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

Dry January

I’m doing Dry January to kickstart a longer streak of no drinking and help me resist the urge when it inevitably shows up.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve cut back my consumption of alcohol quite a bit, and the time between the mindless urges to drink has become longer and longer, which is terrific news! But I’ve still got some work to do.

For most of my life, I fell somewhere between a casual and heavy drinker, essentially someone who often drank, sometimes to excess but never suffered from any significant problems. But as I’ve aged, I’ve found it harder and harder to recover from an evening of even light drinking, and it became impossible to deny the effect it had on my sleep, moods, and general health. All of which was quantifiably reinforced when I started wearing my Oura ring. If you want to see how booze affects your sleep and health, get one of those.

It was terrible at times and getting worse, so I decided to try and cut back, which I have done, and I am feeling better overall.

So, it’s been challenging, but I’ve been able to cut back. I drink less often and in less volume than three or four years ago when it started to wear on me. I drink less now than I think I have my whole adult life, which feels like a big win. I’ll go long stretches without drinking, and most of the time, when I do drink, it’s not much. One or two drinks usually, with the occasional one or two more. Drinking beyond that has been rare, and oh boy, do I regret it every time I do that. Especially if I have two nights in a row of more than a couple, it isn’t easy to bounce back. I’m looking at you football trip to Seattle. Oof.

I’ve found counting streaks and participating in non-drinking challenges to be very helpful. They were something I used to scoff at. But I realize now can be helpful to circumvent the habit of drinking. A habit built over years of happy hours, parties, and overcoming social anxiety that, I now realize, was also a result of drinking in social situations, resulting in a crazy bad habit loop.

That habit is still there; only the loop has become longer and easier to circumvent. It doesn’t feel like it’s written into my bones like it once did. The thing is: I like to drink. I like the taste of many drinks—though I have grown less and less fond of beer—and how it feels, and it helps me relax and slow down my anxious brain (at first, anyway) and the social conventions around it. I like the ritual of drinking and the variety of trying something new. I know a lot of this is marketing and societal conditioning, but it’s a thing for me.

As an aside, I’ve also been playing with some alternatives to varying degrees of success. Kava, Ethanol-free libations (both of which do mess me up a bit, but in a much milder way), as well as micro-dosing THC, which works fantastic most of the time to help me shut off my brain. Maybe more on that in a later entry.

Now—most of the time—when I drink, I’d say it’s at least somewhat mindful. For lack of a better way to describe it, I decide to drink. Do I regret that choice? Sometimes, but not often, thankfully. I’m still coming to terms with it and trying to figure out what’s right. I know that alcohol is overall a net negative, and I often question why I do it. If this all sounds a bit crazy to you, I will say that I agree, and I don’t fully understand it myself. Nature of the beast, I suppose.

If you’re thinking about doing Dry January yourself, I wish you the best of luck and can say without reservation that a dry month (week, year, etc.) will be good for you. If nothing else, it should help you sleep, and solid sleep is the foundation for many good things in life.

Aphantasia

I’ve been working with Midjouney a bit to try and express what it’s like to experience Aphantasia. This is just a quick cut and doesn’t capture it. It turns out it’s hard to get a prompt that encapsulates what it’s like in a way that’s not just a large fuzzy black box. I’ll keep working on it as a nice artistic challenge. I have a hunch it’ll require some human adjustment in addition to the prompt.

Last year I learned that I’ve got a condition—I guess—that prevents me from picturing images in my mind. It’s a bit hard to explain to people. Put as simply as I can manage; I can’t see pictures in my mind’s eye. For example, when asked to picture a red apple with closed eyes, most people see it. For me, I see mostly darkness most of the time. However, I can hold the concept of a red apple and imagine it fully without actually seeing it, and occasionally, I can see…something. Still, it’s not a complete or accurate picture.

From aphantasia.com

Aphantasia is the inability to visualize. Otherwise known as image-free thinking.

People with aphantasia don’t create any pictures of familiar objects, people, or places in their mind’s eye. Not for thoughts, memories, or images of the future.

Much like another condition I have, Anosmia, which is an almost complete lack of smell, people's first impressions when they hear about it are wrong. It doesn’t feel debilitating at all, and I don’t feel like something is missing. Some people who find out they are affected by Aphantasia are left with a terrible sense of loss. I can understand that, even though it’s not what I feel. Mostly I feel curious about how others perceive things in their mind’s eyes. I have a wild imagination and vivid dreams, where I visualize quite a bit. I’m also a reasonably visual thinker; despite my inability to see things with closed eyes, I have a strong eye for patterns, colors, and the like. All of which is good, considering I’m a designer by trade. What I do not have—and what finding out about my Aphantasia has shed some light on—is an excellent visual memory. I’m terrible with faces, for example. This seems common among Aphants, and I’ve read anecdotally that many are more okay with loss, as that visual memory isn’t nearly as crisp as it would be for most people.

Another thing I’ve always struggled with is visualizing without reference, though I never really saw it as much of a constraint. I’ve always been a writer, and I think I’m very good both with reading comprehension and written communication, and I have a hunch that many others with aphantasia are as well.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and tools like Midjourney—a controversial topic that will come up in this journal—have been invaluable to me as they work as assistive technology for my imagination. I can now describe what I can’t see in my head to AI and have it provide me with images. Sometimes wild and creative images that spark further my imagination. I’m still on the fence about AI’s broad application, but for assisting my imagination, I’m all for it.

2023: Embrace, learn, and grow stronger.

I’m doing Ryan Holiday’s New Year New You challenge—I enjoy a good challenge or two, or five, to start the year—and the first day has us coming up with a Stoic mantra. I spent too much time on this, especially considering I had a fairly good thought right away. Both on wordsmithing and also thinking about all the little sayings I’ve collected over the years.

Here are a few existing candidates I thought about and used for inspiration. All of these are good, but I challenged myself to find something new.

Acknowledge and move on. When I was very young, I saw this on a t-shirt or something, and I think it was a Powell Peralta Bones Brigade shirt. But, as memory tends to be a bit fuzzy, I can’t say for sure. This has always meant taking a beat, slowing down, and knowing that whatever is happening will pass.

Amor Fati. Love one’s fate. I like this reasonably famous stoic mantra better than some other, more well-known stoicisms. Take everything that happens to you as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Ryan Holiday talks about mantras.

Damned if you do, bored if you don’t. One of my devising and something I have lived by for many years. It’s an oldie but a goodie that I think about often. It’s a bit less practical as I’ve grown older, though. Heh.

Fall in love with the problem. A designer’s mantra, for sure. Not sure where I first heard this, but it’s come up a few times in my life.

The obstacle is the way. This comes from Ryan Holiday and a bit of a spin on Amor Fati. Every obstacle is an opportunity and can be leveraged for learning and growth.

Action begets action. I think of this as a “Just Do It” mantra. The first, best step to doing anything worth doing is to start.

Memento Mori. It’s a nice, if a bit maudlin, mantra, but the message there—to know you’re mortal, that life is short, and every moment could be one of your last—is beautiful.

I think there is a bit of a pattern here. All of the above sort of fit what I was thinking about. I want something positive and proactive, a mantra that works as an active principle in my life and inspires some agency and action. I also want something not limited to the challenging things in life.

Embrace, learn, and grow stronger.

I’m not all that excited about the phrasing here, but I couldn’t find a better way to say it without being too wordy. The gist is: welcome whatever comes each day, good or bad, embrace it as an opportunity, learn from it, and get better.