Expansion and Contraction: Quitting

Apropos of my recent posts, I've decided to quit some social media websites.

Quit List

Twitter

LinkedIn

Google+

Myspace (I still had an account here?)

Diaspora (I actually wish this would catch fire; I'd replace Facebook with it.)

Some of the sites above were fun to play around with and are interesting social media platforms--I particularly like Hangouts in Google+. I just never used any of these services in any meaningful way. I have to come to terms with the fact that I am not Tim Ferriss or Gary Vaynerchuk or Seth Godin. I am not a content producer in the new internet economy. I am a content consumer, and it's time for a diet.

Keep List

Tumblr (I'm at wildofnothing.tumblr.com)

Instagr.am (You can only see the pictures I take with Instagr.am on an iPhone with the app or on my Tumblr account.)

These sites are just stinkin' fun. I really enjoy snapping a picture, applying a filter, and posting pics for my family and friends to see--I haven't used Picasa for posting photos in weeks. Also, the way I use these sites is different than the way I "used" Twitter, for instance. I spend time making brief posts or posting pictures, rather than reading or viewing things that are posted. It's faster and less passive.

On the Bubble

Facebook

Blogger (That would be this blog.)

Facebook's just one of those things. I hate it and use it and love it at the same time. Well, maybe I don't love it, but I like it well enough. I don't think I'll kick it to the curb completely because then how would I ever keep up with Rebecca's English cousins? Or my Tia back East? Or the Eugene Area Gamers League? Semi-keep.

On the other hand, my blogger blog has become aimless. It went from being about something external (demystifying therapy in general and CBT, specifically) to being about personal change (starting and finishing things, running, my one month vegan diet) to being about whatever popped into my head (my last post and this one). I've enjoyed writing it, but even I have to admit that this has turned a shade narcissistic. I don't have a problem with personal blogs, I just tend not to enjoy them as much as blogs that are about a topic or theme. So then I wonder why I'm writing a blog without a topic or theme. I would like to have a place to write about something outside of myself. In the meantime, I am content to use Tumblr to document life and share photos and random thoughts with family and friends. This blog, then, will likely suffer from continued neglect until I am inspired to write something . . . else on it. Semi-cut.

Never Wanted to, Never Will

Pinterest (I can see the appeal, but it smells like internet crack to me! Nope.)

That's it! That is my version of paring down, or quitting (in The Dip or the Freakonomics sense).

I'll end with a couple of questions: What could you stand to quit in your life? What would you gain by doing so?

Expansion and Contraction: A Post from 2009

I knew it! I've gone though a state of contraction before. Here's a post I made on Facebook on November 19, 2009:

A quote of a quote in a book called 'The 4-Hour Work Week' by Timothy Ferriss . . . 

'"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it." --Herbert Simon, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and the A.M. Turing Award, the "Nobel Prize of Computer Science"' 

The previous starts a chapter called 'The Low Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance.' It has caused me to return to the all-too-familiar part of my facebook/Twitter cycle where I am going to discontinue both for a while. This is the regular "purge" of my virtual binge/purge cycle of fb/Twitter. (Sorry, that sounds really bad, and I should know better than to use such terms as I work in an Eating Disorders lab.) 

I have done this (quitting FB/Twitter) before and have seen others do it. I want to avoid two things: (1) Giving the impression that I am "out of here" for good. That's likely not true. In fact, I'll probably be back sooner rather than later. So there. (2) I don't want to "slam the door" on my way out. I've seen this, too--an attitude of self-righteousness that goes along with ditching something that is popular. I don't have those feelings for social networking. I think catching up with folks I no longer see in person is fun. There's a whole Sacramento crew that I never see, and FB allows me to catch a glimpse of what they're up to. So this is NOT a "so-long-suckers" kind of thing.

This is a break. R and I and the kiddos are heading out of town for two weeks starting next week for a much-needed vacation, possibly the last real vacation before baby 3 comes (I really, REALLY apologize if you're just finding out about that now and in this way. Sorry.). This vacation presents a natural stopping-point for checking fb/twitter. I won't really be able to check either while we're gone and wouldn't want to while I'm away, anyway. It's a vacation, right? 

I'm also on my perpetual, ever-evolving, much-back-burner-ed quest to figure out how to knuckle-down and produce something that is expressive and satisfying. I've got plenty to distract me from that endeavor--internally and externally--and the internet doesn't need to be another. 

That's it. I'll be back. Probably soon. Just not too soon, I hope.

Expansion and Contraction

I have not written here in a long time. Much has happened that I've documented in snippets here or on Twitter or Facebook or that I haven't documented at all:

• I ended my vegetarian diet last month
• I ran my first race (the 2 mile Truffle Shuffle)
• I've gone through bouts of hemoptysis . . . again
• I am contemplating getting a third opinion regarding said hymoptysis
• All three kids have had some form of a cold/flu for the last two-plus weeks
• I went on a much-needed and much appreciated guys weekend to a friend's cabin with three other guys: hiking, drinking, good conversations, and The Big Lebowski.
• Rebecca and I have had a couple of hard weeks with sick kiddos: Gemma (still sick with a cough and fever) got a viral rash that manifested as hives; Rebecca pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle in her back and could hardly move; upon examining Gemma, the pediatrician told us that her ears were pretty badly infected . . . I could actually go on.
• And, my project has "crested the top" in terms of how much work there is left to do, the point where the more work I do, the less work there is for me to do. I am, quite literally, working myself out of a job!

Each one of these things is a meal in itself and deserves a separate post. The problem I face is that I don't want to write about any of them. Perhaps because I'm living each of them!

What I do want to write about is expansion and contraction. 

There are times when I feel like I'm able to mentally cast a wide net. My interests are many, and my capacity for manifold ideas and activities is large. I feel like I can take life on as it comes to me; I can be a good husband, father, employee, and friend. I can input data from email, books, TV, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, the internet, my iPhone, and the occasional newspaper. I can write blog posts on whatever I happen to be thinking about. During those times, I am in a state of mental expansion.

This isn't one of those times. I am on overload in so many ways that I don't even know I'm on overload until I can get out into the woods and hike in the snow (as I did with friends a couple weekends ago). Then it strikes me: I don't need any of this shit (pardonnez-moi) in my life. Why in the world do I have a Twitter account for goodness sake? And a Facebook account? AND a Google+ account? AND a LinkedIn account? I can make a case for being on Facebook in order to connect with family and friends I don't see much of anymore, but even that's a bit of a stretch. 

I haven't tracked this, but I do know that I go through cycles where I take time off of social media. I've "quit" Facebook twice. I wonder if I do this in the spring. It seems to me that when the weather turns a bit warmer, I have less patience for dark beers and the internet. Trolling Facebook and drinking Guinness seem to be cozy wintertime activities.

I'm not sure what's going to get cut this time around, but I'm in a time of contraction. Something's gotta go.

Truffle Shuffle 2012

(I know the picture is hard to see. I couldn't get it sized correctly and didn't feel like futzing with it. Trust me, I came in first place in my subdivision . . . 38 year old males named John.)

I ran the Truffle Shuffle two mile race yesterday. It was my first race, and, while I won't be burning up any land speed records any time soon, I did what I set out to do: run the whole thing and run faster than my usual 11ish-minute pace.

I also chose the milk chocolate truffle over the dark and got to chat up Eric Fritz from Archimoto. We talked about electric cars and Nathan Fillion . . . mostly about Nathan Fillion.

Day 34: In Which I Kiss Dairy Goodbye

It has been 34 days since I started my veggie-based diet. For the first 14 days I was on a raw diet; the last 20 days, a vegan diet. But, I've already written about the beginning of all this (here and here, for instance). I'm very much on the other side of things . . . sort of.

I've gone through a few changes over the course of the last 34 days. Nothing huge, just small, incremental changes. I now weigh 155 pounds, or about five pounds lighter than when I started. (Note: I've not done another Bod-Pod and may hold off on doing so for reasons I'll explain in some later post.) I feel better about myself as well; I feel healthier. In addition, my cough has gotten better. Over the course of the last 34 days, I went about ten days straight without coughing at all and have only had one or two instances since about Day 20 where I've coughed trace amounts of blood. That's a significant improvement over the months leading up to my diet.

What explains the improvement to my cough? I'm not totally sure. Prior to the follow-up visit with Dr. Nao, I attributed it to not drinking milk. I used to drink a lot of milk: half-n-half in my coffee, mochas, lattes, milk in my cereal and oatmeal, yogurt, ice-cream, you name it. I like dairy. Going cold-turkey was hard, especially when it came to milk-based espresso drinks. About two weeks ago, Rebecca and I noticed that I hadn't been coughing as much. A few days later, we noticed that I hadn't been coughing at all. I added two-and-two together and came up with milk. It was a guess, of course, but an educated guess because, of all the things that my diet changed, it was my consumption of dairy that changed the most drastically.

Just a few days ago, Dr. Nao shared my lab results with Rebecca and me. Check out the picture to the right. The picture shows that my body is producing IgA and IgG antibodies when I consume dairy products. The short explanation being that, while I am not necessarily allergic to dairy products, Dr. Nao contends that I have a sensitivity to dairy, and that I should continue to cut dairy from my diet.

Is this enough to convince me that I have some sort of food sensitivity to dairy? I remain skeptical. I've read enough about the IgA/IgG tests to know that they're not widely regarded as accurate in the traditional medical community.

Does that mean I'm going to resume consuming dairy? No way. As I said when I started, I'm in for a pound, not just a penny. So, I'm cutting milk and other dairy products. I'm also trying to avoid eggs and cane sugar, shrimp, soy, wheat, spelt, peanuts and pecans, lettuce, mushrooms, and spinach, all of which came up on my blood tests. While I'm not going to be religious about cutting this last group of foods (I can't just throw away the soy milk in my fridge), I am going to be more stringent about dairy. The proof of this plan's efficacy will not be a piece of paper from US BioTek, it'll be my cough . . . or lack thereof.

Day 16: Second-day Vegan

All I can say is . . .

While I appreciate the health benefits of eating a raw diet, I am so appreciative of cooked foods right now.

Legumes! Grains! Hooray!

Day 13: Wherein I Meet My Enemy, Meatloaf

Not this Meatloaf.

Tomorrow is the last day in which I eat (only) raw foods. I've done well, better than I thought I would, and I feel better in general. My lung is another matter; I'm still coughing trace amounts of blood occasionally, but I think it will take more than raw vegetables to change that.

Food cravings have not been as much of an issue as I thought it would be, but I have cut a few non-raw corners, as I've already described. I also had a run-in with Rebecca's meatloaf and mashed potatoes (damn you, meatloaf!) in which I came out on top, but not unscathed.

More than having difficulty managing cravings, the hardest thing that I've had to manage is what I eat when going out in a social setting. In Eugene you'd think it would be otherwise, but it's really hard to eat raw if you go out. Even in green salads I ran into roasted pumpkin seeds and fresh mozzarella. Of course, one answer is to not go out, but what about when you're invited out by friends or relatives? I'm into eating raw, but becoming a hermit? No thanks.

In all, I've done well with the raw diet; I've even lost a couple pounds. But, I am looking forward to a less-strict vegan diet. If one can imagine such a thing.