reaction to it, like laughing. this idea is supported by the following:
“laughter accompanies the passage from death to life; it creates life and accompanies birth. consequently, laughter… nullifies murder as such, and is an act of piety that transforms death into a new life.”
from the author of dune: “the person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth she is in. And she must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples her from belief in her own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits her to move within herself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a human.”
So the sardonic helps ground people and prevents them from abstraction and inhumanity. laughter is guttural: irrational, physiological, and VERY HUMAN.
Laughter is also social. According to the following source, we might laugh when there is “shared relief at the passing of danger. And since the relaxation that results from a bout of laughter inhibits the biological fight-or-flight response, laughter may indicate trust in one’s companions.” (https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/laughter.htm)
“Provine has also noted that laughter is highly behaviorally contagious…like yawning, contagious laughter is modified by social factors.”
Laughter as catharsis:
There is a link between laughter with better pain tolerance. In an experiment those who induced / forced laughter had a drop in blood pressure and cortisol levels in comparison to those who did not simulate laughter.
All of this supports the argument that laughter and humor are complicated emotions that can relieve as much as it can reveal what lurks in the dark (in order to relinquish it).
So ask yourself, if the average adult laughs 17 times a day, are you getting your daily dose of laughter?
z. Find more opportunities for laughter
surround yourself with funny people or places (see t. grandmas below)
y. Induce or simulate laughter even if nothing is externally funny
trick your brain
x. diversify your humor
weird/absurd humor > 20% random or joyful laughter > 50% sarcastic/self sabotaging < 10% animals = 100%
Noon Mul 