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Democrats Lost Their Way

November 15, 2024

Democrats were trounced in this election, and we only have ourselves to blame.

I have taken some time to step away from my political involvement. It's not that I don't care about what's going on, but for my own mental health, I needed a break.

The reelection of Trump as President was a hard pill to swallow. I accept the result, of course (I'm not a conspiracy theorist), but I am in shock that it is even a result that I have to accept.

And that, I believe, is part of the problem.

This election taught me something valuable about myself: I am part of that group that is apparently out of touch with American sentiment. The ideals championed by the Democratic Party were not strong enough to invigorate the electorate. At least not like before.

Back to Our Roots

There are times when I feel like the election still hasn’t sunk in. It really feels like I'm living some kind of inevitable, terrible dream.

But that sinking feeling aside, what I do know is that the Dems really messed up in this election, and losing the popular vote was just additional damning evidence that our messaging is not landing, nor energizing, the base.

We need to get back to core liberalism:

Bolstering the middle class
Promoting living wage policies
Championing universal healthcare as a right
Fighting for women’s rights and gender equality
Supporting labor unions
Pushing for gun control
Making education affordable and free
Protecting the environment

Frankly, we spent too much time calling MAGA supporters “idiots” (or, implying they are) but then failed to make the case for why the world is better with Dems in charge. We didn't explain exactly why, in detail, life would be better in America with a Democrat in the White House versus a MAGA Republican.

Republican Marketing is Effective

On the other hand, Trump made his case for why life would be better with him in charge, and the Republicans were far better at marketing that message. Their marketing machine resonated and gave people a reason to vote for something as opposed to just against someone. Voting for something brings out the base to vote.

Trump's message and MAGA are both here to stay, the Republican Party has voted for this same guy three times now! It's time for Democrats to understand that, and take it seriously. It's time we accept this, and that the Republican Party of Reagan is dead. It's a new beast.

Prepare (and Wait)

There isn't much to do right now other than prepare, and wait. The country has spoken: they want Trump's policies.

But we won't be rolling over, that much I do know.

Trump and friends will hit roadblocks at every turn. I'm fortunate to live in California because I know Trump will have a hard time making any real progress here with his policies. Lawsuits are incoming. That should slow things up quite a bit for his second and final term.

While this is happening, the Democrats need to rediscover a more universal identity that the electorate can get excited about. Is it more to the left? Is it more centrist? I’m honestly not sure, but we need to figure it out soon, and market it effectively, so that a strong message can be sent at midterms.

#politics

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Never Justify Your Time

November 12, 2024

Find happiness in knowing that your time requires no justification.

One of the more freeing realities that I've learned to accept in my life is that I owe nobody an explanation for how I use my time. It wasn't always this way for me, and I suspect that many of you still feel guilty when you choose to spend your time doing something for yourself instead of for someone else.

I think the whole notion of justifying our time comes from childhood. Growing up, we often had to explain our actions to our parents. Why we were doing something other than our homework, as one example. This can easily carry into young adulthood in the event that your parents helped you financially in the early years.

The point is, it's an ingrained behavior, so when we choose to spend our time at the “expense” of someone else, we feel guilty. We feel like we need to present a valid explanation for our choice.

You Owe Nobody an Explanation

The reality is, you don't owe anyone an explanation. If you'd like, you can tell them that you have chosen to do something else, but even that isn't really needed (though, it could be seen as polite).

If you want to stay at home instead of joining the family reunion, then do that if it's what you want. If you feel that is what is best for you, then to hell with the objection or opinions of anyone else.

Time is finite, and its value can't be measured. Spend it wisely, and spend it the way you want to spend it. It's yours, and never let anyone make you feel guilty about using it the way that you want to.

#happiness

Control and Trust

November 2, 2024

Let go of the idea of being in control, and trust that all will be okay.

Trusting a process is hard to do because it often means that you have to give up control, but in reality, it means giving up perceived control. The truth is that we aren't in control of much. When we feel like we are, we are more at ease, but I am beginning to learn that the opposite is true: we are never in control.

When we let go of control, we can finally rest. The mind has to work hard to pretend to be in control. It thinks through all possible scenarios over and over, then determines what your reaction should be to all these scenarios, and then how you should feel about them. Real feelings. Fake events.

Instead, I think it's better to:

Trust in your instincts.
Trust in the uncontrollable.
Trust in your future self's ability.

The human ego is so enormous that we think we can not only control potential outcomes, but that we can also predict the future. I've been reflecting on this lately, and in doing so, I have come to realize that quieting my mind is not a matter of making sure everything is “under control”, but instead it's about stopping an inherent desire to control everything.

Making this mindset shift is incredibly difficult, but necessary if you want to realize a true inner calm in your daily life. I implore you to surrender yourself to the unknown, and to also trust in yourself. Invite peace into your life — you're the only one who can give yourself permission.

#mindfulness

4th Stripe

October 26, 2024

It has taken longer than expected, but I finally earned my fourth stripe in BJJ.

In April 2023, I decided to take up Gracie Jiu-jitsu. Well, a year and a half later, I have finally earned my fourth stripe as a White Belt. Not that I consider myself good. In fact, quite the opposite: I think I'm pretty terrible.

But, I'm better than anyone with no training... so I guess there's that!

The journey has been a long one to this point. I've seen people start after me, and advance quicker than me. However, many (if not most) of these people have also already quit. This is a hobby of determination and consistency. Like learning Spanish, I'm in this for the long run — making incremental improvements along the way.

Slow and Steady

My path has been full of doubt, injuries, taking breaks, starting over, and eventually coming back to my original gym. I spent significant time really coming to terms with the kind of experience I wanted to have with BJJ. I'm not getting any younger, and I realized that I needed to change the way I work out if I want to continue this into my later years.

I'm still a ways off from earning a Blue Belt, but hey, I'm a heck of a lot closer than I was a year ago. I'm grateful for that.

And well, this is the last achievement I'm likely to earn at my current gym as we are set to move to our new home in Culver City pretty soon.

#personal

Our Last Beach Day

October 23, 2024

My favorite place, one final time.

If there is one thing I have been grateful for during our time in San Clemente, it has been the proximity to the ocean. Spending an hour or so on the beach was never disruptive. It made it easy for us to just decide to go without much fuss. I also took multiple walks per week along the path that runs along the beach up to the San Clemente pier. I've always enjoyed the sounds and smells of the ocean.

The beach weather can be hit or miss in October. We've had a lot of fog as of late, and it has been quite chilly. But these last four or five days it has been beautiful. Perfect beach weather, in fact.

But yesterday was a beautiful day, so we decided to spend an hour or so in the sand. The sun was shining, and the water was cold (as is the case with the Pacific Ocean), but that didn't stop me from getting in. It occurred to me that it was also our last time going to the beach here in San Clemente.

By November, we'll have other things on our plate, especially since we are moving before the end of the year to Culver City. So it was good to get one last visit in before that happens. We'll still be close to the beach at our new place, but not less than a mile, like we are today.

All that said, I'm looking forward to going to the beaches around LA. Sure, they'll have a little more activity, but that's part of the fun.

#personal

The Right to Remain Silent

October 21, 2024

The often forgotten protection of the First Amendment can only help Automattic.

The very public battle between Matt Mullenweg (Automattic) and WP Engine won't be ending anytime soon. From pettiness to legal challenges, to extremely questionable actions – things have been getting very messy. And not for WP Engine, but for Matt.

Given the actions of Matt over the last few weeks, WP Engine has filed an injunction. Essentially, they are trying to shut him up (and stop his actions) because of the damage he is causing to their company. The law specifically provides them with this option, and while I'm far from a lawyer, it looks to have been used appropriately. We'll see how a judge rules on the matter.

An Attack on Free Speech?

In response to this action by WP Engine, Matt wrote a blog post on how his First Amendment right has been attacked.

I can understand this reaction, on some level. No one likes to be told to “stop talking”. The emotional response is often to cite it as a violation of the First Amendment. Now, if Matt really wanted to, he could keep doing what he has been doing, but I suspect his legal team has advised against it.

The First Amendment protects free expression from government censorship or retaliation, but what people often forget is that it also inherently includes the right to remain silent.

Staying silent is prudent, and it's often underutilized. People love to spout off, and they should if they should feel so inclined. However, the sound of silence can be deafening.

The ability to not be goaded into fiery online spats and to hold your word, and peace, close to the vest is a virtue that not many people have. Very few, in fact. And it becomes exceptionally difficult when you feel like you're being attacked, personally.

Protection From Yourself

Your right to remain silent can save your ass. There's the obvious example of refraining from answering questions from the police, but its protection goes beyond just that scenario.

If you're in an ugly lawsuit, as is the case here with Matt and WP Engine, then it also protects you from yourself. Specifically, it protects you from your emotions.

Emotions aren't rational, they are jaded by your own perception. When you act out of emotion, you're broadcasting a very personalized worldview, and that worldview may be wrong in the eyes of a jury. Especially if it's emotionally charged.

Exercising your right to remain silent is honorable. In fact, I'd argue that there are times when it is more powerful than speaking freely. Matt has indicated that he will be staying silent until the judge makes a ruling on the injunction.

I hope that he sees the value in exercising this right.

#WordPress

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Higher Self

October 18, 2024

Trying to calm my internal noise to live in the moment. I find that this is way easier said than done.

I'm working towards my higher self, but what that is, I don't know. What I do know is that to get there, I need to surrender and let go, but this is something I am still having difficulty doing.

I am trying to release myself from any burden of my past or present. To stop trying to control every scenario and “practice” through every possible outcome for the events happening in my life. I'm learning to surrender to the notion that I am actually not in control, nor do I need to be. And that is okay. That is freedom.

I know all of this in theory, but putting it into practice is a back and forth battle with my own psyche. At times, I'll get a glimpse of the lightness of letting go, but only a few hours later, I'm back into the swirl of my thinking.

Silence, Peace, and Freedom

This road to my higher self, whatever it is, is worth it — oh, but it's so hard. How do you let go of ego? Or of pride? How do I just accept what is, and feel lighter?

Life doesn't come with a manual, and there are about ten thousand ways to pursue happiness. Every creed and culture has its recommendation. What I am striving for, instead, is silence. Silence is peace, and peace is freedom.

A quiet mind is a virtue, and I don't have it. I'll be sitting and then, BAM, a new thought comes into my consciousness. Maybe it's positive, or perhaps negative, but it's outside my control. It's noise. I'm on a journey to calm this noise to essentially nothing. To just be, and to be okay.

Daily mindfulness is helping.

To achieve the silence, peace, and freedom, I'm trying guided daily mindfulness exercises from a YouTube channel. I typically do them around 7PM every night for about 10–15 minutes, depending on the video.

After these short sessions, my mind feels more at ease. I have a sense of calmness, and sometimes I get inspired. Like today, I was inspired to write this post.

Daily walks are helping, too (sometimes).

I also walk every day, sometimes twice a day, to get some fresh air and reflect. This gives me an opportunity to quiet my mind, but there are times when I also overthink or get lost in thought.

Rumination and catastrophic thinking can creep in during these alone times. It's human nature. I need to be more intentional with my walk. Centered, and exist in the present moment. I'll be practicing that.

Centered Self, Not Self-Centered

I'm working on being centered, because if I can be centered, I can better lean into my higher self.

A quiet mind, in the present moment, will make it possible to listen with a true intent. But I'm in the constant battle of finding the solutions to my life's daily questions. I'm self-centered instead of just centering myself.

It's a slight shift, but it's about thinking outwardly instead of inward. Most people tend to think inward, almost all the time, and almost always in hypotheticals. For instance, I try to predict the future, then predict my reactions to the future.

This isn't mindfulness. This is noise. I'm cutting through this noise the best that I can, but it can be difficult. I'm learning that the most important thing is to just be patient during this process. Patience, I'm finding, is a virtue that's difficult to live. Though, it's through this virtue that I find perspective, balance, and moments of being centered.

#mindfulness

Still Haven't Moved

October 8, 2024

Selling a house has never been so hard.

Since putting our home on the market, we've had countless open houses, a handful of showings, and a few folks who showed genuine interest. But, as soon as something looks to be going well, the potential buyer backs out.

At the center of all this was our realtor. At first, things were fine, but we started noticing that he would bend the truth with us, and on more than one occasion. I mean, we have cameras at the house, so inflating the number of visitors during an Open House is silly. Yet, he would do it every time. Let's just say that we had reached our limit, and it was time to try a different approach.

We have taken new pictures and relisted our home with another agency. We like their vibe. Hopefully this time we have more luck because I hate this limbo.

#personal

Blogging Alternative to WordPress

October 6, 2024

My favorite platform for blogging.

Given all the WordPress drama that has been going on, I've seen a number of tweets from people searching for other platforms to use. In light of this, I figured I'd share what I've been using for a number of years now for blogging.

To clarify, this is not a CMS, so if you are looking for a CMS replacement then this one isn't it. However, if you just want to switch over to something reliable and simple for blogging — then keep reading.

In the summer of 2021, I decided to move my personal blog off of WordPress. From a pure blogging standpoint, I'm not a fan of the writing or admin experience of WordPress. I searched around for some other open source options, and stumbled upon WriteFreely, and the hosted option, write.as. The main developer (and founder) is another Matt, but he's not involved in any public disputes.

It's simple, open source blogging software with an emphasis on the writing experience. I have to be honest, it has made blogging fun again for me. No plugins, update notices, clunky themes, or slow loading admin panels. Just a pleasant, distraction-free way to blog about my life. It's also worth noting that the platform supports the principles of the Social Web Foundation.

I am writing this blog post with the markdown editor (in dark mode, ah, my eyes feel so good). That said, there is a rich text editor as well, and their own built-in image hosting service. So, that takes care of both my words and images.

It's pretty easy to categorize posts by adding a hashtag (you can see an example at the end of this post). And to round it all out, there is a built-in email feature so that subscribers get notified of new posts.

And really that's it. That's all I need.

The Themes are... Bad

Not everything is great, though.

Coming from the WordPress world, I am used to an endless selection of themes. Well, this is one area that write.as really struggles in.

They have a list of user donated themes that are just CSS. I was able to cobble together a few things that I liked from each for my previous theme, and it worked nicely from a minimalist point of view. I did the same for my Spanish blog (where I admittedly don't post a lot). If you dig around GitHub, you can find some themes as well, like this one by Francesco.

The simple theme I created for my main site worked well for over three years, but I started to get the itch for something new and more elaborate (the theme you see now). I ended up hiring a developer on UpWork and he completed the project in about a week (which consists of CSS and JavaScript). I love how it all came out!

Of course, if you're proficient in CSS and JS, then you can just whip up something rather quickly and be good to go. That's what my fellow blogger Mark did, and I think his blog looks quite nice.

Getting Started

If you want to host the software yourself, then head on over to WriteFreely. There you can download what you need, and find the instructions for running the software. This is a good option for the nerds out there who like a good challenge.

The other option is to use the hosted service at write.as, which is what I use.

I'd recommend creating a free account on the hosted service first to see if you like the experience. There are some quirks, for sure. The support is mediocre at best, though you probably don't need much support if you're just blogging.

Just don't expect all the bells & whistles of WordPress, and you'll be fine. The platform isn't as mature, is less robust, and still has some odd bugs here or there.

#WordPress

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Walz Starts Slow, Wins Debate

October 2, 2024

Who would be ready on day one? The answer is clear.

Did you watch the Vice Presidential debate between Tim Walz and J.D. Vance?

If not, I wouldn't blame you. No one really cares too much about the VP debate, and it certainly hasn't been shown to move the needle much for one party or the other. However, I would argue that it's a little bit different this year.

Typically, we get three presidential debates. But, because Trump is a coward, he is avoiding another debate at all costs. I understand why his team chose that path, because putting his racism, bigotry, and mental decline in front of 70 million Americans wouldn't do them any favors.

So, it goes without saying that Lorena and I watched it. We've been very tuned into this election cycle, given how much is at stake. The most recent debate was incredibly embarrassing for the Republicans. Would Vance do better?

My Key Takeaways

It's tough to capture every important moment of a debate, but here are my key takeaways after watching Walz and Vance discuss everything from immigration to foreign affairs:

Walz strong on healthcare. This was an area where Walz did really well, in my opinion. He spoke with authority and facts about the role of healthcare in society, from a woman's right to choose to insurance.
Vance is a good public speaker, but says nothing. Vance is a seasoned public speaker, I won't take that away from him. But he says a lot without saying anything. He danced his way around answering questions, then got upset when he would get fact-checked.
Walz didn't call out Vance's outrageous claims. I think Walz let Vance get away with too much. Trump didn't save Obamacare. Immigrants aren't causing unaffordable housing.
Vance refuses to admit Trump lost 2020 election. This was the moment of the debate for me. Vance refused to acknowledge that Trump lost the election, and Walz called him out on it.
Walz is presidential. Between these two men, Walz is by far the better, more seasoned option should they ever need to step in as President. Full stop.
Vance dehumanizes immigrants. I'm getting really tired of how Republicans talk about immigrants. It's disgusting how Vance pivoted every question back to illegal immigration. From homes to drugs, to guns, it was ridiculous.

This debate was closer than the debate between Vice President Harris and Donald Trump. Walz started off a little shaky, but caught his rhythm as the debate went on. He stayed on point, rarely dodged a question (of course he did one or two, everyone does), and had one of the best moments when he called out Vance for not acknowledging Trump's overwhelming defeat last election.

Vance did okay, and definitely better than Trump. He has a “try hard” factor about him, whereas Walz just feels more like that guy you know. He didn't make any major “holy crap” mistakes, and that's a win for the Republicans at this point.

I think Walz was too prepared. He fumbled a little over his words because you could tell that he wanted to get certain talking points out. The byproduct of that was he let Vance off the hook on his more outrageous proclamations. All that said, in the end, no one will think too much of this debate in about a week.

We are just 34 days away from the election, easily the most consequential election of my lifetime. There is so much on the line, even more so with the escalating conflicts in Ukraine and Israel.

I'm voting early, and I hope that you do as well.

#politics

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