samjc

The Stoics, especially Epictetus, teach about not allowing anything that is not under your direct control to have the power to cause you pain. This means not becoming attached to “externals”, as only things internal to us — our thoughts and intentions — are under our control. If we cease to identify our wellbeing with things outside our control, we can be happy.

However, there are certain externals that I assent to causing me pain. I want them to have the power to cause me pain. For example, the death of a family member. According to Epictetus, it is not something I control, so it should mean nothing to me. This is not a reductio ad absurdum against Epictetus — he literally says

If you kiss your child or your wife, say to yourself that this is a human being […] and then, if one of them should die, you won’t be upset.¹

By reminding ourselves that that this is a human being, we are supposed to remind ourselves that they are fragile and this fragility is beyond our control. This is right after advising us to remember that the pottery we like is fragile.

Most of us instinctively reject this. If we are not allowing the death of a loved one to cause us pain, in what sense can we say to be loving them? Isn’t the commitment to caring about someone’s life an integral part of love?

This is a central concept in Marten Hägglund’s This Life. For Hägglund, what gives our life meaning is secular faith, which could be briefly defined as “deep devotion to fragile things” — our own lives, the lives of loved ones, projects, moral and political causes. He describes vulnerability to grief as “a common denominator of all forms of secular faith”². Hägglund’s project is to argue that is it is secular faith, not faith in eternal or unbreakable things, that gives our lives meaning, and from there develop political implications.

The Stoics have a lot of wisdom and advice for detaching yourself from external things that do not matter, rejecting unhelpful thoughts and emotions, and becoming a better person. But I think Epictetus misses the mark with his instruction to detach from all externals; there are some externals I willingly surrender my invulnerability to because they define the meaning of my life.

CW: teeth, death

I have always had a mild anxiety about teeth, which I imagine is commonly felt. Unlike other body parts, teeth do not regenerate or heal. They only wear over time, and sometimes break; the damage is permanent. The state of my teeth is a constant reminder of my mortality, that I am a decaying thing and, once my heart stops beating, the rest of my body will meet the same fate as my teeth.

Every filling, chip, and extraction (yes, my teeth aren’t great) brings this process further into relief. The moment a tooth is damaged or drilled I am filled with dread, a sense of irretrievable loss.

I think this is why tooth-loss dreams are so common. They’re an anxiety about losing something irreplacable, perhaps one’s own life or that of a loved one.

Reflecting on one’s own impermanence and mortality is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be motivating, and a reminder to treasure what you have now. Memento Mori (“remember you must die”) is a recurring motif in art and philosophy, often accompanied by the image of a skull, teeth by-necessity bared.

Strangely, this perception may be soon tbe challenged by modern technology. New drugs and therapies are in development that effect the regeneration of teeth, which seems like magic to me. Future generations maybe regard broken teeth like broken bones.

While I’m lucky that my job as a teacher means I’m not usually simply sitting down all day, I’ve always struggled to find the right cardio for me. Swimming is too much hassle. Cycling on these country roads with cars going up to 60 mph feels too dangerous. And I just never could get into running. So while this year I’ve started to take strength more seriously, my cardio health had not been given much love.

That is, until the last few weeks, during which I’ve “discovered” rucking from trainer winny. It’s a simple premise. You put something heavy in a rucksack and then go for a brisk walk. It’s far from a new idea — soldiers have trained in this manner since forever. But in the last decade or so it has surged as a fitness exercise for civilians too.

The advantages of rucking as compared to other cardio activities for me are:

1. It’s super convenient. If you have an okay pair of shoes and a backpack, you’re good to go. For weight, you could use a book, a bottle of water, or one of the old bricks every British person has lying in their garden for some reason. I use a couple of weight plates wrapped in towels for comfort.
2. The injury risk is very low. The impact on your joints is very small compared with running. In fact, my chronic pain feels better after a ruck.
3. It’s perfect for “headspace”. Walking is so natural and doesn’t leave me completely breathless, so I can actually let my mind wander and just enjoy being outside with my own thoughts — while still getting a great workout. This is a serious benefit that should not be overlooked.

The only real rules seems to be to start small and work up. Ideally the weight should be as close to your back as possible, and high up. Maintain good posture with an open chest — don’t hunch over. You can modify the exercise to your needs by varying the weight, distance, pace, and gradient of the walk.

For me, I’ve settled on 10kg (+ towels), and a fairly hilly 45-minute walk to the nearest village and back, about 3 miles total. The different inclines give me a nice burn in different parts of my legs, and the 10kg feels about right that I’m feeling the benefit but not risking any injury. Usually I’ve not taken my phone, but last time I brought it for some relaxing music. I think I’ll stay away from podcasts though, as part of the value is that mind-wandering time.

Having said all this, I do see the funny side of modern fitness content creators (and me, in this post) promoting the radical idea of going for a walk while carrying something. For all the complex training programmes and exercises out there, sometimes simple really is the best.

When I tell a friend about this young site, they’re usually surprised. Who has a blog these days? But they can also see the appeal. Mainstream social media did not deliver the goods in the long run, and while most people still use it in some form, they do so with some begrudgement, perhaps knowing the arrangement between them and the platform is not what they’d choose in an ideal world.

I did the social media thing too, of course. As a teen I had MySpace and think I may even have done some cringy teen blogging on there (cringy teen blogging definitely happened, question is where). Then from MySpace to Facebook, which I quit in 2016. I’d wanted to for a while; I was outraged by the Snowden revelations, and also I don’t think I liked the way it encouraged being “Friends” with… well, everyone you knew, once knew, know someone they know, once met while drunk, … I think it was reading Deep Work that finally got me to quit.

After quitting Facebook — and Twitter a bit later during the fierce polarisation that occurred after the Brexit vote — I was happy without social media for a while, but I still wanted some kind of online presence. I tried a short-lived blog about my mathematical studies (thetangent.space, which is a great domain name for a maths blog… maybe I should move back there with this blog…).

At some point I heard about the IndieWeb and liked what I was reading as a real alternative to social media. I didn’t feel I had the time to learn the technical know-how to create a blog that implemented some of the IndieWeb protocols, and it was only when I learned about micro.blog (an indieweb friendly plug-and-play blogging platform) that I finally took the plunge and started this blog, which is my most successful — in terms of longevity and volume of posts — blogging attempt.

So back to the title: why blog? For me, having a personal website or blog is about having “my space” without a MySpace. The stuff I put out on here is for me and anyone else who is interested, not for an algorithm that sees my posts as raw-material (“content”) to weave into timelines to keep that ad-revenue flowing.

In fact, this space is self-consciously in opposition to the attention economy. I’m not trying to gain revenue, create a brand, or display any ads. I collect no analytics. The closest thing I have to self-promotion is linking to the crosswords I construct on MyCrossword. This is the kind of web I want — people connecting as people, not in service of brands and algorithms.

It’s also to push me to be a better writer, and with that a better thinker. A lot of what I post is trivial, and doesn’t represent growth in my writing. But that’s okay. In fact, it’s great. I’ve always shied away from writing publicly because it’s scary. People will judge me and my writing. But the trivial posts remind me not to take it too seriously. I’m just having fun putting things that interest me out into the world; it’s not that important.

Sure, having a blog takes a little more effort and know-how than having an Instagram. But well, I’m a Linux user. I can deal with a few rough edges and friction in pursuit of digital autonomy, and platforms like bearblog, pika, scribbles and micro.blog make it pretty straightforward whatever your level of technical ability. Get a blog, start posting, and be part of the web you want to see.

So here we are, ready to kick off the Blaugust festival of blogging. If you’re visiting my site for the first time via Blaugust, then welcome! If you’ve been here before and would like to join in, then there’s still time to sign up here; if you don’t yet have a blog and want to join in, I made a guide to getting started here. This post has links to a list of other participants' blogs and an OPML file for your feed reader.

I’m Sam. I am a 32-year-old husband and father, and I teach secondary mathematics in the UK, though this is a strictly personal rather than professional blog. I post about books I’ve read, things I like, parenthood, my political views, links with commentary, and so on. I’m an unfussy coffee drinker, and rubbish at social media.

There’s more to say, of course, but I’ll save that for next week — the Blaugust theme is introducing yourself.

From Blaugust, I’m hoping to improve my own writing practice, and connect with other writers and readers. Please do get in touch if you’re reading — e-mail, Mastodon, the Blaugust Discord, or even a reply blog post are all welcome. I’m not expecting to hit 31 posts in Blaugust, but I’m going to aim in that direction. Better to aim for 31 and post 15 times than aim for 5 and post 4 times.

In terms of what to expect here, I’ll be loosely following the “official” themes of each week, trying to get at least one or two themed posts per topic. As Blaugust started on a gaming blog and many participants seem to be games bloggers, I might publish a couple of posts about games.

Finally, I should note that at some point during Blaugust, I’ll be having my second child 👶, so who even knows what will happen at that point.