David Eisinger

Journal > Dispatch #11 (January 2024)

Posted 2024-01-10 under #dispatch

That’s a wrap on 2023. Our little Nevie turned two in December. It’s hard to imagine her changing as much in the next year as she did in the last, but I suppose it’s inevitable. We spent Christmas at Claire’s folks’ house and hit up both the Greensboro Children’s Museum and Greensboro Science Center.

We’re on a bit of a purge, trying to free up some space in the house. It’s an overwhelming project (how did we acquire so much stuff?) but we’re taking it one step at a time. I’ve been building new shelves and put up guitar hangers to clear up some floor space. I’ve taken inspiration from this post about office organization and this one about maintaining a list of where to find things.

Music-wise, I received an Arturia KeyStep 37 as a Christmas gift from my in-laws. This thing is super nice; I’m already having a blast using it to play my existing gear, and I’m hoping it’ll play a big role as I shift to a more computer-based workflow. Here’s a new track called “Orographic”:

I dusted off the Switch to play Dead Cells. It’s similar to Hades but in a more retro side-scrolling format. Highly recommended if you don’t mind dying a lot. We also finished season three of Slow Horses, the best thing going on television these days.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this passage from 4000 Weeks that I reflect upon often:

In his play The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard puts an intensified version of this sentiment into the mouth of the nineteenth-century Russian philosopher Alexander Herzen, as he struggles to come to terms with the death of his son, who has drowned in a shipwreck – and whose life, Herzen insists, was no less valuable for never coming to fruition in adult accomplishments. “Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up,” Herzen says. “But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what only lives for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment … Life’s bounty is in its flow. Later is too late.

This month:

• Adventure: spending MLK weekend with my folks in a cabin the Shenandoah Valley, take Nev to Luray Caverns
• Project: music/hobby table – no new gear until I have a place I can actually use the stuff I have (then probably a Roland Juno as a reward)
• Skill: I’d like to learn the pentatonic/blues scale (major and minor) in every key, as it seems to be the basis of most improvisational music I like (that’s obviously more than I can do in the next 21 days but at least get started)

Reading:

• Fiction: Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales, Yogo Ogawa – I’m trying to read better books this year, and this caught my attention when I saw it mentioned on Hacker Stations
• Non-fiction: Essentialism, Greg McKeown

Links:

• Tech Independence (via)

  So if a company turns evil or goes out of business, no problem! You can set up a new server anywhere else in an hour, point your domain name to the new IP address, and it’s done. That’s tech independence – never dependent on any particular provider or software. It’s very empowering. The instructions below will show you how.

• Only you can give meaning to your career: How to mark moments that matter by planting a flag

  But here’s the thing: I create these things for me and me alone. When a bunch of people read something I wrote or show up to one of my talks, do I find it encouraging and validating? Sure. But it’s not what drives me. I started creating things to punctuate my life’s sentences long before anybody took an interest in me and I wouldn’t stop even if everyone loses interest in me.

• Resources on the Philosophy of Work (via)

  Indeed, we know that it is possible to be creative without being oppressed. Most people can contrast alienated wage labour (what some simply sweepingly call “work”) with playful creation, where someone is compelled by passion and interest to put a lot of effort into creating something. In fact, we know that, ironically, we are usually more productive in this passionate state, than when we are managed and disciplined into doing something we do not care about.