Do By Friday
Episode 231 artwork
Episode 231 · March 11, 2021 · 01:02:16

231. 🔓 Consensual Disruption - After Show

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We've unlocked this extremely good after show for you monsters.

Please consider supporting our program by becoming a supporter on Patreon.

Transcript

Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexHello? Hello? I just wanted to know what noise is. I wanted to gauge. I didn't want to come in hot, as you said. I am calm. I am composed. I've got my second espresso shot, which I will have at some point.

MerlinI've turned off my Heady fan. I have eaten my leftovers. I am on Zoom.

AlexWelcome to after show. Welcome. Welcome to back to Friday. I genuinely really.

MerlinCouldn't really hang on to that for very long.

AlexI'm loopy. Have not been having a good time lately.

MerlinWe'll keep it short. We'll keep it short.

AlexNo, no, no. I genuinely, without any sense of irony and snarkiness, really want to know what you are doing in terms of infrastructure and how you are sort of refaming it.

MerlinWhat do you imagine it's about? You read so much into my nonsense. I'm keen to know what you're thinking. It's not that. I mean, I don't want to disappoint, but I don't think I'm doing anything that profound.

AlexLike I said here on the show, I think it's what did I say?

MerlinI wrote something down. I prepared. Yeah. Finding patterns and noticing things. Yeah. That's part of it.

AlexIsn't I mean, I guess I wouldn't call it profound. But what profound things – if you hear one single thing and are like, that is profound, then you're probably doing drugs or just haven't thought about it too hard.

MerlinOr you like to cry.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinI think that – so the infrastructure in general, this comes – for me, this comes up a lot whenever I have a reason to feel like I want to talk about New Year's resolutions. I know you've heard this. Well, I'm not against it. I'm against New Year's resolutions if you don't really know what you're doing it for, if you haven't created an infrastructure, if you haven't created a path to success.

And I'm honestly not trying to do a straw man here. It's just that's a good example that most people can relate to is you have no business deciding to lose a fifth of your body weight if you've never done it before healthily and you haven't prepared the way to make that something that's more likely to succeed than fail. If you haven't put an infrastructure in place to change your habits or to do whatever it is, and I mean, I should disclaim at the beginning that I am an overthinker, that I – overthinking in terms of like I'm overengineering, overdesigning.

Whatever it is, I probably put too much mental effort into things that will help me keep the demon dogs at bay. I think this is a known issue for me.

AlexWell, if it keeps the demon dogs at bay, why is it overthinking or too much?

MerlinWell, I mean, like, for example, last night on the Rectives that we recorded, this kind of stuff came up a lot. Because one thing we talked about is, long story short, like, you know, that song Take a Break from Hamilton. And like, can you even imagine like disappearing to upstate New York for a month? And of course, knowing me, it won't surprise you to know that most of the discussion for me was like, well, in this game that we're laying out, this game is really all about deciding the rules because that is the game. Like if I could by fee, I'd just hit escape and disappear for a month, I guess.

But like I have so many questions about what that means, what I would need to do to be able to not only enjoy taking a month off, but – and I'm sure most of you out there, if you're being honest, are the same way. like, oh my God, are you kidding me? I could not do that. I mean, even if I had like pretty good internet, that would be really hard to do. To take a legitimate off the grid vacation of more than a few days is a cause for stress for me to think about that. And one of the best ways I have to

minimize that stress or to at least feed my demon dogs something that's nutritious is to walk through what I would need to do to unhook and yes, to enjoy it, but also to maybe more importantly, be a good participant in a vacation. And that goes for lots of stuff. And I don't think you have to be an overthinker to find benefits in adding a little bit of infrastructure. It doesn't have to mean rules. It doesn't have to be, you know, unplug the road or like, I don't know what, you know, what works for you, you hope. But like, all I know is that whether it's cleaning out my

garage or realizing a better time to do chores or to think about a way to change a behavior of mine. I think a lot of it starts with, even if it's a very small thing, and I can give you examples, but anyway, that's the high level. I think whether it's life hacks, infrastructure, any of this stuff, it is about noticing things and then finding a way to make a little scaffolding that lets you see a change in your life that's valuable to you.

AlexThat's so good. See, I'm trying not to fangirl.

MerlinIt's very weird. No, it's fine. No, I'm glad you like it. It helps me a lot too. And if, you know, there's all kinds of things where like, oh, you know, I know I repeat myself and then I feel bad that I'm repeating myself. But like...

AlexNo, because that's when it gets profound because an idea is...

MerlinNo, it's like it's Bernie Sanders all over again. Yes. Like that's the point. That's what makes Bernie good is he has been saying the same thing forever. Well, did it get fixed? Nope. It needs to keep being said, you know.

I'm always sharing conversations with my wife. Another conversation we had yesterday was I was talking about how cool it is that I think that for the longest time IBM's motto for the company was just the single word think. My version of that is remember to remember. Right? Like, everybody knows they're supposed to do things. But how do you remember to remember something? Let's take a real obvious one. Do you remember to remember that you've survived your entire life up till now? Do you remember that?

AlexWell, yes, but I feel like I'm an outlier in that case.

MerlinBut like somebody like me who's an anxious person, you know, we don't actually have that much hands-on agency to literally change our future because that's not the way the world works. There are things that will happen to you. There are things that will change. There are unexpected things without regard to whether they're positive in the moment or not. There are things that come along that you have to adapt to.

AlexAt will employment.

MerlinYeah, that's one.

AlexWell, you've talked a lot about thought technologies and trying ideas on. And one that I hope has been helping me is not keeping the demon dogs at bay, but trying to sort of embrace them as like little devil puppies. And it's like, okay.

MerlinYou know, how about this? Let's domesticate the demon dogs.

AlexExactly. Like, you know what? You can be here, but you can't jump on the couch because otherwise you'll make me sneeze. Stuff, like, they're always going to be there. I've tried many things to get rid of them.

MerlinYou use that phrase a lot. I think it's a great phrase, living rent-free in my brain. But, like, that's my brain. That's my mind. Like, I am the one who feels the need to return to that often enough that the lease is always renewed whether I like it or not.

AlexWell, you – things – I probably – I either got that from you or TikTok. Who knows? There are many things that we're getting rid of in our house that like – it's like we are – we're paying Dougie to keep our Funko Pops here.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah.

AlexIt's another thing that you have talked about often in that like this, these, these things represent the people we were and we love and cherish what those things are and what that time was. But that's not who we are and who we want to be. Not slagging on Funko Pops or anything.

MerlinAnd it's not even like, I mean, the thing is, it doesn't have to be. I keep falling back to that example that I think is the easiest to understand example of a New Year's resolution to lose weight. Like, which, you know, say whatever you want about that. But like that is a very common thing people have. They decide, I've decided to make this big decision when the calendar flips, I'm going to become a different person just by dint of my own will. And even though, like I say, in terms of like yesterday's weather, you may not have much of a basis.

Have you shown your work in terms of your success with deciding things by fiat in the past? Some people are very good at that. Some people are not. Like if you're John Roderick, you might say, I'm just not going to drink anymore, even though that's the main thing I do. You could just decide that. I think for most people that's very difficult. And the less harmful thing but the annoying thing everybody notices is, oh, it didn't work. I think the more pernicious thing is I'm rehearsing failure. Every time I don't succeed, every time I don't make good on a deal I've made with myself, whether that's to be somewhere at a certain time, you get to decide all of those things.

I know you like to think that it's your boss's fault or whomever, but like we each get to, we have to decide what we agree to do. And it's one thing to have the rug pulled out from under you by the world. It's another thing for you to do that to yourself. And if you're constantly breaking deals with yourself, something needs to change.

You need to, you need to, I don't know. I don't know what you need to do, listener, but like it's beneficial to realize when something's not working in the way you assume that it's working. And this is where, like I say, it gets a little bit mundane, but some of the examples I want to share are beyond mundane, but the results are more than mundane. By realizing there's something, and then, you know, in my usual sort of array of this, I change the way, if I change the way I feel about something, I can change the way that I think about something.

If I change the way I think about something, I change the way I can do something. And that's the beginning of something kind of real. And if you think you can just skip over those steps, you're fucked. You can't just go straight from, I don't like the way my tummy feels, to like, I can really imagine myself losing 60 pounds or whatever. And I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying, well, there's all kinds of aspects of that that you can choose to qualify that will give you a clearer runway to something closer to success than failure.

And I'm using those words specifically. Success is this thing I never achieve because I suck. Failure is this thing that I achieve all the time because I'm bad and I'm fat and I'm sad. And it's like, well, you know, you can qualify things. So maybe don't start with the most dramatic thing that's bumming you out right now. Don't take the most emotionally charged and difficult thing in your life and then just decide you're going to wave a magic wand when the clock turns to 12.

You know? So anyway, I don't want to beat that to death. But I do think that's real. And that's why I say the things that I'm going to share are going to seem very mundane. Well, they're not mundane to me. They're meaningful to me because whether that's a big project, a little project or a small change, I can see an improvement in my life and the life of the people around me. If I find an accommodation that lets me either move past a block that I've got or to ideally, in the most exciting way, harness a superpower I didn't know I have by just doing something a little different.

But my stake in the ground, whether it's life hacks or life change or whatever, biohacking, whatever you want to call it, is that I think first you have to see clearly. You have to notice things. then you have to operationalize the changes that you want in that thing in a way that makes sense and that you have the cycles and the infrastructure to actually do. So like, let's do a few just off the dome, like stop agreeing to everything. Stop agreeing to everything that anyone asks you to do unless that's your project.

But like you should be able to ruminate over or deliberate over whatever it is you decide to allow into your life. And if there are things that snuck into your life because you let them sneak in, it is valuable to become aware that that is not furniture. That's your life. That's what you live with. That don't become a psychological hoarder. Like you don't have to have all of those things in that way.

AlexSuch a good phrase.

MerlinBut the corollary is you don't need to and cannot change all of that by fiat with the wave of a wand. Why don't you cut yourself a fucking break? Stop escalating everything into the most emotional thing that you can possibly come up with. And why don't you look for a modest way to make good on more of the deals that you make with yourself, potentially by quietly, secretly, personally committing to a certain kind of change and then doing what needs to be done that on the day that's difficult and the next

day and the next day and the next day that that's difficult, you either decide this isn't worth doing or if it is worth doing, I'll continue to find accommodations that make that's something that I can do. And that's, that's what I, some of the things I want to talk about, but I would also entertain any questions or thoughts that you have on this.

AlexOh, I mean, because I, I, I don't want to say, well, I've been hearing you say this for years, but I, I,

Merlinbut you have to remember to remember, Alex. Exactly. Remember to remember. Right.

AlexAnd I've been thinking about this for so long. And I think that I'm also lucky in that I hopefully have been able to swerve and avoid some of the more grifty life hacking stuff. But the New Year's resolution thing resonated with me real hard. And so I always try to do kind of a reboot every year, but I always make it in March because nothing ever happens in March.

And so this is my sleep.

MerlinAnd when you do something like that, it strikes me that there's two kinds of general sorts of resolutions of that sort, just very generally, which is I either want to, as soon as possible, quit doing something full stop or as soon as possible, I want to start doing something full stop. And there's a million ways to look at that. But like I do want to quit smoking. I do want to start exercising. Right. Is it fair to say that that's a general pattern is like there's a thing about me or my life that is not okay with me and I want to see a change.

So I either want to do a lot more of this or a lot less of that.

AlexWell, yes, and I think that's what you're getting then in terms of like mental health because the resolutions that folks come up with, it's usually to change the thing that they feel is either the worst thing about their life or the thing that makes them the most unhappy.

MerlinAnd yeah, it's well, another way in my in my parlance, it would be if we if we take that thing I keep saying about feeling bad about feeling bad. Well, I would ultimately I would like to not feel bad. But for me, I would also accept feeling less bad about how I feel bad would be would be one way to to qualify, you know, qualify that or to ease your way into something. It feels like you feel like you're being dishonest with yourself in your party hat on December 31st if you do something that seems too, you know, sort of trivial.

Right.

AlexOh, yeah. December through January is my personal jubilee of fuck it. Not fuck it all. But I try to, you know, live with live with the demon dogs. And also, what I have found helpful with my own infrastructure stuff is, as most people know on this show, I don't enjoy binaries. So I try not to set myself up for like, this is an absolute failure.

But if there's a-

MerlinRight, black and white thinking of like, if I don't succeed 100% within the make-believe constraints I've made up, I have necessarily failed forever.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinIsn't that kind of part of it?

AlexAbsolutely. And that's why, you know, to get into like the nerdy lifehacking stuff, that's why I love apps like OmniFocus that don't, you don't need to have a due date. You can have, in fact, you can say, don't even defer this. Don't even think about this till later. And also for me, if I have that set up and ready to go, like the planning is the biggest part of most projects for me. And I guess that is because I'm –

MerlinWhich seems crazy to some people.

AlexIt's – yeah, yeah. Well, and you finally got Maddie off the New Year's resolution change. And I was like, listen, this is a – like, yeah, this is something you want to do. Let's do it. But let's do – like, how about the resolution is to start rather than –

MerlinOh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And that's why I did that series on 43 Folders, Fresh Starts and Modest Changes. It was about that wasn't the meant to be a more gentle way of doing that. But like there's this book and I can't pretend I totally understood this. But when I was trying to understand more about developers and kind of become a little bit of a developer myself, but mostly like to understand the process of something that was very abstract to me. I want to say there's a bunch of books I really like, like Code Complete, but a really good one. I think it was called Rapid Development. But they and they had this chart in there. And I don't know if this is true.

Might have been Mythical Man Month, but I'm pretty sure it's Rapid Development. Anyway, it was this book that – some book I came across about development included a chart that showed you the estimated cost of change to a project based on when you have to make that or need to make that change. And, you know, unsurprisingly to people like, you know, you and me, a change in the early planning parts of a project versus a change at the last minute to a on the market shipped product.

Unsurprisingly, the cost of that any way you want to slice it, but especially in terms of money, unbelievably different. If you decide to make a change in your spec for the bridge before it's built and cars are driving over it, as you can imagine, it's a lot less costly. And so that's why I would say when people say, oh, you know, why are you overthinking this? Why are you overdoing that? Because my disposition is to identify the things that I know are going to be difficult, to identify the things I'm pretty sure have a level of uncertainty from the stakeholders

that make it a risky thing for me to commit to shipping by a certain time, even just my one piece. There's all those different things. But like if you are somebody who appreciates infrastructure and planning, you know that just on risk mitigation alone, you will – and then when the time does come that you have bugs in your software or whatever that is where you have a defect in a shipped product, I mean you're going to always have to deal with that. But you won't have to deal with that on top of all these other things you really should have had the presence of mind to think about at the least costly, most blue sky part of project planning.

And I think that if that doesn't go for your life, I wish you'd think about it.

AlexOr I know, too, that this the first time folks hear stuff like this, there is that like, well, that's fine for Merlin aspect. But I don't think it's as not totally, totally.

MerlinA great way to stay a great way to stay in a world where things are only fine for Merlin is to think like that.

AlexYep, yep, yep, yep. And I need to... There are a lot of things that I, you know, don't have control of that I would like to have control of. But because of the infrastructure I have been able to put in place, and sometimes it's not fair that I have to put into, like, because things suck. And the worlds are changing, but even, like, there are so many things, whether it is health or work, and that you shouldn't have to prepare for, but this is the world, and it will still help.

Like, it doesn't mean that you failed if you did not prepare enough and then your app breaks or something or, you know, or the microphone dies. It's I don't again, trying to think I would get out of that binary thinking as well as like, OK, well, that's fine for Merlin. But exactly. It's fine for Merlin.

MerlinBut there must be what's going to be fine for you.

AlexYeah. Like there's a reason.

MerlinWhat are you OK tolerating because you decided that you're how you are?

AlexYeah. And if you're going to, quote, check your privilege, then how about finding out what is fine for you and what is not fine for other people that you say you care about and help to put that infrastructure in place? And I know this is like the big woke take, but for me, it's down to like...

MerlinWell, I mean, it's one thing to go like, and this is one reason I have a lot of problems with that particular way of thinking. And it's also why I struggle with it because I don't want to sound like a privileged asshole.

AlexBut you are privileged, but you're not an asshole. Or maybe you're a dick, but you're not an asshole.

MerlinWell, I'm not going to say everybody's privileged, but people have more agency than they like to admit. And it's more fun to be this heroic person who's borne about by the slings and arrows of life. But anyway, let's skip over that for now. I'm going to repeat something real quick just because I can't think of a better example of this. If we take it as read that there are people who decide by fiat that, for example, let's just say, let's go straight to it. I want to lose weight. I don't like feeling like I feel. OK.

And it doesn't have to be about New Year's resolutions, but that's a valuable way to explore why that's difficult. And from the get-go, there can be problems with the way you approach that. Now, I chose to phrase it that way because I think that's a pretty common way that people phrase that. Absolutely. So like from the get-go, like, okay, but so you want to do this thing. Now, like, let's think about like what that really means to you. If you don't lose X pounds by Y date, does that mean you failed? And does that matter to you? Because that's important.

Like, I don't care one way or another, but you should. Like, if that matters to you, okay, well, let's make that part of the way. It's almost like on predicted.org, the way that they have very specific ways that things are phrased in terms of the contracts for a bet. and when the decision is made, when it pays out, all that kind of stuff. You know, will Andrew Cuomo be governor by the end of the calendar year? But there's a lot to that, and you can ride those waves. But, like, I'm saying here that, like, let's just stick with this one dumb example because it works, which is, like, from the conception, let's make sure we're putting this in a wholesome

and, as we'll get to in a second, realistic way. So, like, I mean, what if your goal was something much more annoying, which is like, I'd like to feel better about myself, that gives you a lot more runway for what you decide to do. If you do decide that I'm going to lose weight, or I'm going to specifically lose this much weight by this date, or I'm going to quit smoking tomorrow and never smoke again, I'm just here to tell you as your pal and risk assessor that that does not give you a lot of flexibility on the days when it doesn't go great. So the way that you phrase it can be

important. Also, by the way, surprise, nobody cares about your resolution, which also means, lucky for you, nobody cares if you decide to change the terms of your resolution because it turns out you use a monkey's paw and it's not the thing that you wanted and now you're unhappy or somebody got sick. What, you're not going to go to the hospital because you know you have to eat out of a vending machine? Well, you know, suck it up. I'm so familiar with hospital vending

Alexmachines.

MerlinYou know, they don't sell sugar beverages at UCSF anymore. I don't know if I could have gotten through my child's birth if they had that rule

Alexthen. They only had diabetes.

MerlinNow let's get to the, to me, the part that I find important and bracing and hopeful in this, which is where does the infrastructure come into it? Like, well, okay, let's even say it's very important to you because you're in some office pool for a January 1st change beginning. Well, you know, be careful. Be careful what you sign up for that like, you know, makes shame the only way that you can, shame the only pathway to what you hope is success because that's not incredibly positive. but the one I always say, cause I think this is a great example,

maybe, maybe before you undertake any of those things, before you even committed to what your goal is, you know, maybe even while you're still sort of phrasing and framing what, what the project is and what success will look like. Let's go to the obvious ones. As I always say, like, first of all, is there like a problem food for you? Like, I really like ice cream. I mean, there's not any, a lot of like huge problem foods and I don't really need to lose weight. But like let's say I knew that potato chips were a thing I found myself eating even on nights when I didn't want to be eating them.

And let's say when I did eat them, I ate more than I wanted to. And let's say that when I was done eating them, I felt bad about myself. Well, as your friend and risk assessor, I'm here to say that's a good example of a food. Let's start easy that you need to stop buying.

But, you know, I think that's also a food you need to get out of the house. So number one, stop getting the thing that's that risky, tempting problem. Number two, let's go a level deeper. Get rid of all those kinds of things right now. Now, is that enough? No way. Just not having it, guess what? You can call Postmates and have like 20 pounds of French fries in an hour. That's not the answer. The next thing, just for this one little dumb part, is you're going to need to stock the place with foods that you will eat.

foods that you might even look forward to eating that are not the problem food.

AlexAnd you can't lie to yourself, which I have done many times.

MerlinIt doesn't work. It absolutely doesn't work.

AlexThese are my healthy snacks and then you don't eat them for two months.

MerlinWell, and I feel like it's the kinds of foods, like let's say there's those kinds of foods you always end up donating to the food bank or to the canned food drive. It's like nobody wants your cream corn. Here's my sun chips. Thank you for your service. Thanks, Caroline. mind. But like all, so that's just, and again, we're just talking about one aspect. I just want to like get this one thing in place. If you have a goal that involves losing weight, you know, I'll let you decide what all the rules for that are. But I can tell you, if you need to think about that and plan enough to identify, is that a thing? How can I, how can I begin an infrastructure

here? So I don't know the answers to any of that. And that goes for all the other things too. Like, you know what, here's a good tip. If you want to stop smoking, you need to stop buying cigarettes. That sounds obvious, but like, what is your plan for not buying cigarettes? And is there something that you will potentially try to replace as a different habit? It's hard to fill a void with nothing, oddly enough. So I don't know what the answer to that is, but for any of those things, the infrastructure part is assuming from the beginning, because you're a good, smart,

wise project manager, you know that things go wrong with every project. And part of risk mitigation is thinking ahead of time, not about whether something will go wrong, but what I'll do when it goes wrong and how costly it will be to fix. Because the earlier you figure that out, the better. So like an example here, I'll just speak again, speak for myself if that were my goal. And

Alexit's not. Well, and I had also say this is something that I've seen actually people not get wrong, but costly, not just in monetary terms, but I think across the board. It could just be

Merlinpure stress. Stress is free. Like that's an unlimited supply. But like for me, that might mean getting some hand fruit or cutting up some fruit to have in a bowl or getting a kind of vegetable that I like. Like when I make a big meal, for example, part of my infrastructure is I do, I guess you could call it mise en place. I would just call it prep. But like anything that I can prep at a certain time earlier makes it less stressful and it makes it more fun when it's time to put it all together. You know what I'm saying? Like, so for example, if I can chop the parsley early and put it in a ramecan, I will. If I make my own like steak seasoning. So if I make

that myself, like whatever that is, and that my demon dog of wanting all the food to come out at the same time is served by some planning ahead. If you know there's stuff you need to do, you know there's an order of operations for what you need to do. Why would you not plan? Why would you not do a mise en place that lets you be better prepared for dealing with that? So the big pattern, the little pattern here is whatever your thing is, think through the part you know you can expect to be difficult, plan for that, get an infrastructure for dealing with that, and guess what? You will be

less stressed not only when that comes along, but when the thing you didn't expect and couldn't have predicted comes along, right? So sort of like what happened in Texas. Nothing in Texas with the weather and the infrastructure there, nothing there could not have been predicted. What would have been more difficult to predict is how those would interact in these Lorenz curves sort of ways that screwed everything up. You can't be 100% on this. See, also a good reason to give yourself, you know, forgiveness and more loose variables. But a specific goal, but like friendly rules for achieving that goal that you're willing to participate in from the get-go.

So that's just that one. That's just one example that's really obvious, but I'm sure a smart listener will be able to abstract that to whatever their thing is. Put it in a different way. If you were doing a postmortem on all the times, well, you know, like I say, if New Year's resolutions work, you'd only ever have to do one of them once ever.

AlexOh, God, that's good.

MerlinWhoa, really? You're going to do this resolution for the fifth time? What happened to the other times? Well, January 5th happened all the other times. And so let's try doing it exactly the same way again because it's got to work this time because now I'm mad. So that's just that one part. And then I want to give you some – if I may, I want to hear your response. But I also want to give you like a couple of specific examples of these incredibly mundane things I find useful.

AlexAre you thrown to me right now for examples?

MerlinWell, I'm talking a lot here and I don't mean to sound like the professor or something.

AlexNo, no, you don't. Uh, which is, well, let's actually let's go with the weight thing again. A couple of years ago, I was like, you know, people say that getting healthier physically helps your, your mental health. Cool. I'm going to, I'm going to try and do that. And I put in infrastructure in place.

MerlinI stopped eating carbs and now my brain doesn't work.

Alexand and yeah for a while uh i really highly recommend uh maintenance phase for folks it

Merlinreally frames like not not just weight oh it's such a i've really gotten into that show i love

Alexit so much the cleanse one is amazing oh it's why it's a it's a delight hearing what was in the

Merlinactual book that became the basis and it's sort of an inbox zero situation where people don't actually know what the hell that lunatic is talking about but it's hopefully in a slightly different way but you're like oh really this is about the bible what like it's crazy yeah great

Alexshow we'll put it in notes it's very it's it's such a good it's such a good show um but but i had the thing of i i had an issue where okay i have a like achieved these like physical goals if you will and and i was like oh cool like uh good job i did that infrastructure i put that in in place you know had my stupid oh the fucking exercise shit like i keep these stupid weights next to my desk i hate them i hate them so much but once again now you're mad now you're mad at

the weights and you're mad at yourself uh no but but no i hate them because i know that i will use them and i know that i will uh probably feel a little bit better afterwards but um you know there's always the gross thing of the family members being oh you look so good i don't you feel better and like no i fucking don't not even a little bit like maybe like i don't know and then

Merlinit's like okay you used to be so disappointing and for right now you're not as disappointed yeah

Alexyeah like oh thank you oh you're you look so much you're smiling and you have that dress

Merlinuh you look a little more the way we've always wanted thank you thank you you must feel great

Alextwo have not disappointed me and luckily like i uh you know what how about this in the opposite

Merlinof compliment can we go to stomplement this is really not meant i didn't actually think this through and i'm gonna say it anyway and i'm the asshole you know you're less fat you don't sweat

Alexwomen have a thing and you know i i grew up in in the most protected class of of human which is white women so uh and sure maybe not the most powerful chicago catholics but yeah oh boy but but i i was like okay well how have i failed if what i i literally got to check off all the boxes for all of these things that i wanted to do and then it's like well

Merlinwhat the fuck now and the uh again monkey's paw be careful what you ask for right and and uh the

Alexthe people probably even have uh people i always say people and really i mean the very nice people on uh not just twitter but on the internet your welsh your welsh troll the the welsh trolls and and uh and uh like it's like oh where's where's an episode of show the girl i'm like well we purposely don't have a schedule and like we're just like we'll do make the thing when we want to make it and then i was like oh there's not weight stuff going on there's gender stuff going

on here and oh wow i'm like oh fuck it's coming from inside your body yep like oh the problems in the tits not the tummy so oh boy and and leave him in michigan that's what i always say yep and well that's that's the thing is like okay uh now we're exploring different infrastructures of like again like using the hashtag privilege to to go to therapy and i'm like oh oh probably just uh suppressing a lot of this internalized transphobia oh oh like the reason i the reason i hate taking

showers isn't because i think i'm fat like there's a whole lot going on here oh god that's so good

Merlinyeah oh my god that's good that's a really good observation well and but but that was like my my

Alexfreak out at um sort of the beginning of uh this this or rather last summer last summer was a great time to have this realization uh and then it's like uh and then the whole like demon dogs of like oh god if i am if i'm another genderqueer person who's getting top surgery and i'm like wait a second i am that's another thing of of like turning 30 i'm like wait i'm 30 years old who the fuck cares what i do i mean i know people will care what i do about my body that's an entire

Merlinpolitical an entire political party but it's a lot more to it it's a lot more to it than a five minute decision on december 31st oh yes there's a lot of threads there yeah and and uh the and the

Alexreason it's it's uh but i'm looking at in enough that um i'm i'm oh i i feel like i would i oh oh yeah i don't think i've ever talked to you about this uh just like i will probably be there's a

Merlinbunch of this you've never talked to me about and i'm finding it fascinating the oh really oh um i

Alexdon't know what the fuck goes on in your life well i don't know i don't know i don't know oh so

MerlinOh, my, a titty lawyer? I've got enough penises to take care of over here.

AlexWell, that's the thing. It's like, do I need a tummy lawyer or a titty lawyer? Oh. And it's like figuring out, it genuinely was kind of like, oh, this to-do app isn't working for me. Why? And the reason I frame it like that is that's how my brain works. And because I had that infrastructure in place and i'm like well did this infrastructure why did this infrastructure fail i i did not fail and the infrastructure didn't the infrastructure failed because i

didn't uh remember um in this case i don't think remembering to remember where it it's almost like i wasn't thinking about thinking enough like i had this single goal in mind and i was like oh

MerlinDo you feel like you hadn't pushed past the default – not default, but like to get to where you got to for now, you had to kind of push past something, right? Oh, yeah. In terms of your own thinking or cognition?

AlexThe most obvious – and it sounds so obvious now that Maddie is like, well, you know, is it possible? Could it be possible that you've had a lot of more – a lot more traumatic and upsetting things?

MerlinI assume that this is something that you've gone through and made a decision about of some kind three or four years ago. So this is fascinating to me.

AlexOh, no. That's that. No, that is that probably deep, deep down inside where the, you know, where the boob demons are. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, and it's like, ah, it's okay if you need to take, like there are, you know, if you're going to pock the stack, as your worst best friend would say, like, it's okay. to take care of more important things first. Like you might want to lose 25 pounds overnight, but it's probably good to make sure that you have a-

MerlinBoy, talk about a big project with a lot of moving parts. My goodness.

AlexOh, dude, I am so good at like project planning for hospital music.

MerlinThis has really changed into a different episode and I'm fascinated. No, it's not.

AlexSee, that's the thing. I totally disagree. And I was like, oh, should I bring this up? And it's like, no, because the way that I-

MerlinI'm glad if you're comfortable, I'm glad you did.

AlexOh, yeah. But well, and that's the thing.

MerlinIt's like the we will be we will be putting this out in the public feed, by the way. This is too fucking good.

AlexWait, sorry. What?

MerlinWe've got to put this in the feed tomorrow. This is good.

AlexOh, OK, cool. Oh, thank you. Well, and that's like the one thing that fell down is like, OK, I have all of this. I was so like I did my that's fine for Alex. what failed in in my project planning like where where did i what did i miss i missed a step somewhere yeah and then i was like and then i was like oh i i did not miss a step it's just that there are the project's done and i need to move on like i need to get rid of the funko pops like

the the anxiety about weight or me and and well it turned out it was not an anxiety about weight so much. But it's like, all right, the the all these are anxious things. Yes. Yeah. And it's like, oh, okay. So I did this, did this work done a whole lot of work on, you know, the chemicals in my brain to get to a certain spot. And like, if I'm going to call myself a progressive or leftist or what whatever in terms of political policy, I would hope that I am the same in my

interpersonal and in my in my relationships with other humans as well especially uh with my

Merlinrelationship with myself we talked to we talked to ourselves in a way we would never talk to others yeah and god because we're decent people this is even setting aside the whole like what kind of advice would you give a friend who's actually you you know there's kinds of things that we say to each other that would just be beyond the pale but we're fine to just be the uh what did annie lamont call it the jukebox of my greatest hits of failure yes i'm fine to have this loop this loop playing all day long about what a piece of shit i am and how i don't deserve the things that

i wish everybody else in life got why would i be generous with myself i know i'm not worth it

AlexLike, why wouldn't I, like, if I cared about myself a fraction of the amount that I cared about you.

MerlinIf you worried about yourself as much as you worried about others. And not worried as in, like, you know, fretful, like, I'm worried you're going to get on heroin. But more like, I want your future to be good.

AlexYeah, like, if I just.

MerlinOne thinks that about so many people where you're like, you know, like, you know, there's like celebrities where I'm just looking, you know, I just hope they're happy. I hope Pedro Pascal is happy. It seems really nice.

AlexWhen I saw that John Mulaney was recovering, I was like, yes. I know.

MerlinWhen he got out, we were like, oh my God. I actually said that to my daughter. I hope he's happy.

AlexYes. Oh, gosh. And I think that's-

MerlinThat was two months. Two months, dude.

AlexYeah. Well, if your demon dogs are, if you need to put your demon dogs in rehab, like, hey, different life.

MerlinSend him the rehab kennel. Yeah.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou've got to learn to behave.

AlexYeah. Yeah. it like drop it drop it drop it oh and well and all right sometimes you'll realize that your dog uh maybe maybe just needs a new leash or you were doing needs to go back to Delaware for a while right right and I don't know like that that was the one part of I don't want to say that again I don't want to say that it failed it was it was just a a total shift in also now how I plan projects in general again to literally how i'm like organizing my closet it's like all right

if this doesn't make me happy like that's okay we're figuring it out as we go along and because i'm lucky enough to have the space to have accomplished something you're figuring out which potato chips you want to get rid of yes and and like uh i mean oh god okay the okie dokie cheese popcorn that you like get at gas stations it's totally not a food at all so once a month i'm there's on our shared grocery shopping list alex's gross popcorn that's so funny that's so

Merlinfunny you should say that i had an example that crop up the other day because you know when you have a family you buy each other like joke gifts and stuff like that but i forget exactly when whenever the thing happened with ted cruz and doritos something happened maybe he had a dorito on his shirt or something.

AlexOh, his, yeah, yeah. That was the big nacho cake.

MerlinBut there was something Doritos related. And around then was, I'm going to guess probably Valentine's Day, but I don't remember. And because I'm the king of stupid, dumb gifts, my wife and I were just talking about, like, oh, God, I used to love Doritos. I used to love Funyuns. And so in her, the equivalent of her Valentine's Day stocking or whatever it was, I got her this little bag of Doritos. And she was like, oh, my God. She's like, I'm going to save this for a day that I really need it. and she'd come back from a run. You know, she runs every day and she'd come back

Alexand yesterday, day before, probably day before,

Merlinshe goes, she reaches in the cabinet and goes, she goes, you know what? Today's the day. I need the Doritos. So that's the corollary here. Because she's not constantly tempted by Doritos, it's okay in her rule book to have a whatever, three ounce bag of Doritos that just sits in the cabinet for a month or more. And then one day she eats a couple of them. And, you know, it's what chips do you want in your life? You know, what chips do you leave in Michigan? What to leave in, what to leave out, as Michigan resident Bob Seger used to say.

AlexExactly. I derailed you. I want to give this one.

MerlinI just want to give this one example of a thing from this week that's already working out for me. Here's the problem. The problem is, as I've said, ad infinitum, I am very aware of the fact that, you know, part of this is behavioral. Like I'm at this office by myself through most of the working day. Like, you know, I hang at home sometimes, but honestly, it's good for, no one needs to say this. It's good for everybody for me to not be at the house. I've got an office. Why wouldn't I use it? That means two people in a 900 square foot flat, two people, the difference between two people and three people is a big difference.

If I'm milling around and doing shit and trying to fix the iRobot and like, man, dad's talking to people and, you know, it's just better off. But then I come home at usually five on the dime. And as I say, as I stipulated, I know from years, ever since my diagnosis, I know that regardless of the medicine, regardless of the whatever, four o'clock is my – there's a time every baby gets sad. You usually put unhappy hour. 4 p.m. is my unhappy hour.

And I'm not – if I'm just sitting around my office doing whatever, I might be taking a nap. I might be working on a project thing. But that is really – there is a 90-minute period where my brain is flagging and I get a little bit cranky. I get a little bit like easily annoyed. And regardless of the drugs, regardless of the – whatever the regimen is, there's some kind of a – and back in the day, that used to be – that's when the Adderall is wearing off. So woof, that's rough. Even now, though, when I'm not as medicated, I do know that's when I feel – and it could be drugs.

It could be just the day and the sleep and the times and the whatnot. But like I do know that four to five is a time where – let me put it this way. Before I got smart, let me just put it this way. It's like ugh, ugh. Like I certainly am aware that that's a time. And you know what sucks about that? That's the time when I go home and I hang out with my family.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinAnd like I say, we all have our accommodations. my wife is usually still working at that point my kid never leaves her room because she's just you know talking to her friends which is awesome but and I'm mostly by myself but I am kind of a cranky butt and but there's more to this right so I've come home from the office and of course I'm carrying my Tom Bin backpack with like 20 pounds of stuff in it right and because I am fortunate enough to be old and I gotta go up a hill I'm pretty tired even on the scoot scoot I'm pretty tired let's here's the other

thing though and this actually does matter I don't care if it matters to you. It matters to me. I know like, hey, cool, I'm going home. I'm into it. Like I like my family. They're the best. And I legit like being with my family. And so it's cool. Like I'm going home. So why isn't this a happy time? Well, ADD. Also, backpack full of shit. And of course, now I'm also carrying things home. Like if I got an Instacart delivery and an included cat litter and I got to carry 20 pounds of cat litter home, all I want to get, I want to get you in the mindset of me needing to go up a hill laden with items.

Now, like, I got to get through the kill zone with all this. There's stuff and there's children's shoes. And now, without realizing it, I'm getting more sort of irritated. I get upstairs. One of my, Mike, my, I have a, not implicit, one of my jobs, chores, is that I have to do stuff like take down the recycling through the kill zone. Recycling, compost, trash. I really try to stay in front of the dishes that isn't and shouldn't be something my wife has to take care of all the time just because she's at home and she's a lady.

And so I affirmatively try to help with – how can I put this? Because it sounds like I'm being evasive and I'm not. I have chores and I do my chores.

AlexNo, I feel – I totally feel what you are saying now because it sounds like I'm trying to be evasive.

MerlinI don't want to over-dramatize it.

AlexWell, that's the thing. I'm like, do I want to talk about my boobs and how I like thinking about like full on top? You should talk about your boobs. Well, but that's the thing. It's like you're not being evasive. It's you're thinking about thinking.

MerlinShe is legit better at it and faster at it. Once again, QED, she's all about forests and I'm all about trees. And that causes the most wonderful friction in the way we solve problems in a way that's like, because I am the guy who's like, yeah, but did you think about this? and she's the person who's like, actually, it's already done. I did it. And I go, how did you do that? But setting that aside, I'm really not –

AlexMaddie is the Madeline.

MerlinIs what?

AlexMaddie's the Madeline.

MerlinOh, really? Oh, God, of course, of course, of course. So anyway, Maddie and Maddie, a podcast I pray never happens. Oh, God. Maddie and Maddie.

AlexOh, nightmare. I'm sorry.

MerlinIt's like Marshall and Marsha on Parks. But anyway, so – but let's just get to where I'm going with this. So, I mean, I know, I knew going into this for whatever 10, 15, however long years it's been that I've been aware of my officially diagnosed condition. I know it's a low energy time. And the way that I usually say that is my brain is fried right now. Like I need to just go look at a screen or I need to concentrate on something. I need to concentrate on cleaning the Roomba. I need to concentrate on trying to get my SSL certificate to work right.

I need to do something very specific and detail oriented. But what I need to be doing, a deal I have tacitly made with myself is, no, I'm supposed to – and even though my family, the rest of my family is not like around at this point. They're in other rooms. I'm mainly in the lounge by myself over here. Might be watching some Anderson Cooper or whatever. But hanging over my head is all the stuff that isn't done that I could be doing, which is like sometimes – and sometimes, let's be honest. Sometimes I'm a little miffed and I'm like, oh, wow, the dishes are still here from before even though I was the last person to do the dishes.

Do I love feeling like that? No. But I think dishes need to be done. Not only do the dishes need to be done, I carried all that stuff up. I am wiped. I come upstairs. I just want to do it. But like, you know what? It's all looming over me. There's dishes in the sink. There is. And we're not gross or anything, but you know what I mean. These are all small things that need to be dealt with. Maybe I never finished like seasoning that pan from the other night. There's all of that. Oh, guess what? We're playing that Simpsons game where like the person that makes the pile of garbage fall over, has to take it out. The recycling

is full. So I can't even, you know how it is where you can't clean until you clean? So not only am I wiped, not only would I like to be trying to get my Let's Encrypt certificate fixed, just have Anderson Cooper on in the background while I drink a seltzer, my own expectation with myself has not been met. And guess who's mad? Me. Guess who I'm mad at? Me. But I'm also really fucking tired. So now I need to go through the kill zone again, get all the fucking trash out, be able to do the dishes, make room for the dishes to dry, all that kind of stuff.

It's all such petty bullshit. But what a dumb, shitty way for me to feel at 5 p.m. when I've just come home from my very fucking easy job. And you know what I changed? I said to myself, I can't change the fact that I'm neurologically a little vulnerable at that time. But you know what? I can try to at least improve my attitude. I wouldn't count on that as the first line defense toward being a complete and whole non-neurotypical person, but I can choose to be a little bit more jolly about things. But then there's some very specific things that I can

do. One thing is before I leave the house, I try to not leave a mess. I try to, if there is like morning dishes stuff, morning dishes that are like crazy fucking easy to clean up because they're just the morning dishes. Well, guess what? By the late afternoon, it's a whole day's worth of dishes. Why don't I get in front of that? And why don't I improve this area? So one easy one is like I try to at least get everything sort of like rinsed out and cleaned up. I empty, we have that little dishwasher. I empty that from the night before. Just little basic things where I've left the place a little bit better.

That's the small thing. So four o'clock, five o'clock, I know I'm gonna have to fight all these things. I gotta carry this shit. I gotta get through the kill zone. And I started doing the simplest thing that so far is non-invasive to my family and I hope they appreciate.

Afternoon chores. So when I'm done with my stuff, like when I'm done here, I'm going to go home and do my afternoon chores. And so what do I do? Guess what? First one. So I still have my regular mostly morning energy. If I have something I need to carry home, why don't I bring it home now when I have a little more energy? Whatever that is. So, you know, and I've always got a list, a running list of things that should go from house to office, things that should go from office to house, because, you know, that's how it works. It's probably like that for everybody. You pick up dry cleaning type stuff, whatever.

But so number one, so dumb. I'm going to go home at one, two, even three o'clock because I don't really come home for the day till five. But if I don't have anything outstanding, why do I wait until the time of day when I'm most fucked up to do the heaviest lifting I will do that day, literally? So anything that needs to go home, put it in the backpack, put it in a bag. Where does it go? It goes by the door. so that when I leave, I just pick it up and go. I make it easy on myself. And then I scoot, scoot up the hill with the heavy things.

But you know what? I'm feeling fine. It's okay. It's one or two in the afternoon. Still good. Still in the window. Ultraman's light has not started blinking. I get home. I put my scoot, scoot away. And you know what I do? I go upstairs. And I'm not as bothered by the children's shoes. I'm not as bothered by any of the things. And you know what I do? I do the chores then, which is I do the dishes, get them in the dishwasher. all of the oh you just got a slack from matt howie um i so recycling goes down and i've got

an improved workflow for that that's been a lot easier i'm doing that thing where i'm playing the video game of like minimizing the amount of effort if stuff if paper towels need to come up i bring those up after i've taken recycling down this it gets more mundane so strap the fuck in all of that dumb shit. But it's

Alexthe more mundane it is, the more important it is so you can focus

Merlinon the... I have to earn in this explanation I feel the need to earn the incredibly modest but satisfying results of this. But that's what I'm doing now. And if there is stuff I need to do at home, you know what? Invariably, there's stuff I forgot needs to go to the office. Aha! My little thumb drive that I put extra large movies on that should go into my watch pocket and my jeans because that's going to go back to the office to get loaded up. Also remember to add a reminder. You know what you need to do? Remember to remember. So what does that mean? I open up the task paper and fucking A, there's always at least one thing that I forgot to

remember. So that's the thing that needs to go back to the office. And guess what? When I do that at 1 p.m., I also might notice or remember or think of something that's at the office that needs to come home. Do a basic survey of the house. Is there anything obvious that needs to be different right now that I could just take care of right now? Remember, it's only one or two o'clock. We're still going to have Daddy's Afternoon Podcast and Project Time back at the office. But I brought home the dumb stuff that's heavy. I've brought up the supplies that need to be brought up. I've taken down the things that need to be chored.

And I've got that satisfying sound of the dishwasher running, doing all the glasses and silverware from earlier. And if I'm good, for the second time that day, I've left the place better than I found it. The counter is clear. And whoever walks into that room, especially one of those people, will probably notice that and be a little happier that that got taken care of. And then it bounced. I say, I'll see you tonight. And I go back to the office. So then it gets to be four or five o'clock. Let me give you one quick step zero benefit. I'm not dreading the stuff that I know makes me a little bit of a whiny bitch in the afternoon. Guess what? I don't have all that

shit to do. I don't have all this stuff to carry. I don't have all those chores waiting for me. Unless somebody has decided to bake a cake or do science, there's a pretty good chance that in those mere three hours, the place is going to be pretty much the way I left it. School has been happening. Work has been happening. And I get to feel a little bit better. I get to feel like, so what did I learn from that? Find a time that's better for this. It's really, really insightful stuff. If you're low energy at a time that you want high energy, well, you can't change when

your energy, you can't just by fiat create new energy. Why don't you move that to a time when you've got better energy? And like, I have to be honest with you, so far it's been really, really great, but it's also really encouraging because I realized there's probably way more things like this. So basic resource leveling for me includes things like, like when we're done here, I'm going to go clone our document and send you the link because why would I wait until next Tuesday to do that? Why don't I do that while I'm already here right now, while I'm in this

particular kill zone? So that's to me an example of noticing and adding a little bit of infrastructure, making an impossibly small change that actually has an immediate benefit.

AlexYes. Well, I...

MerlinWere you leasing a vehicle or what were you doing? Where'd you go?

AlexI know.

MerlinI know I talked a lot there.

AlexI know. Well, because I love listening to you talk and I love it.

MerlinNow, is there anything in that that makes sense to you, to any of your various conditions in life? Is there anything to that that's not what I'm doing, but like, is there anything that you think you could notice and operationalize to see a tiny life improvement?

AlexWell, I think you've been actually talking about the – or not – you've been acting or doing these things for the past few weeks and it's sort of seeped into – you know, you've talked about it a little bit. It has seeped into other conversations and stuff and I – which makes me happy because it makes you seem happy and I want – I just want people to be happy.

MerlinDon't worry about me. I'm fine.

Alexum the good point i'm very articulate uh but i have always not always but i often think about my brain as uh as ram and i just want to clear as much of it as i want to automate as much of it as possible so that i can you know if i need to boot up of whatever the equivalent of the emotional labor of Final Cut Pro is that isn't going to put a huge strain on my RAM or my hard drive.

And that like the one thing during quarantine that has changed the game is just preparing my clothes for the next day.

MerlinOh, shit. Yeah. If you and that also goes for like if you decide to exercise, I had so much better success if I charged my MP3 player the night before and had all my clothes laid out to go to the Y at 530. Made such a difference.

AlexAnd if you actually have your playlist ready and yeah.

MerlinAnd you look forward to it. You know, I used to leave an index card on my chair at the end of the day. Next time you walk in this room and sit in this chair, here's the very first thing that you do.

AlexYes. Yes. That's like the – they're like a kernel panic. I sometimes need to put things in place that I cannot ignore even as much as I want to.

MerlinBut it's also – but like I've heard this referred to as – this might be Steven Pressfield. but I don't remember. But some people call it parking on a downhill slope or leaving water in the well, whatever you want to call it. But I think it was Pressfield, the War of Archive. Anyway, somebody said park on a downhill, going downhill. Like make it easy to get started the next day. Like leave as hard as it might be, if you're as difficult as it might be while you're writing, leave at the point where you're in the middle of a sentence where you know you can come back. And whatever, I don't know if that's true for everybody, but think about that as a pattern in your life.

It's like, you know, if I need to like, If I'm out of toilet paper, I'm sad. But like if I bring in the toilet paper and I stock up the toilet paper, that's also maybe a good time for me to think, do I need to order more toilet paper? Like there's all these kinds of things where there's like an automation or a shortcut, a script that can run in your head to say, well, you can tell I've been spending a lot of time at home, assistant. Under these conditions, you know, these are the variables. And under these conditions, remember to remember and do that thing and make it easier. You parked on a downhill slope.

AlexYeah. Yeah. I mean, that's now in like I because of issues, I'm still like body and gender issues still working through. I fucking hate showering, but I love being clean because you know what happens if you're not clean. You think about how gross you are and I hate it.

MerlinJust shower in the dark, Alex. It's not complicated. OK. Get a candle.

AlexDude, that is an actual.

MerlinI love showering in the dark.

AlexI now change the lighting in my bathroom to be pleasant.

MerlinYou should make a scene. You should make a scene called I Love Me.

AlexYes, I literally.

MerlinHey, Dingus, I love me.

AlexHey, Dingus, don't hate myself today.

MerlinHey, Dingus, hide my shame.

231. 🔓 Consensual Disruption - After Show 0:00 / 01:02:16