Updates and a potential new interest

Floor sleeping: still doing it, will be coming up on 100 days this week or next. I did sleep in a bed one night that I stayed in a hotel, and to be honest it was a little uncomfortable. I felt like it was sagging in the middle, and of course it was, relative to what I'm now used to. At this point I imagine I'll be sleeping on the floor until my future spouse says "fuck that, we're sleeping on a bed." My joints have gotten more used to the pressure, and if it does start being a problem I'll simply put a camping pad or something under my current "mattress".

Fasting: I did this because of the BBC documentary "Eat, Fast, and Live Longer". I don't know if it's actually from the BBC, but it's British and as an American I assume everything British is made by the BBC. Basically there's a bunch of emerging science that fasting is really good for you- it reduces hormones associated with aging, heart disease, and cancer, and, at least in mice, has been linked to drastically reducing the risk of Alzheimer's and might even cause the brain to grow new neurons. Now this is all very new, and there haven't been a ton of studies on it, so it would be wrong to act as if any of this was proven. But I decided fasting one day a week would be a good experiment for me to try, for the following reasons:

• Possible health benefits mentioned above
• Low risk of adverse effects (even if it doesn't help me, I don't think it will hurt me)
• Increasing my self-discipline
• Easier food budgeting, from both a caloric and financial perspective
• Improved adaptability- on rough days where I am unable to eat for whatever reason, it will affect me less

While I can't speak with any certainty to reasons 1 and 2, I definitely feel that I've increased my self-discipline, and it's amazing what simply eating 6 days a week instead of 7 does for your meal planning. I'm currently trying to lose the weight I gained through the summer (I was lifting and trying to gain mass, but overestimated how much the exercise would burn and gained more fat around my stomach than I've ever had), and simply cutting 1900 calories from my week adds way more flexibility to my eating days. I could add an extra 250 calories a day and still come out ahead. My diet has been very effective so far, and my fast day is a big part of that. It also cuts down on the amount of food I have to buy by over 10%, which for a cheap ass like me is pretty great.

The other thing I noticed my first couple times fasting is how much our lives are built around meals. The whole way you think about your work day is Before Lunch and After Lunch. Then most days as the clock nears 5, I look forward to going home and sitting down with dinner in front of the TV. You never think about it when you're eating, but when you're fasting you realize how much it controls you. It makes me wonder about what a post-food life could be like. Obviously that's impossible so I don't think about it too hard, but it's an interesting thought experiment.

I haven't had a day yet where circumstance has made me unable to eat, so I can't see the extent of my adaptability, but I have noticed that when you regularly go 30+ hours without eating, small inconveniences are a lot less bothersome. My best example of this is when I went to a restaurant with my parents that we were really looking forward to. It was pretty late and we were quite hungry, and we were told it would be at least 45 minutes before we would be seated. A few months ago I would probably have walked right out and found a different restaurant, but I simply thought to myself "I've done a lot worse than this- hell, I did worse than this on Tuesday." We waited patiently, made small talk with other waiting patrons, and were rewarded with a great meal.

I've enjoyed fasting so far, and I plan to continue indefinitely.

Okay, so that could have been a post on it's own, but the title guaranteed updates AND a new interest, so here goes. I watched a documentary on Netflix today called Tiny. It's about people who live in extremely small houses- always less than 200 square feet, sometimes less than 100. The houses are often on wheels not because they are moved often, but because building codes in this country are fucking fascist and it's illegal in most places to build a "permanent" structure that small.

Anyway I thought it was very interesting and aligns quite well with my More-Minimalist-Than-Not lifestyle. I don't plan on making a house that's less than 200 square feet, but the idea of it does make me reconsider my desires in a home, which are based largely on the sizable house I grew up in. It's also got me thinking about the ranch I hope to own in retirement. Since my passions will have me travelling and possibly moving quite often, it has always been my dream to have a large piece of property, probably in the southwest, with a nice house that would serve both as my own home base/billing address as well as a gathering point for friends and family. Now because of the functions I want it to serve, it can't be a tiny cabin, but what if I reconsider the $3-6M design I was thinking for it, and instead create a much more minimalist space? Haciendas in New Mexico are often built out of clay dug up from the very ground they're built on- what if I used traditional, local techniques and resources with just a few modern upgrades, reducing the impact on both the environment and my wallet? Definitely an interesting thought which I would not have considered before watching Tiny.

I didn't eat today

and feel fine. To be honest I wasn't really any hungrier than usual. I've noticed in the past that I always get hungry before mealtimes regardless of what I've eaten that day- I want lunch starting at 10:30 whether I missed breakfast or choked down four eggs, toast, and a protein shake. When I come home I want dinner whether I had lunch two hours ago or eight. Today I again was hungry at 10:30, then it passed in about five minutes after I would normally have had a handful of nuts. I was hungry at noon, and wasn't when my coworkers returned from their lunches. Other than that I've been fine.

I'll go into WHY I tried this, and why I plan to continue doing this on a regular basis, in another post, but so far I've enjoyed the experience of fasting. It's really allowed me to observe and analyze my eating habits, which sounds considerably less interesting when written down.

Floor Sleeping Update

After my initial post, (which I would link to were it not just two posts away) I continued to sleep on the floor for about a week. I started to wake with joint discomfort, which would go away after an hour or so, but overall I was happy with it. The bigger problem was that the bed was blocking airflow, making the floor much hotter than the bed, which had a nice breeze, which in early August, is awfully important for getting any sleep at all. It was also hard to convince myself to continue sleeping on the floor when I knew just a few weeks later I would get used to it whether I wanted to or not.

That's where I stand now. I've slept on the floor the past 18 nights simply because I don't have a bed or the means to acquire one. At this point I don't even think about it as floor sleeping, my bed just happens to be a folded over comforter. That said, though, I do find myself wanting a real bed at times, with a mattress and box spring and frame and probably even a headboard. Like it or not, the comfort is alluring to me. And if I'm completely honest, I do worry a bit about the long term effect of floor sleeping on my joints. While I think sleeping on a hard surface is probably very good for your health if you sleep on your back, I sleep on my front and side, and often wake up with my elbows pinched uncomfortably against the floor.

Honestly I think I'm just trying to go too hardcore. Cultures that sleep on the floor generally make a bed out of the soft things they have lying around, and I don't think I would be breaking the minimalist ethos by adding an extra blanket. I think I'll do that and try to stay on the floor for at least another month, and update again then.

Awareness, Negativity, and Twitter

Disclaimer: I wrote this without much planning or forethought; it's more thinking out loud than it is taking a stance. I still feel uncertain about most of this.

Between Ferguson and the treatment of Zoe Quinn a few weeks ago, supplemented by my stressful move from IL to SC, I decided I needed a break from Twitter. I originally got on Twitter due to the recommendation of faculty at Columbia, who said it was a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of the game industry, which it is. Every game announcement, high-profile departure, studio closing, and social issue were discussed at length at incredible speed. It's actually a very cool experience, because the game industry is currently small enough that it's feasible to not only listen to but participate in every meaningful discussion it has. As an industry hopeful, I found this amazing, and I generally kept current- aka reading every single tweet that someone I followed wrote or retweeted for month long stretches.

Unfortunately, the zeitgeist of the game industry is currently overwhelmingly negative. Sure, someone would occasionally exclaim about how cool it was that there were so many great games and interesting people creating them, but those celebrations were sporadic at best. Primarily it was doom and gloom: articles about how racist and sexist and horrible gamers are, how EA is fucking everyone over again, how well-known developers are terrible people and have no respect for the people who work for them, how it's impossible for indie developers to make a living, how it's impossible for AAA studios to sustain their model. And as many of the people I followed were active politically as well, I also had to bare the full weight of police brutality in the US and sectarian violence in the Middle East and disease in Africa and every other problem imaginable in every other place imaginable.

For a time I welcomed all this information, sought it out, because if I wasn't aware of it, how could I possibly help to stop it? I felt that I had a responsibility to the world. But the fact is, even if I AM aware of it, I have no hope of solving these problems. How can there be responsibility where there is not possibility? There are problems in this world I can solve, and the best way for me to help this world improve is to focus on those- all effort I spend on problems I can't solve takes away from those that I can.

The obvious question, then, is if I choose to shut myself out from all problems, how can I be aware of the ones I can solve? If being completely unaware is ineffective and being completely aware is futile, how do I find the middle ground where I can do the most good? I don't have the answer to that question yet.

I checked Twitter tonight for the first time in three weeks. I saw one mention of Destiny being cool, and then something called "Gamergate". As soon as I read it I felt relieved and maybe strangely proud that I didn't know what that was. I'm certain it's not good, but would my understanding of it have changed anything? Would the game industry be a better place if I had watched it unfold? I closed the tab without reading any more.

I'm probably going to miss the Kickstarter announcements, funny stories, DayZ development updates, and Cliff Blezinski's sass. I'll definitely miss the intense feeling of connection to the industry that only drinking from the firehose can bring. But I'm pretty sure I'll be happier overall.

The Princess and the Pea

Last night I slept on the floor next to my queen size bed. I enjoyed it. It was considerably more comfortable than I would have expected, and when I woke up I felt refreshed and ready to get up- a change from my usual routine of falling in and out of groggy consciousness for the 45 minutes following my alarm going off.

I had considered going bedless before, but what made me finally try it was the possibility of moving across the country in the eminent future. Beds are expensive, and I really don't want to buy one. More important though is my long-held inclination towards minimalism. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a Minimalist, because I would have a hard time defending the five monitors I'm currently looking at while holding that title, but I like to question what I really need to be comfortable and or happy.

I'm a big believer in Hedonic Adaptation. Basically it's the idea that once you're used to something it ceases to make you happy. Critically, it's the complete opposite of what our culture believes: that discomfort is suffering, luxury is fulfillment, and buying things makes you happy. That how expensive your car is and how often you get drinks at an expensive bar are how success is measured. This popular falsehood means that everything we do, everything that is considered normal in our culture, needs to be critically examined and judged. This week it means examining the perceived necessity of a mattress.

Look, while it is a big up front cost, the money really isn't the issue. A good new mattress might cost $2000, but it lasts 10 years. If I find it extremely uncomfortable or that it's negatively impacting my sleep, I will buy one. But in addition to the belief that it's better for your back, I just like the idea of being bedless. It's freeing. I want to be able to fit everything I own into my car and move when necessary, and unless I get an enormous van, a mattress will never be a part of that. And frankly, it would make me feel like kind of a badass. And the pursuit of badassery is always a noble motivation.