Your mind has a mind of its own

‍For Christmas, my wife printed out this fun little poem by author, director, and producer Todd Strauss-Shulson and stuffed it into the kid’s stockings. It’s from a children’s book he wrote—Your Mind Makes Thoughts Like Your Butt Makes Farts—and, despite the silly title, there is some beautiful wisdom here.

Your mind has a mind of its own.
It’s chatting and yapping when you’re out or at home.

It thinks it’s in charge, it’s making demands.
Like “Sleep a bit later” or “Don’t wash your hands.”
It yells “I don’t like you!” or “You’re doing great!”
It might make you laugh – or make your heart ache.

But the things that it says are not always true,
Your mind makes up thoughts like your tongue makes you drool.
Like your nose makes snot, like your butt farts a lot,
Your mind has a mind of its own.

If ever your mind gets too angry or sad,
Too noisy, or swirly, or says “everything’s bad,”
No need to believe it, don’t feel so alone
Just let your mind have a mind of its own.

But how do you do it? It’s such a hard task.
The trick is to remember, thoughts just don’t last.

Your mind’s just a friend like your nose, tongue, and butt;
You don’t have to get scared when it starts to erupt.
You can watch it, be friendly, wave as thoughts pass on through.
Say “Hi thought! How are ya! How do you do?”

Thoughts won’t stay forever; they’ll just move right on by
Like a fish in the river or a bird in the sky
Your mind will think thoughts, but you don’t have to believe ‘em
Or get lost in judging, comparing, daydreamin.’

So don’t get so thrown when your mind starts to roam.
If you’re paying attention, you can bring it right home.
You’re lucky your mind has a mind of its own.

We don’t always have control over our minds and what comes up throughout the day. Trying to force control is hardly a good idea, as it doesn’t work and can draw you into an unpleasant spiral. In my experience, when unhelpful or unpleasant thoughts arise in your mind, it’s best to acknowledge them and move on.

The mind is going to do what it’s going to do. And that’s alright.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

⭐⭐⭐⭐

File under: Fantasy

Wizard-level reading challenge: Book under 200 words

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo tells the tale of its namesake, a young queen from the northern kingdom who is sent south for a political marriage after the country lost its war with the south. It’s a short story, told with exquisite and ephemeral prose woven from multiple viewpoints and across timelines, an engaging take on the frame narrative.

I enjoyed this quite a bit. It’s set in a compelling, magical world, based on imperial China, with just enough there to tickle the imagination, allowing the reader to dream a little. Here you’ll find talking birds, ghosts, magic, and some pointed commentary on feudalism and colonization, all wrapped up in a fairy tale of the kind you tell around a campfire at night.

The Teller

I spent some time this week playing around with Midjourney, working on a specific challenge to come up with pieces that felt like they fell into the uncanny valley—that off-putting feeling one feels when experiencing something just on the edge of being human. It was a fun way to explore style and prompting in ways I’d never thought about, and I came up with quite a few weird—and a few wonderfully creepy—results.

This one was my favorite. I call it “The Teller”, and it was an attempt to recreate a memory of seeing a 1960’s era animatronic display. I don’t remember exactly where I saw it; there are several places—Disney, some World War 2 era military museums—but I remember the feeling of seeing the display and being creeped out by it. I think it was the first time I’d heard the term “uncanny valley” and it’s stuck with me, even if the specifics of time or place have not. Memory is a strange thing, and I don’t fully trust my own, especially for things from a long, long time ago.

Lore and some thoughts about AI

A concept test for a little narrative idea I’m working on.

Hey Journal! Today is a busy day for me, so I’m going to keep this one quick and light. I’ve been thinking about AI quite a bit lately and have begun to work it into my creative process, mainly with Midjourney, using it to concept ideas and help me visualize. I do hope to do some more with it. I have a few ideas around creating a narrative that not only supplements my words and imagination, but also plays with the idea of artificial intelligence and art in a more general way.

I’ve yet to play with AI—much—outside of image generation, but I have been tracking other applications and found Lore—a weekly AI newsletter—helpful. Like many, I’ve found AI pretty frightening, but as I learn more, I feel that fear shift towards curiosity. AI is happening, and I feel like leaning in—embrace, learn and grow stronger—is the best way to approach it.

Echoes of Tomorrow

Echoes of Tomorrow - A gothic castle high in the mountains, done in a similar style to that of the American illustrator and architect Hugh Ferriss. The concept was imagined with Midjourney and refined in Procreate.

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I’m not what I’d describe as a visual artist, despite being a designer and having done quite a bit of graphic design and art—illustration, some drawing and painting, and a lot of photography—my whole life. I don’t draw all that well, and though I want to get better, it’s always been challenging and frustrating.

I’ve wanted to learn Procreate and have been playing with it lately. I’ve also been playing around with Midjourney—an AI art tool. I’ve become reasonably proficient with the prompting and have quite a few creations I think are good, but there is always something slightly off about them. So I’ve been exploring AI as an artistic helper, something that helps me capture a vision but also helps me learn the craft. I know many people are scared of AI, and many artists are rightfully against it, but I don’t think it’s going away, and for me, it’s helping me create things I never dreamed I’d be able to. As well it’s been a fantastic visualization tool, finally allowing me to transform my imagination into reality, something I can’t do all that well in my head.

The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma

⭐⭐⭐

File under: Better Living

Routine works well for me. Or that it is; it works well for me when I stick to it, which, frankly, isn’t often—especially the last few years. I’ve struggled with motivation, distraction, and energy throughout my day. A lot of this is external stressors; the previous few years, basically ever since COVID dropped, have been hard on everyone. But it is what it is, and I’ve started doing whatever I can to try and break my way out of the funk I’ve been in. One thing I’ve been trying is waking up earlier, working towards a morning routine that primes me for a focused day and provides me time to do important things—work, write, plan, reflect, etc.—without distraction.

To that end, I’m giving the routine found in The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life by Robin Sharma a try. Sort of.

It’s a relatively simple formula, which I like, and it dovetails nicely with my goals, family situation, work schedule, etc. However, my schedule with work makes it a little challenging to get up at 5 AM daily. So, I’m trying this when I wake up, and slowly, over time, I’ll attempt to shift to an earlier start time. I’ll likely never make it to 5. I’m ok with that. I’m working on building a flexible routine, and the routine found here will be only a part of that and a basis from which to modify. I’ve also got a few other things I like to do with my mornings that work well with the routine outlined here: getting outside with the sunrise, a cold shower (some days, heh), and some playtime with the pup.

We’ll see how it goes.

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A few notes and things that suck with me:

• Most people lack the cognitive bandwidth to be effective every day. This is greatly exacerbated by constant distraction and context switching. For most of us, our work and daily lives make it so we can’t avoid things that destroy our focus.

• Waking up early gives us a time and space that, if done with purpose, is free from daily distractions and allows for natural focus. There is also some science going on here. Without getting too far into it, our brains are primed first thing in the morning, and with some exercise and mindfulness, we can place ourselves in an excellent position to be more focused throughout the day.

• The concept of day stacking is essentially doing small things daily—as opposed to occasional grand efforts—to build skill and mastery.

• How to spend that first hour:

  • 20 minutes of exercise. Move, sweat, and relieve lingering cortisol while priming your brain to think faster.

  • 20 minutes of mindfulness. Meditate, reflect and journal.

  • 20 minutes of growth and learning. Read, listen to a podcast or study something you want to learn.

• How to wind down the day:

  • No screens after 8 pm.

  • Try and be in bed and ready for sleep by 10 pm.

The Random Show: Holidays 2022

Today’s entry is more of a quick share than anything. It sat on my radar to watch for a few weeks now, and I finally got to it. I don’t follow either of these guys closely, though I have read a couple of Ferriss’ books and plan to read The Four Hour Chef sometime soon. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it had been recommended to me as a good one.

Glad I took the time to watch it; it was fun. Anyway, if you’re looking for an entertaining chat full of interesting discussions on various subjects, from Ayahuasca to Cockpunch—and NFT project Ferriss is working on—then give it a watch. Ha.

For real, though, they do cover a lot of interesting things, and I took away quite a few ideas for things to look into from it.

Return My Head: 2023

I’ve always been a massive fan of playlists. And sharing the music I like with others is one of my joys in life. For the last several years, I’ve simplified my playlist game to one primary playlist for the year, which becomes a record and grab-bag of my favorite songs released in a given year, titled with the first song I add to it.

2023 is brand new, so this year’s playlist is pretty fresh. If you’re somehow reading this and interested in finding new music, give it a look and a follow; it’ll be updated with new stuff as I discover it. Funnily enough, two of the songs from the first week in 2023 come from artists that also showed up in the first week in 2022 and 2021: Frank Turner and The Hold Steady.

2023: Return My Head
The first song added this year forms the title. In this case, “Return My Head” by The Murder Capital, who have had a few solid singles come out in the last month or so.

If you’re interested in what has gone before, here are the playlists from 2021 and 2022.

2021: Heavy Covenant
The title based of a fantastic track from one of my all time favorites, The Hold Steady.

2022: A Wave Across A Bay
Titled for a Frank Turner song, another on of my favorite artists. He puts on a fantastic live show.

SLIFT

There will likely be a lot of music shared in this journal. From bands to songs to playlists, sharing music is one of my favorite things to do, and I spend a fair amount of time each week listening to old favorites and new finds.

One of those new finds is the French noise rock band SLIFT, whom I stumbled across over the Christmas break. Let’s ask AI to define them:

SLIFT is a French psychedelic rock band from Toulouse, France. The band was formed in 2014 and consists of three members: Nicolas Gricourt (vocals and guitar), Jérémie Sauvage (bass) and Antoine Michel (drums). The band's music is influenced by a variety of genres, including psychedelic rock, garage rock, and space rock, and is known for its heavy, guitar-driven sound and intense live performances. SLIFT has released several albums, including "La Planète Inexplorée" (2016), "Ummon" (2018), and "Space is the Key" (2020).

Pretty good. Anyway, SLIFT was one of those classic finds for me: a song—in this case, their new single “Unseen”—shows up in some playlist I’m listening to. (Honestly, I don’t know which one or how I found it.) Next thing you know, I’m diving deep into their back catalog. Good stuff. Above is their Live on KEXP performance from a few years back.

Wizard-level reading challenge

The other day Kerri came back from her work at the public library and she brought with her a bingo-type sheet with all sorts of books on it.

The idea here is to choose books from the list and try to complete them all in 2023.

I read a lot, and while I have my favorite genres, I’m always up to broaden my horizons. So I’m going to do this challenge. Some of these will be easy to fit with my regular reading, but looking through the list, I can see quite a few that will prove challenging to find, let alone get through.

I’ll update this page as I go.

• A book over 500 pages written by a woman

• A book that intimidates you

• ✔️ A book that features two languages - Babel by R. F. Kuang

• A book published in 2023 by a BIPOC author

• A book where the protagonist has your dream job

• A book that was published anonymously

• A book with a pink cover

• A book published during your birthday month

• A book you chose based on the title

• A book set in a country you’ve never visited

• Two books that share the same title

• A book by a female author that uses a male pseudonym

• A children’s classic that is also a movie

• A book recommended by a librarian

• A book that’s mentioned in another book

• ✔️ A book under 200 pages - The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

• A book written by a-to-you new author

• A book featuring a road trip

• A book with the same title as a song - Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock

• A book with dual timelines

• A nonfiction bestseller from 2022

• A classic that you weren’t assigned at school

• A book featuring at least three narrators