Greeting
Hello. This is my first time writing a newsletter, —cut me some slack— but I expect it won’t be my last. If nothing else, I’ve spent way too much time putting together a half-decent favicon to give up that easily. Thus, I’m going to continue using the sunk cost fallacy to my advantage, and before I start overthinking those ramifications, we’ll continue to the next of my planned sections.
Picture and Place
I’m writing this late Sunday night, and I want to finish this section before I forget, because I very well may if I do it tomorrow. Just moved in to college today, so it feels significant to show you a picture with all my things in it. It’s my corner of the room, and a snapshot of a day (or, rather, night) in the soon-to-be life.
And a close-up on those buddies in the background, for kicks and giggles.
Personal News
College seems pretty cool; I just checked out five books from the very neat library, I’ve eaten two protein bars already, and I feel really amped despite the tiredness in the background. I’ve been pretty productive lately; hopefully I can keep that going.
Ruminations
I’ve been thinking a lot about Rob Rhinehart’s early blog posts regarding the idea and execution of Soylent; here’s a Twitter thread of the quotes I found most salient. I ended up concluding that there’s a lot I find interesting and useful there, and it’s likely surrounding the idea of breaking a seemingly-complicated subject with an existing cultural hegemony into pieces. Moneyball, as I noted, stands out; I think that any application of statistics to a field with established, traditional rules would similarly pique my interest.
However, there is also something specific that makes sense to me about this approach to food. I have long thought that the way many people (with the resources to, theoretically, make decisions of this kind thoughtfully) approach this problem fundamentally flawed. There are very few input variables involved here: time, energy/effort, money; it’s a resource allocation problem like any other, especially on an individual level. It may not be easy to make good choices, but it is simple.
The first and biggest mistake that people make is conflating and confusing the two basic (positive) outputs that we expect from eating patterns: health and enjoyment. It is possible to address one without the other —for example, eating healthful food is much more enjoyable when done with friends— and it is possible to track each (especially health) through any number of metrics. They may not be perfect, but they are certainly better than not thinking clearly, even if they’re just back-of-mind and not fully applied. Fitness and mood are graphable. Personal health trackers wouldn’t have a market if they weren’t, and they’re flawed: a Fitbit, as best I can tell, doesn’t know when you’re lifting weights unless you tell it.
Instead, though, of working backwards: starting from the outputs and developing an eating plan, many eat at random times. They use unhealthy junk to bribe themselves into doing exercise, making it impossible to develop a productive relationship around either. And so it’s not necessarily the concept of eating Soylent that appeals to me, it’s the calm reasoning in an attempt to find a better solution to a problem most often approached wildly irrationally. The posts don’t cast aspersions on those who prefer other varieties of food, they merely make a clear-headed point about that mindset and its assumptions.
In the same way, I don’t mean to judge the decisions others make, but they’re a necessary representation of the thought process that spawns them. It is merely impossible to critique the latter thoroughly without supplying examples from the former to support the argument. There’s a lot that I don’t know about the subject, but my main point is fairly simple: that focusing on variable, small changes in the diet industry is both overly difficult and likely inaccurate or incomplete in places. Tracking one’s own metrics in as straightforward and easy a manner as possible seems to be the only way to formulate one’s own theory of eating on a meaningful macro-basis, a process which is a necessary foundation for making good everyday decisions.
Work
This week, besides the directly college-associated activities, I wrote a short book chapter and a very rough, marked-up first draft of a web series concept I’ve been thinking about. I’m also writing a Welcome Week Diary for the blog— not my blog, for a change, but my college’s (independently-funded, student-run) outlet. That’s mostly involving a lot of noting up what I spend my time on, which is making me a little self-conscious (just like the music section later on; what gets measured really does get managed, huh.)
Links
I didn’t do a good job of collecting anything very good this week, also didn’t read much that truly stuck with me. I’ll try to do better next time, apologies for the inconvenience.
Writing To (Music)
I use Spotify. For the time being I think that’s where I’ll collect music. I envision this section being carried out in two parts. Firstly, anything particularly musically notable: stuff I listened to live, for example, or something I heard that really stuck with me. Secondly, I’ve set up a last.fm account (I’m way behind the curve, I know,) and I’ll use it to compile a short summary of what I listen to in the week before I write each newsletter.
Just as there are two parts to this section, there are two goals. Number one, the public accountability may shame me into broadening my admittedly narrow musical horizons. Number two, I’m interested in how people think about music, and this angle might help my readers understand my mindset as I work on this written content.
1: I made a playlist (and thought about it on Twitter) the other week, prompted by my high school’s class of 2019 heading off to college (and posting way too much about it on social media.) It’s meant to hold up an aural lens to the mixed emotions that experience can evoke.
I’ve been listening to it; it’ll be interesting to observe how that compilation, finalized a week before my own move-in, holds up to my own experience.
I’ve also made a playlist (this week) as an inspiration of sorts as I’m fleshing out this web series concept and writing scripts for it. I’m not sure how much context I can give (and I’m not being secretive here, I’m just playing around with a few ideas) for it, but it might convey the general feeling.
2. As a consequence of that second playlist, my last.fm has some songs I wouldn’t have listened to otherwise: two of Hans Zimmer’s Batman themes, some stripped-down covers of big hits, and Jefferson Starship’s Magician (hat-tip to the credits of this Penn and Teller video, watched nominally for research.)
As a consequence of this segment’s existence altogether, I’ve also listened to a couple new albums: Madvillainy by Madvillain, and Hard Pop by Telethon. Both are alright despite not immediately grabbing me; I’ll probably listen to Madvillainy again following along with the lyrics.
Here’s the full list of my ‘scrobbles’ for those interested.
Top Ten: Eminem Songs
(Unordered.)
Lose Yourself
‘Till I Collapse
Criminal
The Way I Am
8 Mile
Say Goodbye Hollywood
Infinite
Deja Vu
Stan
Stay Wide Awake
Were they not released on Jay-Z and Dr. Dre’s albums, Renegade and Forgot About Dre make this list.
Closing/Signature
This has been the first —’episode’ might be the most fitting term; we’ll go with it— of The Unprofessional Boy. It’s a little sparse; I’ve been quite busy, and I’m still working the kinks out, but I always welcome suggestions, responses, or criticisms, especially the constructive kinds. Good luck out there.
Orion Lehoczky Escobar