Category: Sam’s Essays

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The Horrifying Wonders of the Human Mind & Body: Hangovers

I suffered from my first hangover in quite some time at the end of 2017. I spent the next morning moaning in bed. As I lay in bed agonizing, I decided to follow my curiosity and try to learn about the science of a hangover, what’s happening in the body, etc. Two things struck me.

The first seems obvious: when we drink, we get dehydrated. Alcohol is a diuretic. This is the overarching reason for hangovers. But the process itself that causes us to become dehydrated is pretty crazy. “Alcohol…reduces the production of a hormone called vasopressin, which tells your kidneys to reabsorb water rather than flush it out through the bladder” (1), and, “according to studies, drinking about 250 milliliters of an alcoholic beverage causes the body to expel 800 to 1,000 milliliters of water; that’s four times as much liquid lost as gained” (2). So, drinking a single beer can cause four times the amount of water in your system to just be dumped out, rather than used as it should be. This is why you pee so often while drinking. You’re jettisoning water, and along with it, lots of important vitamins and minerals.

The second, and even more horrifying fact involves the headache the next day. The cause is dehydration again of course, but the reality of what’s happening is…pretty disturbing. You’re so dehydrated that “the body’s organs try to make up for their own water loss by stealing water from the brain, causing the brain to decrease in size and pull on the membranes that connect the brain to the skull, resulting in pain.” Holy shit! You’re brain is rung like a sponge in order to feed water to the rest of your body, and it literally shrinks, resulting in that awful headache you’re stuck with. That’s gnarly.

While learning about this process, most of the search results dealt with hangover cures. There is no real, instantaneous ‘cure’. You need to re-hydrate with lots of water and replenish those minerals you lost, like potassium and magnesium. There is of course the trick we’ve all been told, but rarely follow: drink a glass of water between each drink. This way you’re not running such an extreme loss of water, compounding your own hangover the next day.

As for me, if the hangover wasn’t enough to keep me from drinking for another long stretch, the knowledge that I’m shrinking my brain each time certainly will.

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The Horrifying Wonders of the Human Mind & Body: The Unconscious Mind

All the ways in which the human body actually functions are astonishing, and for the most part, completely overlooked by all of us. The brain is where my interest first started, and since learning about it, whenever I’m curious about a part or process of the body, I do a quick Google search to try to figure out what the hell is going on. I wanted to start sharing what I learned to shed light on how mind blowing these processes and functions are, and how completely oblivious we are of them. Today we’ll start where I started, with the brain, and I hope to explore more aspects of the human body and mind in the future. 

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The brain is incredibly complex and there’s so much interesting, crazy stuff going on in it, that it’s hard to know where to start. Neuroplasticity and cognitive biases are two of my favorite areas, but there’s something else that’s seemingly straightforward, yet baffling, that I want to highlight here. I learned about this probably a year ago and it’s only really hitting home now.

This seemingly simple, scientifically proven fact is:

The brain decides before “I” decide.

That seems obvious. Of course decisions arise from our brain, that’s where all thought processes come from. More specifically put, the unconscious mind decides, then the conscious mind, or “I”, decides. The distinction is important, as we’ll see. Your brain decides, then you decide. The more you think about it, the more questions arise.

Before we go on, a quick distinction between the unconscious and conscious mind. The unconscious mind does things automatically, without the need to even be aware of it happening. Our breathing and our digestive system are two examples of this unconscious process. We don’t need to focus on or even think about these things for them to run properly. The unconscious mind also contains desires and fears that we may not be consciously aware of, but nonetheless direct us. The unconscious mind is completely inaccessible to our conscious mind. The conscious mind is actively thinks or acts. It plans our dinner later that night and what ingredients we want to use, it  chooses between two movies, it lifts the barbell for another rep. Our conscious mind makes decisions. Or so we think.

In Sam Harris’s book Free Will, he makes the case that we do not truly have free will. One of his main arguments for this point is that through scientific lab studies, “fMRI techniques show that our brains indicate the choice we are going to make 700 milliseconds before we are aware that we are going to make the choice.” These conscious decisions that we feel we came up with, that we’ve decided on, were actually made by our brain, milliseconds before, unbeknownst to us. 

700 milliseconds might not seem like a lot of time, but the fact remains that the brain makes a decision that is completely unconscious to us, THEN, milliseconds later, we consciously seem to “come up with it”. But “I” didn’t actually “make” the decision. As Harris lays out, “the intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness. Rather it appears in consciousness. As does any thought or impulse that might impose it.”

All sorts of thoughts and questions sprout from this one clear fact. Our idea of free will is certainly different than how we think of it, if it exists at all. It distinctly shows the power of the unconscious mind over the conscious mind; the unconscious mind decides, then makes it appear that the conscious mind has chosen. We have all of these unconscious thoughts, feelings and desires, which we are completely unaware of, until the unconscious decides to almost  plant them in our conscious mind, making us feel that we determined it. It helps explain why it’s so hard to change a habit or escape from an addiction that we so clearly, consciously want to change, because they are rooted deeper, not in the conscious, but in our unconscious.  It casts questions over the nature of consciousness itself and the power and control we assume we have over our lives. 

This is a tricky one to wrap our heads around. Like I said, I learned about this a year ago, but only after recently reviewing a summary of the book, did the subject sort of click it in my mind. Sure, “I”, this human body that is Sam Post, is still making the decisions, but it’s not necessarily coming from the “I” I imagined it was, that conscious self I identify as. It’s coming from another layer in, the unconscious part of my mind that I, nor anyone else, has access to. So who the hell is running the show that is ourselves? The better question might be, what shapes the unconscious mind and what determines it’s desires and feelings that prompt our actions and behavior?

The genes we are born with determines a lot, anywhere from 20-50%. But once born, our environment, our conditioning, how and where we were raised, and much more, all form and shape our unconscious mind. And the really interesting part, and the hopeful part, I think, is that it is possible to change our unconscious mind, even if we can’t access it directly. It can’t done by our conscious thinking. It can only done by taking action and by changing our behavior in the real world first. 

This is where I think Sam Harris’ argument against free will starts to show it’s cracks. While thinking about change and consciously desiring it does very little to impact our unconscious mind, directly changing our behavior in the real world has a much more powerful effect. This is where the principles of habit change, or the concept of “fake it till you make it”, comes in. By forcing yourself to do something enough times, even if it’s at first uncomfortable or challenging, you’ll eventually form a habit, or put another way, a behavior that doesn’t need to be directed by your conscious mind. The behavior becomes automatic. It has become a part of your routine and can be done without even thinking about it. One example would be learning how to drive a car. At first it seems very complicated and hard, but after enough experience, it seems to take very little conscious will power to get where you’re going. 

Harris’ argument to this would be, well, this person that eventually changed, had whatever factors already set in place that allowed them to change in the first place. His genes or his brain had the capability to do so, and it finally did. That seems a bit to deterministic to me, and for an atheist like Sam Harris, it just seems to run too close to what others might call “fate”. But he is much smarter than me. That’s just the way I choose to look at it now, maybe because it’s more comforting and encouraging.

All of this has gotten me much more interested in the unconscious part of our mind, that we all basically ignore, understandably so, because we aren’t even aware of it in the first place. We literally can’t be aware of it, until we start to pay closer attention to and examine our thoughts, actions and behavior. The unconscious mind and it’s importance has appeared countless times throughout my reading, from great thinkers like Carl Jung to Joseph Campbell and beyond, and I’m only now feeling like I’m able to grasp what it actually means. After reviewing Free Will’s book notes, I found another book James Clear summarized titled Strangers to Ourselves, and it helped clear up some of the confusion I had. I ordered that book and can’t wait to dive in. Maybe I’ll return to this topic after I learn more. But for now, I think this simple fact, that there’s a lag between the unconscious brain deciding, and then ourselves feeling the conscious decision, is more than enough to ponder. At the very least, maybe it can make us a little more thoughtful, or questioning, or simply awed, the next time we’re making a decision, whether it’s what we’re having for dinner, or what we want to do with our lives. 

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Habits Towards Goals

I’m personally a big fan of the end of the year. You get to reflect on what you liked about the last year and what you didn’t, what you want to continue and what you want to change. The new year allows you to start with somewhat of a blank slate, fresh to pursue new goals, experiences and adventures.  I’m spending the end of 2017 thinking about what I want out of 2018, what I want to add to my life and what I want to leave behind. One thing I’m going to try to do, beyond just identifying my goals, is identify the habits that will help me achieve my goal. Having goals is important,  but you need to know how to get there, and for real, sustainable change, you need to change your habits. Below is something I previously wrote on habits that I’ll be reviewing and trying to instill as I pursue my goals in 2018. Best of luck with whatever you set out to do and have a wonderful new year!

https://www.tumblr.com/sampostlives/146708370885/habits

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My Year in Reading 2017

Books

This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff

This was my favorite book of the year. I’d heard about Tobias Wolff before, from two incredible writers who are huge fans, George Saunders and David Sedaris, but based solely on the name I figured he was Old and Boring. Boy was I wrong. I picked this up and couldn’t put it down. It’s essentially a memoir of his childhood with his single mother and eventually a step-father that did not treat him very well, to say the least. He also spends plenty of time talking about all the trouble he caused as a kid and it was vividly familiar. His writing is beautiful, funny, and honest, and I couldn’t recommend this book highly enough.

Theft By Finding: Diaries 1977-2002 by David Sedaris

I got into David Sedaris in 2016 and read even more of his books this year. He released a large collection of his diaries in March and as an avid journaler I loved it. He’s one of the funniest writers I’ve ever read and seeing his raw diaries be that funny was both inspiring and exasperating. What struck me most about it though was the casual harshness he encountered throughout the late 70’s and 80’s. Sedaris is a gay man growing up in these times and he routinely witnessed or was the victim of constant harassment, where you could get mugged, be called a faggot, or have something thrown at you from a car all in the same month. While we clearly still have a long way to go, the misogyny, racism, and homophobia all seemed to be so much more out in the open and blatant back then, ready to greet you at any street corner.  And this wasn’t the 1950’s, this was all happening in the decade or so before I was born. While the shitstorm of the last year has revealed how much more we still need to reckon with as a society, it’s important to recognize the ways life has gotten better, but even more importantly, that we’re always going to have to work to make it better and uphold the good, even if it is hard, often demoralizing fucking work.

(My other favorite by Sedaris that I read this year was Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. Yup, that’s the title. But you’re not gonna go wrong picking up any of his essay collections, they’re all hilarious.)

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia & Discontent and its Civilizations by Moshin Hamid

The first a novel, the second a collection of non-fiction essays, both show the incredible strength, intelligence, and versatility of the writer Moshin Hamid. I learned more about Pakistan than I’d ever known and about a culture that was completely foreign to me, but at the same time Hamid expertly shows all of the striking similarities of desires and conflicts that they share with all people regardless of location. ‘Immigrant’ and ‘minority’ is a word thrown around so often but so few of us who aren’t ones ever actually learn what the experience is like. These two books have the same power and affection that Americanah, The Sympathizer, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao gave me the year before.

Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin

The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant

Principles by Ray Dalio

These three were my favorite “intellectual” reads of the year. I set out not to finish these books, but to get what I thought was interesting and useful from them, and in that I succeeded. All three give you a  better understanding of the world we live in and why the way things are the way they are. Seeking Wisdom is one of the best books on cognitive biases I’ve read, and uses great examples from Charles Darwin all the way to Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger to show you the ways human beings trick themselves.

The Story of Philosophy was very interesting and really readable thanks to the great Will Durant (check out him and his wife’s short book, the Lessons of History. They are beasts.) I learned many of the most important philosophers’ thoughts and ideas about society, religion, science and government, and on that last point, it was somewhat reassuring to see people trying to figure out how the hell to organize society and running into the same problems for millennia.

Finally, Principles was extraordinary, with a ton of useful, practical, yet mind-blowing principles you can apply in your own life. I’d recommend checking out Ray Dalio on the Tim Ferriss podcast where they go over some of the book and his story. Dalio seems like an incredibly intelligent, humble, caring guy who’s also massively successful. The best thing about these books is that I’ll be picking them up and learning from them again and again in the years to come.

The Night of the Gun by David Carr

I read a few memoirs on addiction and recovery this year, but this one gobsmacked me. David Carr was a highly respected journalist for the New York Times (he passed away in 2015). But before that he had been an abusive crack addict. With this book he not only writes about his past, but investigates it, just as he would with any other piece of reporting, going back and interviewing the people he ran with at the time and researching and fact checking. The book is about addiction and recovery, but even more so about memory, what we choose to remember, and what we don’t, and how the way we see ourselves often lines up with a view that allows us to move on and live our lives as best we can.

Killing Floor by Lee Child

The first Jack Reacher novel in the series and the first I’d ever read. It was a great, pulpy tough guy novel and a blast to read.

Comics

These comics all blew me away and showed me just how wide-ranging and powerful a comic could be. I’d put these selections up there with any book I read this year.

X-Men Grand Design by Ed Piskor

I’ve been excited for this book as soon it was announced. I wanted to get into the old school X-Men mythos earlier this year but all the books I picked up felt dated and too convoluted. Then I heard about this project by Ed Piskor, a one man cartoonist who writes, draws, colors, and letters the whole dang comic. He was going to streamline the entire early history of the X-Men in how own style for a modern read. This was exactly what I was looking for. I read his previous work (mentioned below) and loved it. I had high expectations awaiting the first issue, which finally came out on December 20th. It wildly exceeded my hopes. The first issue goes over both Professor X and Magneto’s early lives and how they became who we know them as, and wraps up with the recruitment of the original X-Men. I expected it to look dope and be cool, but I did not expect the trauma and pathos each character goes through on their way to becoming the heroes we’re familiar with. Piskor doesn’t shy away from these harrowing trials and tribulations and each one is conveyed with simple but powerful visuals. The pace is breakneck and I can’t wait to re-read it again before the next issue comes out in just a few days on January 3rd. If you’re into the X-Men at all go out and grab this book!

Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

I wrote about these two earlier in the year. Click the links for my thoughts and praise of HHFT and MFTIM.

Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender

This book is so badass. I  was lucky enough to borrow the omnibus from a friend in 2016 (shoutout to Kyle!) and took my time with it, finishing it early this year. It’s basically Wolverine leading a team of assassins against any threats the X-Men wouldn’t necessarily have the stomach to handle. The team includes Deadpool, Psylocke, Archangel, and Phantomex (some sort of robot/artificial assassin James Bond-type that I still don’t fully understand but was instantly memorable). It’s a brutal book and puts each character through the ringer, all for a sprawling look at what it means to take life and death into your own hands.

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Airplane Mode

Tech and social media continue to worm into every crevice of our lives, for good and increasingly bad. One of the things I consider bad is the incessant pull to check our phones, with no real purpose, just an unconscious (and addicting) desire to occupy our mind with something at all times. In an effort to fight off the bad, and to maintain some peace in the mornings, I started tweaking my routine.

First, I moved my phone charger from my bedside table to the desk across the room. This way I couldn’t just pick it up whenever I wanted and disturb my sleep with a glowing rectangle. It also forces me to get out of bed to turn the alarm off and start my day. Then I began putting my phone on Sleep mode before bed. No vibrations to wake me up or tempt me. I also wanted to stop checking my phone in the mornings so I could start my day off on the right foot with some peace of mind. But I’d usually wake up to some text or notification that I ended up checking, and then I’d check another app, and then that peace was gone. So, when I heard Tim Ferriss puts his phone on Airplane mode before bed, that seemed like the logical next step. And it’s surprising how effective it is, and how much nicer my mornings have been. I don’t see any texts, I don’t know what’s happened in the news overnight, and I  have no temptation to check anything. That’s the key I think. Just by blacking out my phones network capabilities, I remove the temptation and the pull to check it. My mornings have been a lot more peaceful, and I can flick on the world in my phone whenever I’m ready.

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My Year in TV & Movies 2017

2017 was an absolutely stacked year for entertainment. I thought it was a really strong year for both mediums, but the amount of great TV that’s coming out every single month now is staggering. There’s lots of great movies coming out too, but you just have to look a little harder for them underneath all the ‘blockbusters’ (though some of those are pretty great too). Netflix absolutely crushed it this year, with 7 TV shows on my list.  Here’s what I really enjoyed this year.

TV

The Leftovers

Legion

My two favorite shows in 2017 were Legion and The Leftovers. While very different shows they both ask similar questions: Am I crazy? Or is the world around me crazy? Am I in control? Or are larger, unknown forces at work? How do we deal with grief and guilt? The two best performances I saw on TV all year came from Carrie Coon of the Leftovers and Aubrey Plaza in Legion. Everyone was superb on the Leftovers, but Carrie Coon was on another level, mining the depths of Nora Durst’s anger and grief for explosive, devastating acting. The gut-wrenching emotion displayed on her face in so many different scenes was extraordinary. Aubrey Plaza on the other hand broke out of her role as April on Parks and Rec, bursting through as the literal and figurative monster pulling the strings of David, the protagonist in Legion. I’ve always liked Plaza, but she leaves behind her apparent one-note dryness and explodes into mania, a monster in control and having fun.

The Leftovers was brutal, beautiful, emotional and gorgeous. Every performance was superb and I think it was the best season of television this year. Legion was a close personal second for me. It was off the wall fun, and you never knew what type of show you were going to get each week. It felt like Legion, along with Logan, showed what a comic book adaption could really be, which is, anything it damn well pleases. Legion isn’t  a super-hero show. It’s a show about mental illness and the struggle to grasp and then control our potential, and recognizing it as both a gift and a curse. The Leftovers is one of the most powerful examinations of grief I’ve seen in art, and was also funny, unpredictable, weird, and heartbreaking. I think both of these shows might have slipped under the radar for a lot of people and I highly recommend checking them out.

Steven Universe

Adventure Time

Rick and Morty

Bojack Horseman

I wrote about these cartoons previously, and there’s nothing more to say other than it still blows my mind how deep each show can get in it’s respective world-building and pathos.

Game of Thrones

Obviously. People ragged on it a bit this year because of some iffy writing, deservedly so, but god dammit we finally got dragons fucking shit up!

Mindhunter

For as much TV as I watch, I don’t really ‘binge’, or at least as compulsively as I think that word suggests. I like to space it out a bit, even if just for a week if it’s on Netflix. But I ripped through this show and finished it in a weekend. David Fincher’s directing, the joy of seeing a show almost purely constructed on conversation between characters, and diving into the psychology of monsters and men made this show enthralling. I’m not a huge true crime/serial killer guy, but I loved this show.

Nathan For You

This show can be uncomfortable to watch, to say the least. It’s also the hardest I’ve laughed at a TV show this year and I’m amazed and horrified at how this genius/psychopath commits fully to his weird, elaborate social experiments/pranks. Completely unlike anything else on TV. So good, one of the greatest documentary filmmakers ever, Errol Morris, just wrote about how much he loved it. 

Stranger Things 2

Honestly, I went into the second season not expecting much, because the first season was so good, and since the show wasn’t conceived as continuing the first season’s story, I thought this would just be a typical kind of rushed sequel job. I thought it’d be good, just not as good. And I was wrong. Somehow the second season might have been even better than the first, in part because I thought the ending was a lot stronger this time around. Now can Will Byers have one god damn day of peace?

GLOW 

Maybe it’s on me for not looking more widely before, but I felt like this year there was a ton of wonderful TV shows with strong female characters and performances. The Leftovers, Legion and Godless featured some of my favorite performances of the year, all by women. And GLOW was a kick-the-door-in celebration of this fact, as almost the entire show is made up of and focused on women. This show surprised me. I really liked it and look forward to the next  season, and more shows like it.

Master of None

Big Mouth

These two comedies couldn’t be more different, but they’re both hilarious and surprisingly deep. Both shows look at dating, sex, and relationships, and the volatile changes and emotions that come with it, yet each does so with vastly different formats and points of view. It’s cool to see Aziz Ansari and Nick Kroll, two good friends, come up together and each create such distinct, original shows.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Long live Larry David. I hope he keeps making Curb until the day he dies.

Godless

Godless was the best Western of the year, a 7 episode mini-series that felt like one long, gorgeous, old-school movie. Filled with deep characters dealing with tremendous trauma and loss, there’s still bits of real humanity, history, laughter, and beauty sprinkled throughout. Every actor is perfect, but Merrit Wever’s tough as nails Maggie steals the show. Godless was written and directed by Scott Frank, who had quite the year. He wrote the first movie on the list below. You might have heard of it.

Honorable Mentions:

Billions continues to be entertaining with strong performances. The Good Place is good. The Americans keeps on chugging along in moody silence, just like Phil, but I’m very excited for their next and final season. I jumped into Preacher‘s second season without watching the first and enjoyed it. Fargo was very slow starting off but picked up nicely at the end. Broad City is still killing it. Love is an underrated comedy on Netflix that I’ve really enjoyed.

MOVIES

Logan

Logan was the best comic book movie of the year, and one of the best movies of the year, period. A brutal neo-Western properly closing out both Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart’s Wolverine and Professor X, with their best performances yet. Scott Frank wrote this as well. Both Logan and Godless are masterpieces of their form.

Get Out

A stunning, perfect debut for Jordan Peele, timely, scary, and god damn funny. It’s very cool to see this in Oscar contention, especially with how far back it was released. Can’t wait to see what he makes next.

Thor: Ragnarok

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 

The Marvel contingency. They’re ranked in the order I liked them. Thor was fun and gorgeous. I felt like this was the first time my version of Spider-Man was on the big screen. I’m pumped he’s in the Marvel fold. Guardians, while also visually stunning, was a bit of a letdown, if only because of how original and fresh the first one felt. That movie floored me in theaters and is one of my favorite Marvel movies, so a high bar to live up to. Black Panther and Infinity War next year!!!

The Big Sick

Baby Driver

Dunkirk

I want more movies like these three in the summertime. Original movies with their own unique style, viewpoint, or message, unattached to any ‘property’. And really, any summer you get new Edgar Wright and Christopher Nolan is a huge win.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

What a fucking movie. Made by the same writer-director who gave us In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, this movie has the pitch black humor and violence he’s known for, but with more raw emotion, grief, and pathos running throughout. There was uncomfortable laughter and audible gasps in my theater. Martin McDonagh makes you sickened by, and then empathize with, a violent racist and root for and cringe at what a grieving mother’s  willing to do for justice (or revenge). I walked out wanting to immediately see it again and will do so soon. Sam Rockwell’s a god damn gift.

Honorable Mentions:

It, I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore, Wind River, Logan Lucky

Best movies I watched for the first time that didn’t come out this year:

Spotlight, 20th Century Women, The Wrestler, Bone Tomahawk, Moonlight, The Lobster, Moana, Life Itself, Memories of Murder

These movies were all astounding and among my favorites of the year.

Movies that came out this year that I still want to see: 

Ladybird, Call Me By Your Name, Phantom Thread, The Disaster Artist, Downsizing, The Florida Project, Coco, The Last Jedi, The Shape of Water, I, Tonya, The Post, Molly’s Game, Mudbound

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So, what’d I miss?

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My Year in Music 2017

This year’s new albums never quite grabbed me like the new releases in ’16 did (Frank, Solange, Chance, Schoolboy, Kanye), but there were certainly some gems. And in that void of new music, I ended up going back and exploring a ton of different music from all over the place, which was really fun and enlightening. Check out my favorite albums of the year, new and old, and the top songs I listened to in 2017, below.

2017

First of all, you can check out the top songs I listened to this year here. Now let’s get to the albums.

Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.

SZA – Ctrl

Do I really need to write about these two albums? Probably the two best albums of the year, both coming from Top Dawg Entertainment. Two of my favorite albums that came out last year were also from TDE. They know what they fuck they’re doing.

Tyler, the Creator – Flower Boy

I liked Odd Future and Tyler when they were first coming out and I was in college. I liked the brash punkness of it mixed with some Jackass vibes. But besides helping usher Frank Ocean into the world, I kind of lost track of them. After hearing Tyler’s production on Blonde. (Skyline To), and then one of his new singles off the album (911/Mr. Lonely), I added it to check out. And I only really got around to it about a month ago, but I’ve been playing it ever since. There’s some great features on this album and both 911 and Where This Flower Blooms feature Frank. I went back and listened to the albums I missed by him and I’ve loved his progression away from abrasive punk to more beautiful, vulnerable music, culminating with this album.

Thundercat – Drunk

JAMS! Soft rock R&B is maybe the best way to describe it? I don’t even think it’s describable though. He’s singing about Dragonball Z, Michael McDonald, the plague of social media, and much more, all in catchy, up-beat grooves. Thundercat is the man and yet another connection to TDE: he played bass and helped produce Kendrick’s last 3 albums.

Steven Universe OST

I fell in love with Steven Universe this year, and have already talked about the show. The show is so good, in part, because of how phenomenal, catchy, and emotionally moving the songs are. The soundtrack came out this year and it’s always a joy to listen to, especially if I need a pick me up.

Honorable Mentions

Jay-Z 4:44

Vince Staples – Big Fish

I love Jay-Z and Vince Staples, and liked their new albums a lot, but after playing them each for a week or two, I promptly forgot about them until I started putting this list together. So while I’m happy they released new music (especially Jay-Z putting something out that good for the first time in awhile) I  have to leave them as honorable mentions.

Pre-2017

I pay $10 a month for Spotify, and it’s probably the best money I spend. I love being able to find basically any song or album and queuing it up to check out. I did that a lot this year, adding a ton of albums I’d never listened to. I watched a lot of What’s in My Bag and Crate Diggers towards the end of this year too. What’s in My Bag opened up a ton of obscure recommendations from some of my favorite artists, while Crate Diggers dove into the process of sampling and making beats, which opened me up to all the old funk and soul records they used. These are all albums I discovered or re-discovered this year and played the hell out of.

Nirvana – Unplugged

Loved this when I first heard it as a teenager, love it now.

Kamasi Washington – The Epic

Epic is right. Out of this world jazz, pulling from all sorts of different influences. Hard to describe this one, but I’m pretty sure it’s a masterpiece.

Blackalicious – Blazing Arrow

Banging rap, sick samples. Never heard it before and it blew my mind.

Blondie – Parallel Lines & Autoamerican

I have both of these on vinyl and wanted to revisit them after seeing Blondie’s early influence and appreciation of the emerging hip hop scene in Hip Hop Family Tree. Both are great.

Brian Eno – Apollo

Beautiful ambient music, to relax to, to write to, to clean the house to, and more.

Common – Be

One of Kanye’s best produced albums, and Common’s best album.

Isaiah Rashad – The Sun’s Tirade

I missed this in 2016 but played the hell out of it this year. Another great rap record from last year, and another TDE production!

Noname – Telefone

This one I did enjoy in 2016, but continued to listen to this year and enjoyed it even more.

The Internet – Ego Death

What a great fucking band, that plays real instruments, yet can seamlessly transform their sound into hip hop beats with their instruments. This was one of my favorite discoveries of the year. Their other album Feel Good is awesome too.

Marvin Gaye – Here, My Dear

I’d always heard this was maybe Marvin’s best, and after listening to it again this year it really hit me. Beautiful, raw, honest. And sounds so damn good.

Steely Dan- Can’t Buy a Thrill

JAMS! Every single song on this album is a soft rock masterpiece. I have this on vinyl and played it a lot. Steely Dan’s also been sampled a lot by hip hop, from De La Soul to Kanye. Speaking of samples…

Gangstarr – Daily Operation

Skull Snaps – Skull Snaps

Ohio Players – Pleasure

After watching Crate Diggers, I was going back and forth between a lot of old rap and then the older funk records they pulled samples from. DJ Premier is obviously a legend, but I never really listened to Daily Operation. Both the beats and the lyrics from Guru blew me away. The next two are some of the most sampled records of all time and for good reason. Pleasure was a perfect introductions to the Ohio Players. Skull Snaps bangs, if the name didn’t tell you already.

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Keep your ears open, and if you think I’d dig something based on this list, let me know!

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Staying Sharp in the Dark

We’ve entered November, it’s dark before most of us leave the office, and bad news just seems to keep on coming. I can feel the S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder) hovering over me. But it hasn’t quite taken hold yet, in part because of the routines and practices I’ve made a habit of over the last few years. It used to hit me much harder in years past, before I cut back on unhealthy habits and started practicing healthy ones, but I’m still definitely not immune to it, especially if I’m slacking on those healthy habits. These healthy habits are listed below, and I try to do them everyday in order to give myself the best chance to have a great day. Some of these include locked in routines I’ve been doing every day for years now and others are newer things I’m trying to introduce to make sure I stay at my best. So this is more of a reminder for myself, as much as suggestions for you to try out if the change in seasons gets you down.

Meditation and Mindfulness

Every morning after I shower I meditate for 10 minutes. This doesn’t mean I sit and reach zen enlightenment. Usually I have to continuously pull myself back from thinking about the day ahead and what I have to do, and return to the moment, to my breath, to the mantra, over and over again. That’s why it’s called a practice. Some days are great, other times it’s a struggle. But every morning I do it. It lays the foundation that allows me to be calmer, happier, and more present and in the moment throughout my day. It’s challenging to describe the practice and effects of meditation. I never feel that I do it justice, but I want to try to in a future post and get as in depth and practical as I can with it, so stay tuned for that.

Outside. Water & Tea. Breakfast. Supplements.

After I meditate I let the dog out and I find it really helps to stay outside even for just 30 seconds, to feel the cold and breathe in the fresh air. It helps me wake up and feel alive. While breakfast is getting ready, I’ll drink a glass of water and make some tea (with a little bit of apple cider vinegar and coconut oil splashed in). Then I’ll have breakfast, which is usually oatmeal and peanut butter, or some bacon and eggs. After breakfast I’ll take supplements. Sean (and Tim Ferriss) got me into taking supps, and they’ve done wonders for both Sean and I. He’s written before about his own supplement routine, as well how diet can effect your mood. Almost every day I take cod liver oil, and rotate between potassium, magnesium, garlic, and Vitamin D (especially this one with the time change and lack of sunlight). Not only do these boost my mood, I hardly ever get sick anymore, which I think is due to the cod liver oil in particular. Now that I’ve said that, I’m sure I’ll get sick within the next week.

Practice Gratitude

I’ve written about my gratitude journal before, but in short, the first thing I do at work when my computer boots up is open Evernote and jot down a few things I’m grateful for. That’s it. It’s incredibly simple and I think you’d be surprised at how much it can change your mood and how you look at things throughout the rest of your day.

Go for a Walk

Every day, at 11am and 3pm, I get up from my desk at work and take a nice, mindful walk around the block. It doesn’t take more than 5 minutes each time, and I think it’s vital not only for my health, but my mood as well. Go for a walk. You’ll feel better. 

Limit or Block Information Overload

Working at a computer all day, I have a bad habit of continuously clicking on news sites and Twitter, compulsively and repeatedly, even if I know there is absolutely nothing new, let alone anything I need to know. I’ve tried a number of different tactics but always end up backsliding. This month I started a new tactic. I can check those news sites and Twitter one time, usually in the morning, and then I am done for the day. I block them on my work computer after that one time check-in, and I have Freedom on my laptop set to block all news sites and Twitter after 6:00pm. It’s still early, but I’m off to a good start and I feel much, much better because of it.

Exercise & Sauna

I try to hit the gym at least twice a week, if not three times. It’s a lot harder to do in the colder months, but it’s even more important that I get there. I ALWAYS feel better after a session at the gym, even if it was light. And at the end of each session is a reward, and probably my favorite part of the whole process: I sit in the sauna for 15-20 minutes. It always feels good to sweat it out in there, especially when it’s cold outside. Sauna use has a host of health benefits, and is also just relaxing and pleasurable for its own sake, so if you have one at your gym, I highly recommend it.

Stretch & Music

At the end of my day, I blast music and do a stretch routine that takes about 10-20 minutes. This is where I where I process my day and begin to relax and enjoy my evening. It usually means my day is done. It’s glorious.  

Marijuanna

In the immortal words of Memphis Bleek, “I gets high…I can’t lie” (not while I drive though). Marijuana absolutely helps me unwind and relax in the evenings. I take a couple puffs and put the day behind me. I throw a record on, cook up and enjoy some dinner, write in my journal, then settle into a book, TV or movie. I know it’s not for everyone, and it can be a double-edged sword even for me. If I indulge too much, it can easily launch me into laziness, so less is usually more. But for the most part, it relieves me of unnecessary stress and anxiety, lifts up my mood, and allows me to take life and myself a little less seriously. I feel like I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t include it here.

Conclusion

That’s a brief overview of the regular actions I take that help keep me happy, productive, and at the very least, sane, during the cold, dark days of winter. I focused more on my daily routine, but it’s also of course crucial to get out and be social, have fun, see friends, laugh, and maybe have a deep conversation or two if you can. But some days I’m really dragging ass and I do fall into the pit of junk food and Netflix. And that’s okay too; some days you need to just take a break. But what’s important is you pick it back up the next day. Small, simple actions are what gets us out of our ruts. So if you’re really feeling down but want to get back up, start small. Clean your desk. Bundle up and go take a walk around the block. Try to meditate for 5 minutes. And if it’s just not happening, dive into that favorite TV show for some laughs, and get after it again tomorrow.

All of this is simple advice but it might not be easy for you. My form of seasonal depression is pretty mild, and these things help, but this isn’t to say any of these things would cure a serious case of depression. Please seek out more experienced, professional help if you need it. These are just meant to be some helpful tips if you’re prone to feeling down in the dumps in the fall and winter.

Stay sharp and stay healthy this winter my friends!

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Recommended: Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor

Hip Hop Family Tree is an extraordinarily ambitious comic book series made even more impressive by the fact that it’s made entirely by one man, cartoonist Ed Piskor. He writes, draws, colors and formats the whole damn thing. The series is a deep dive into the history of hip hop starting in the 70’s and is currently up to the mid 80’s, presented in a beautifully old school style in a large format book, much bigger than most comics today. It’s fascinating how he’s able to weave through so many different characters and places to really tell the history of how hip hop began in an incredibly engaging, fun way. I found it to be such a refreshing way to learn deeply about a topic while still being entertained by all the smaller stories and details  throughout each panel.

The early days of hip hop are littered with stories of creativity, failure, community, hustling, getting ripped off, and creating your own path. Through these journeys we see the origins of the MC’s who one day reign supreme, like Run DMC, Chuck D, Dr. Dre, LL Cool J, and KRS-One, while also giving lots of love to the early founders like Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, and Afrika Bambaataa, just to name a few. My favorite parts so far were the slow beginnings of Def Jam, following the Beastie Boys as a teenage punk band, Rick Rubin as a spoiled college kid obsessively interested in both punk and the emerging hip hop scene, and a lisping, drug-fueled Russell Simmons managing many of the early stars of the day (every panel with him is hilarious).

Ed fuses his love of comic books and hip hop with flair and a precise attention to detail. Young legends are introduced by their real names first so you might not know who they are, or who they go on to become, as they develop into the best MC’s of their generation. It has the same feel as a young Scott Summers (Cyclops) or Jean Grey struggling with their newfound powers in the early days of the X-Men. Which is a great sign considering his next project is yet another massively ambitious, historically sweeping project: X-Men Grand Design.

I first heard about Ed when that project was announced earlier this year and I picked up Hip Hop Family Tree to check out his work, and because of my interest in both comics and hip hop. Needless to say I was pretty floored. He’s doing something very similar with Grand Design, taking decades of X-Men comics and retelling it in his own unique way. I am so fucking stoked for it, and the first one’s dropping at the end of next month. But until then, check out Hip Hop Family Tree if any of this sounded appealing, and click through to peep some dope panels. 

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Confession

Confession, for a few thousand years now, has consisted of entering a closet with a screened window, and telling a stranger with some type of moral/religious authority your sins. But like many things established in religious practice, this form of confession wasn’t explicit in the Bible. The origin of confession in the religious practice comes from the Epistle of St. James: “Confess your sins to one another”. This was then taken to mean, confess to your priest, who, appointed by God, can forgive you of your sins, so you can go to heaven. But I think the original message is much more important than the way it was co-opted as a form of authority and religion, strictly for the gain of an eternal afterlife after you die. What about right now?

I found this origin of confession in a throwaway line in a book on philosophy. While doing a quick check for accuracy, I found the wording a bit different, but the same message: “Confess therefore your sins one to another”. But, directly below that came a footnote from someone else, I’m assuming much, much later:

         Confess your sins one to another… That is, to the priests
          of the church, whom he had ordered to be called
          for, and brought in to the sick; moreover, to confess to
          persons who had no power to forgive sins, would be useless.

Hm. This person seems to say that without the promised afterlife you “win” through confession, the act would be pointless. But why the hell should a pure and noble act, admitting our mistakes, be re-purposed solely as a gesture  to purchase real estate in a place no one can guarantee exists? Aren’t there good qualities to admitting wrongdoing that could change our lives now, as we live them?

I think so. In the last 3 years, I’ve found that the act of ‘confessing’, to ourselves, to one another, to the people we care about, is an incredibly freeing, valuable, essential exercise.

Calling it confession might weird you out because of the overtones. I didn’t think of it as confession when originally recognizing and thinking about this topic, but confession seemed like an interesting, historical parallel to enter through. The concept’s been around for ages. In our own lives and the way we might practice it though, I think it can more aptly be described as being vulnerable, and sharing your vulnerabilities. Sean and I have tried practicing this through these essays, which can be very freeing to write. Dumping out your inner thoughts and secrets is liberating, and you might end up finding out more than you even knew about yourself. Sharing them online is scary; I’m admitting things I don’t like about myself or past self, and posting them online for anyone to see. But it’s still removed from face to face human interaction. That’s a whole different ballgame, and one we experimented with during our ‘porch sessions’.

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