Zach Richardson

It had been a hell of a week. A contractor swore up and down they could complete a project on time and failed to do so, I had a work-related conflict with a coworker, an employee who reports to me completely failed to do the one job he was hired for and I had to explain consequences if it happened again, and lastly, an organization I have the deepest respect for provided me some negative feedback in a forum I had recently joined. This last one in particular hit like a punch in the gut. Frustrated, and overwhelmed, I asked a few allies for advice, and each advised me to be as cordial as possible. This rung true with me, despite my frustration. This is actually my reputation at work, where my nickname is Good Cop Chancey, both after the Pokemon, and the role I play when my partner-in-crime and I are dealing with belligerent drivers. Very early in our relationship, he told me he thought I was “too soft”, and I mentioned how that could actually be useful for us.

So that’s me. Polite and helpful. Soft and tender. Lay eggs once in a while.

Each one of those incidents where I got worked up was draining. I do happen to know that when things get rough, it’s crucial to go “back to basics”. So I have set a new goal- to absolutely ace my nutrition. Sleep has been a bit of a challenge, since a freight broker’s day is eight hours of work interrupted by twelve hours of problems, solving emergencies caused by people you’ve never met in places you’ve never been. The whole week left a bitter taste in my mouth, and left me tired and drained. (Speaking of sleep, learning Dream Control has become a priority, since a good part of my evening has become just more time slinging freight, except I’m trying to keep my ex from trying to sell drugs to my most important customer over Microsoft Teams, and the lanes I need to find drivers for turn out to be on Mars, and none of the truckers I’m frantically dialing out for have space suits. I might write an article on Dream Control when I’ve made more progress. Stay tuned.)

So at the farmer’s market today, besides buying some basic veg and fruit, there was a unique stand with a lady named Tiffany selling microgreens. These are the tiny little sprouts of larger vegetables. I’d bought some before at Whole Foods, etc. and thought they were okay, but sometimes they’d go unopened in the fridge, and would get yucky and be pitched. Tiff let me pinch and taste a few each of the arugula, black chia, and radish greens each.

My god, did they leave a bitter taste in my mouth!

Seeing them freshly cut gave me some inspiration. These weren’t microgreens sitting on a shelf in a store that had been harvested weeks past, these were straight from the source. They grew on me quickly, just as a child who spits out his first sip of coffee grows to love it, yet at a much faster pace. I’m thinking supplementing with these regularly will give me the boost I need to stay on top of things. These sprouts were fresh and green, young and fragrant, soft and tender.

As Transhumanists, we value rationality, and in my opinion that means eating things that make your biomarkers go in the right direction, despite what your foolish Neolithic brain demands. Vitamins, glucosinates, polyphenols, etc. I’ve also gone keto, so it’s mostly very low-sugar plants, gulps of olive oil, some fasting, and then lots and lots of grassfed burger and steak. Chris Palmer suggests this can rejuvenate the mitochondria in your brain. Between this and the sprouts and some other veg and nuts at home… the good food helped recover, but I had to do some thinking on the recent points in my life where I had a surge of anger and whether or not it had been productive. They all definitely made things happen.

There was a frustrating incident recently where a dear comrade of mine, a brother, a friend of many years, began to go down a strange-ish path. He was struggling with some demons and slowly began to get more combative and aggressive, to such a strange point that he began challenging people to fistfights, despite the other parties living hundreds or even well over a thousand miles away. I had a bit of an outburst at my friend and decided to step away for a bit (if you’re reading this, sorry dude). While I did not agree with the reasons for his frustration, I have felt that sort of energy before at work, where in my field it seems like being combative and aggressive is almost a necessity, lest one gets stepped on. It seems to make you “lock in” and help solve a problem.

I’ll refer here though back to the beginning of this missive, where I was whining and bitching about having a tough week, as if I’m the only one. Multiple times throughout that week I became very angry for fairly legitimate reasons. It definitely gave me energy, and I definitely locked in.

After listening to a lot of Huberman Lab, I believe I can speak to the science on that:
My understanding is that when one gets angry, there is an acute adrenaline spike, which releases catecholamines like epinephrine, norepinephrine, and that sweet sweet chemical that has entered the consciousness of the vox populi, the effects of which are drive, focus, motivation, perhaps “pleasure”, and a tiny bit of pain – our friend dopamine. These all drive action and energy and, particularly, goal-directed behavior.

Interestingly, the term for “anger” in Chinese is 生气 (shēng qì), literally translating to “raise qi” (qi being life force or energy). Sounds kinda like they figured it out early that getting angry gives you drive and motivation to get things done. Yet there’s a cost!

You end up spending your “qi”! Rapid thinking, agitation, muscle tension, elevated heart rate – yup, these all cost some of your “qi points” for the day, and if your sleep and nutrition suck, your next day is going to suck, too. I’ll cite here the most relevant Dao De Jing (DDJ) scripture:

When man is alive he is delicate and tender. When he is dead he is rigid and stiff.
When plants are young they are supple and tender, but when dead are brittle and dry.
Thus the hard and strong are the disciples of death, while the flexible and yielding are the disciples of life.
Warlike strength is soon extinguished, and the greatest tree is soon felled.
Thus, being forceful and dominant is inferior to being yielding and flexible (or, uh… soft and tender).

(DDJ 76 1-5)

So what’s someone to do with the apparent contradiction that spikes of energy can help accomplish goals, but that they end up draining one and as such needing more time overall to recover later? We all know slow and steady progress is superior to short bursts of action; however, slow and steady is almost synonymous with tedium to a lot of our monkey minds.

This is actually one of the main reasons I am interested in transhumanism and the human condition. I believe some of the power to change things is going to come from community action, and it’s going to require coordination using advanced technologies such as you find in the various DAO in the greater longevisphere and some of the amazing science they are working on. HydraDAO cut through a pig’s spine, and now it’s walking again. CryoDAO is working on freezing and rejuvenating a rat. VitaDAO’s Fang Lab looks to be doing some cool things with mitophagy (the entire reason I am doing the keto diet, actually). I imagine in the not-too-far-off future we will have more advanced methods as well of not just coordinating action, but also of making pursuing those actions, and even life itself, more interesting for people. In fact, just as in how a small dose of GLP-1 can lead to more exercise and healthy behavior, I believe making life more interesting synthetically will quickly lead to life being more interesting objectively.

So what’s a guy to do with the fact that he knows he’s on the hedonic treadmill, the incline is slowly increasing, his trainer is off having a smoke and not watching him, and there’s a lounge nearby with a cozy couch, a packed Steam library, an Xbox, an ice chest of Heineken, six bags of potato chips, and all the pizza you could eat?

I think the answer is in “framing”, i.e., staying on the treadmill (hell, they’re paying you), but finding something interesting to do between sessions, and approaching it a certain way. The key word there being “approaching”, as in “approach circuit” related to pursuit, again, dopamine, moving forward.

Describing this process, Uplift, one of the first machine intelligences, was asked what the key to happiness was. They responded something like, “I could go on ad infinitum about this, but one basic process is: ‘pick a goal, work towards it, measure progress, repeat'”.

This really captures perfectly a “loop” in your head that many games are designed around. There are several goals you can choose, you move toward one, your progress is measured, you repeat. (A great reference on this is “Actionable Gamification” by Yu-Kai Chou.)

So while looking at my pay stubs this morning and seeing how much was going to taxes, and knowing the nonsense those taxes were being used for, and knowing I’d have to have a completely different life to even begin to make a lick of difference, did INDEED leave a bitter taste in my mouth… I’m thinking that framing pursuing this new keto nutrition goal correctly, as well as framing joining and interacting with these new DAOs will be motivating. I know if I’m too rigid and unyielding in the chase, I’m going to blow it.

So, I’ll do as Laozi suggests: I’ll keep my pursuit of this goal, my approach to conflict, and my treatment of others soft and tender.

Conveniently, that’s also the way I like my steak. And eggs.

– Good Cop Chancey

Zach Richardson is the Director of Publication of the U.S. Transhumanist Party. Learn more about him here.