Fatherhood

`3:14:51`

I read this book The Fourth Turning. You check that out. It talks about this notion of history working in cycles, and there are these, phases to history, and they name them and so forth. And the specific theory is not as important as just realizing that this is a... History is a circle, more so than just a straight line. And we are repeating many of the same patterns over and over again. They feel so unique to the moment. And whatever crisis we're dealing with right now feels so pressing and important until we zoom back a little bit in history and realize that the last one also felt so pressing and important to the people who lived through it.

`3:15:55`

I took not a big break, a little break, break from Max this summer, three weeks.

`3:16:21`

I've done that before. I just sometimes get the sense that X in particular is the most addictive form of information, entertainment, connection that exists in my life, and anyone that follow my X stream as I was on my flight over here would certainly go like, "That man is deeply addicted-

`3:16:49`

... to the connection." And yes, guilty as charged, which also means that occasionally I gotta cut it cold, because I do think you can break your brain. And over the summer in particular, for whatever reason, I had somehow managed to steer my feed, my algorithm, towards too much politics, and not enough tech, and not optimism, and not enough building. And even if I agreed with the politics and the angles that were being presented, I just didn't need-... that much of it.

`3:17:23`

And I think arriving at a place where you just go like, "Okay, that's enough." Not that... Like, it doesn't have to be something bad. I would also say after eating probably two, maybe three chocolate strawberries, I'd go like, "Okay, that's enough." Like, it's not that I don't like the chocolate strawberries, it's just, like, I don't wanna eat 17 of them. And I think X and the modern algorithms are very good at feeding you freaking 17 chocolate-covered strawberries.

`3:18:14`

The Goldilocks version of the algorithm. Well, the problem is the algorithm finds out what you respond to-... not what you say you like. It's all revealed preferences, and unfortunately, those revealed preferences are not always pretty. I mean, we have this shadow, as Jung talks about, right? All these dark aspects of ourselves, and they are expressed in how long you linger on a tweet, and what you like, and what you don't like. And the algorithm holds up a mirror-... and it's not always pretty, and I just went, "Do you know what? I need a break."