Hey team, this is my first late newsletter of the year, hooray!
From my dearly departed father, I inherited the world’s most garbage sinuses and they are melting down in full force. Or I have a cold? Who the hell knows.
I hope you aren’t also sick, dear reader, but ‘tis the season.
Trauma for Skeptics
Maybe you’ve also noticed that “trauma” is having a moment? (at least on Twitter, if we follow the same people)
Well, I’ve had the chance to do some relevant thinking and reading. Here is my first foray into trauma writing:
Trauma for Skeptics: how to think about trauma without thinking about “trauma”
Is that framing useful? Is it bonkers? Please let me know!
Dopamine Fasting
I finally took a look at the original statement on “Dopamine Fasting” and am forced to admit that it’s nowhere near as silly as it sounded at first. In fact, it’s just a click-baity name for a pretty ordinary-by-mainstream-standards practice.
The schedules in there for “fasting” and “feasting” are flexible and adaptable to any highly-rewarding activity that you’d like to manage better.
Have you tried anything like dopamine fasting? Did it work? Let me know!
Time Anxiety
Just stumbled across this piece on time anxiety from Ness Labs. In a nutshell, time anxiety is the fear that you’re wasting your life.
Its categorization of current, future, and existential flavors of time anxiety were really useful to me. As a philosopher, I trade in existential time anxiety for sure, but the coachable elements of that exist in the present.
At the same time, I’m not so sure about the solutions for time anxiety. In fact, I’m not sure there are any solutions for time anxiety…
How do you deal with time anxiety? Click reply and let me know.
How to Text or Call Me Anytime
I’m trying out a service called Convv that lets people establish a pay-per-use phone number for public dissemination.
Here you go, the Life Coach for Smart People hotline: (415) 799-3200
Put it in your phone in case of moral emergencies!
I’m turning the rate down to $1/text for this week because I’d love to hear from some of you. If long-form coaching by email is not your style, texts might be just the ticket.
Sniffling safely out of range,
Pamela
2020: Issue 4 of 52