« I’ve always had a terrible time being punctual. I arrived late to every single rendezvous life had given me. I even showed up at the station long after the train of happiness had passed. »

« J’ai toujours eu un énorme problème avec la ponctualité. Je suis arrivée en retard à tous mes rendez-vous. Je suis même arrivée en retard au passage du train du bonheur. »

In Summary: * One busy day, this S1, D4, Tuesday. Did my weekly laundry, called and had a nice talk with the current lanlord, showed his contactor the scary, dangerous tree out front, and he agreed it needs some serious cutting back, rescued a fedex delivery that was left on a front porch step of our new house, saw my Retina Doc and got my eyeballs injected. Wife is napping now and I think she wants us to make another run out to the new house yet this evening after she wakes up. Hope she changes her mind. This day's already been full enough imho.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 218.26 lbs. * bp= 132/80 (67)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, toe raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 06:00 – 1 banana, cottage cheese * 08:45 – 1 ham & cheese sandwich * 16:00 – green beans cooked with shrimp and onions, white rice

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 03:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 04:15 – bank accounts activity monitored . * 05:00 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, listen to music, nap * 08:10 – start my weekly laundry * 09:10 – called Kris K, no pickup after 10 rings, voice mailbox full so I couldn't leave a message. * 09:30 – Kris K called me back, we had a nice talk about the move and the tree out front. * 12:00 to 14:30 – go to new house to rescue a package that fedex left on a front porch step, then go appointment with Retina Doc to have my eyeballs injected. * 15:00 – listen to the Jack Riccardi Show while folding laundry, eating lunch, and waiting for my eyesight to stabilize. * 17:00 – listen to Larry Elder on 930 AM The Answer, San Antonio * 17:30 – listening now to relaxing music on KAHL, San Antonio

Chess: * 09:05 – moved in all pending CC games

Chapter 1: The Quiet Fear Behind the Question

There is a certain kind of fear that can follow a person home from church. You sit in the car for a few minutes before starting the engine, replaying what you heard, and wondering whether God is really as close as Jesus made Him seem. Maybe you were told that forgiveness depends on going through the right person, following the right process, or staying inside the right religious system. If that has ever left you unsettled, the YouTube conversation about how Jesus described forgiveness of sins can help you sit with the question without rushing past it.

For some people, the deepest struggle is not whether they believe in God. It is whether they believe they are allowed to approach Him directly. They have heard enough warnings, rules, and religious language to make them wonder whether one mistake, one missed confession, or one disagreement with church teaching could leave them outside of mercy. That is where the Christian reflection on repentance, mercy, and freedom from religious fear becomes important, because this is not simply a debate about doctrine. It is about what kind of relationship Jesus actually invited people to have with God.

When I read the Gospels, I do see Jesus taking sin seriously. He tells people to repent. He warns about what sin does to the heart. He says that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. He does not treat wrongdoing as harmless, and he never gives the impression that forgiveness means we can ignore the way we live. At the same time, I also see him drawing people toward God rather than making them dependent on a religious gatekeeper. In the Lord’s Prayer, he teaches people to ask the Father directly for forgiveness. In the story of the tax collector, the man simply says, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and Jesus says that man went home justified.

That is why the question matters so much. When Jesus later tells the apostles, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven,” some Christians hear him giving the apostles a special authority that continues through ordained ministry. Others hear him commissioning them to announce the forgiveness God gives through repentance and faith. Both readings have been defended by sincere believers, and I think we do ourselves a disservice when we pretend the text can only be approached through one inherited lens.

The larger danger comes when interpretation turns into control. A church can help someone understand Scripture, confess honestly, receive wise counsel, and grow in faith. Those can be beautiful things. But if a person becomes convinced that another human being owns the doorway to God, fear can begin replacing faith. Jesus repeatedly challenged religious leaders who placed heavy burdens on people while losing sight of mercy, humility, and the heart of God.

I think this is where we have to slow down and ask a better question. Instead of asking, “Which institution gets to control forgiveness?” we can ask, “What did Jesus actually show us about the way a sinner comes back to God?” That question opens the door to a more careful reading, one that takes sin seriously without turning fear into a tool of religious control.

Chapter 2: When Authority Becomes a Wall

Imagine sitting at the kitchen table late at night after saying something you deeply regret. The house is quiet, your phone is face down beside you, and you know you were wrong. You want to make it right. You want God’s forgiveness. But somewhere along the way, you were taught that forgiveness may not really be yours until another person declares it. That can leave somebody wondering whether God is listening at all until the proper religious process has been completed.

John 20:23 is usually at the center of this discussion. Jesus tells the apostles that if they forgive sins, they are forgiven, and if they retain them, they are retained. Some Christians understand this as Jesus giving the apostles a genuine sacramental authority that would later continue through ordained ministry. That interpretation has a long history, and people who accept it often see confession as a gift rather than a burden. They believe Christ gave the church a visible way for believers to hear that they have truly been forgiven.

There is also another way to read the passage. Jesus may have been commissioning the apostles to carry his message of repentance and forgiveness into the world. In Luke 24, Jesus says that repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations. That sounds less like the apostles becoming the source of forgiveness and more like them becoming trusted messengers of what God was already offering through Christ.

The way Peter speaks after Jesus sends the apostles out makes that possibility worth considering. In Acts, Peter tells people to repent and turn to God so their sins may be wiped out. He tells Cornelius that everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness through his name. Peter does not present himself as the owner of forgiveness. He points people back toward God and toward Christ.

That distinction matters because authority can serve people or control them. A healthy church can help someone face sin honestly, take responsibility, seek reconciliation, and receive wise guidance. But when people are taught that a religious leader personally controls whether God will receive them, spiritual care can become spiritual dependence.

I do not think the answer is to distrust every priest, pastor, or church. Many faithful leaders spend their lives helping people move closer to God. The question is whether their authority points beyond themselves or slowly makes people afraid to approach God without them.

Jesus seemed deeply concerned about that kind of burden. He confronted religious leaders who made faith heavier than God intended. He kept bringing ordinary people back to repentance, mercy, sincerity, and trust in God. Maybe that should shape the way we think about religious authority too. The best spiritual leadership should make the path toward God clearer, not convince people that the leader owns the path.

Chapter 3: Coming Back to God Without Fear

Sometimes the moment of repentance is not dramatic at all. It can happen while you are driving home after a difficult conversation and realizing you handled it badly. You know you need to apologize to the person you hurt, but you also feel the need to talk to God before you even reach the driveway. There is no church building nearby, no religious leader sitting beside you, and no ceremony taking place. There is simply an honest person recognizing sin and turning toward God.

That kind of moment makes me think about the tax collector Jesus described in Luke 18. He did not present an impressive defense of himself. He did not pretend he had everything together. He simply asked God for mercy. Jesus said that man went home justified. Whatever conclusions we eventually reach about confession, priests, church authority, or John 20, we should not lose sight of that simple picture. Jesus showed us a sinner honestly approaching God and finding mercy.

Repentance still matters. Forgiveness should never become an excuse to harm people and then casually assume everything is fine. If I lie to someone, I may need to tell the truth. If I hurt someone, I may need to apologize. If I have been living in a destructive pattern, turning toward God should eventually change the direction of my life. Jesus did not separate forgiveness from transformation. He offered mercy while calling people forward.

That also means another Christian can be enormously helpful. A trusted pastor, priest, friend, or mature believer may help us see something we have been avoiding. Confessing what we have done can break secrecy and pride. Accountability can protect us from repeating destructive choices. None of that requires believing that another human being owns God’s mercy.

Maybe that is the distinction worth protecting. There is a difference between someone helping you receive forgiveness and someone convincing you that forgiveness belongs to them to distribute. One can lead you toward God. The other can make you afraid to approach Him.

I cannot make this decision for you, and I do not think anyone else should make it for you either. Read John 20. Read Luke 18. Read Matthew 6. Read Luke 24. Watch how Peter speaks about forgiveness in Acts. Consider why different Christian traditions understand those passages differently. Then decide what you believe the whole picture shows.

What I hope you do not carry with you is fear that sincere questions somehow place you beyond God’s reach. Jesus spoke strongly about sin, but he also spoke constantly about mercy, repentance, restoration, and people coming home to God. The church is at its best when it helps people understand that truth rather than using uncertainty to control them.

If you have done something wrong today, be honest about it. Make things right where you can. Turn away from what is harming you or someone else. Ask God for mercy. Keep seeking Jesus and keep reading what he actually taught.

Nobody should need fear to hold your faith together.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Explore the complete Douglas Vandergraph Master Index: https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s faith-based videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

“Bir adam vardı. Suyu arıyordu. Toprağı üç kulaç kazdı. Suyu bulamadı. On kulaç, on beş kulaç kazdı. Gene suyu bulamadı. Sonra yerin derinliklerinde kara kaya tabakalarına rastladı. Yeise düştü, gücü sona erdi ve suyu bulmaktan ümidi kesti. Fakat bir ses ona: Daha derinlere in, daha derinlere! dedi. Daha derinlere indi ve suyu buldu.”

Krişma’dan alıntılayan Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Suyu Arayan Adam

Chapter 1: The Morning Nothing Got Easier

You wake up and, for a few seconds, you forget what has been weighing on you. Then your mind catches up. The problem is still there. The bill is still unpaid, the relationship is still strained, the medical answer is still uncertain, or the decision you hoped would become clear is still waiting for you. You may have prayed before going to sleep, and you may have meant every word, but morning did not arrive with an instant solution. That is often where faith becomes real, because it has to meet us in the ordinary moment when nothing around us has changed yet.

I have been thinking about this because the message behind faith when life still feels hard is easy to misunderstand. Faith is not a promise that the hard thing will suddenly become easy, and a positive attitude is not a way of pretending the pressure is not there. The deeper truth is that both can keep possibility alive when discouragement is trying to close the door. That same idea connects naturally with Christian encouragement for taking the next faithful step, because sometimes the next step is all we can see, and sometimes that is enough.

Jesus gave us a picture of this when He talked about the wise man who built his house on rock. The rain came, the water rose, and the wind beat against the house. What stands out to me is that Jesus never said the person who listened to Him would avoid the storm. The storm came anyway. The difference was the foundation beneath the house. The person who heard Jesus and put His words into practice had something solid under him when everything else became unstable.

That changes the way I think about faith. I do not have to measure God's presence by how easy today feels. I do not have to assume that a difficult season means I am doing something wrong or that God has stopped working. Sometimes faith looks less like feeling strong and more like refusing to let fear decide what I do next. It can be as practical as making the phone call you have been avoiding, going to work even though your heart is heavy, praying one more honest prayer, or choosing not to give up on a situation simply because progress has been slower than you hoped.

A positive attitude belongs here too, but not the shallow version that tells us to smile through everything. Real hope can admit that today is difficult and still refuse to call tomorrow hopeless. It can recognize that a door is closed without deciding every door is closed. It can acknowledge disappointment without turning disappointment into identity. When faith and hope work together, they do not erase reality. They help us stay open to what God may still do inside a reality we would never have chosen.

So maybe the question for today is not whether everything feels easier. Maybe the better question is whether you still have enough faith to take one honest step. Jesus taught that the storm can be real and the foundation can still hold. If the road in front of you is hard, that does not mean the road is impossible. It may simply mean this is the part where you learn what you are standing on.

Chapter 2: When Faith Becomes a Choice

The kitchen is quiet, the coffee has gone cold, and your phone is sitting face down because you already know there is no message waiting that will solve the problem. Maybe you have been carrying something for weeks, and the hardest part is not the crisis itself anymore. It is the repetition. You wake up, think about it, pray about it, try to stay steady, and then do the same thing again the next day. That kind of waiting can wear down even a strong person because it asks you to keep believing before you have evidence that anything is changing.

This is where faith becomes less about emotion and more about choice. There are days when trusting God feels natural, and there are days when it feels like work. Jesus understood that human beings get tired. He did not speak to people as if they were machines that could simply produce confidence on command. He met frightened disciples, grieving families, exhausted crowds, and people who had been disappointed for years. His response was not to shame them for struggling. He kept directing them back toward trust, obedience, and the next step they could actually take.

One of the clearest examples is Peter stepping out of the boat. Peter did not walk on calm water. He stepped into wind and waves because Jesus told him to come. The conditions were still dangerous, but Peter moved anyway. Then he became frightened when he focused on the storm and began to sink. Jesus reached for him. That moment tells me something important about faith under pressure. Faith does not require you to be fearless before you move. It requires you to keep turning toward Christ when fear starts pulling your attention away from Him.

You may have your own version of that moment. Maybe you are driving to work knowing a difficult conversation is waiting for you. Maybe you are caring for someone who depends on you while you quietly wonder how much energy you have left. Maybe you are trying to rebuild trust after a mistake, and every day reminds you that healing is slower than regret. None of those situations becomes easy simply because you pray. But prayer can change the way you enter them. It can steady your thoughts enough to keep you from making fear the loudest voice in the room.

A positive attitude matters here because it helps you keep your mind open to possibility. It does not mean assuming every outcome will be the one you want. It means refusing to treat your worst fear as a prediction. There is a difference between saying, “I do not know what happens next,” and saying, “Nothing good can happen next.” The first is honest. The second closes the door before the future has had a chance to arrive.

Jesus kept inviting people to live from trust instead of panic. That does not mean ignoring facts or refusing wise caution. It means remembering that fear is not the same thing as truth. The storm may be loud, but it does not know the whole story. The unanswered prayer may hurt, but it does not prove that God is absent. The long wait may test you, but it does not automatically mean you are forgotten.

Sometimes faith is simply deciding that, for today, you will not surrender your future to the hardest thing you can see. You will do what is yours to do, ask God for strength, and leave room for possibility. That is not a small decision. It is often how people make it through seasons they once thought would break them.

Chapter 3: The Strength to Keep Going

Late in the day, when the work is done and the house grows quiet again, you may notice that the problem has not disappeared. But you may also notice something else: you made it through another day without letting the problem decide everything about you. That matters. Sometimes progress is not measured by how quickly circumstances change. Sometimes it is measured by the fact that you are still standing, still praying, still learning, and still willing to believe that God can work beyond what you can see.

Jesus never taught that faith would remove every hard season. He taught people how to live faithfully inside them. He taught them to trust the Father, to keep praying, to forgive, to love, and to continue doing what is right even when the outcome was uncertain. That kind of faith does not depend on perfect conditions. It gives you a foundation strong enough to keep moving when conditions are anything but perfect.

So when tomorrow comes, you do not need to have every answer. You do not need to feel fearless. You only need enough faith to take the next honest step and enough hope to believe that the story is still being written. A positive attitude will not make the road easy, and faith will not remove every obstacle, but together they can keep your heart open to what is still possible with God.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Explore the complete Douglas Vandergraph Master Index: https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s faith-based videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

Sobre IA, fricción y las cosas que todavía vale la pena hacer por nosotros mismos

Cada vez que viajo, disfruto mucho conversar con locales o con otros viajeros. Me parece una forma preciosa de conectar con la gente; de descubrir algo de su cultura, escuchar sus expresiones y acentos, entender sus formas de mirar la vida. Se me hace bastante enriquecedor esas conversaciones pequeñas que aparecen casi por accidente.

En uno de esos viajes conocí a una chica que vivía en Sevilla. Estaba con un grupo de amigas y, en algún momento, la conversación derivó hacia recomendaciones sobre la ciudad. O más bien, fui yo quien la llevó hacia allí, porque pronto viajaría a Sevilla y quería preguntarle por lugares, restaurantes y actividades que valieran la pena.

Su respuesta me pareció algo cortante, aunque quizá esa no era su intención. Me dijo que podía preguntarle directamente a ChatGPT.

Y sí, por supuesto que podía hacerlo. Probablemente hoy sea lo más práctico, tanto para mí como para ella. ChatGPT podía darme una lista más ordenada, más rápida y tal vez incluso más completa. Pero no pasó mucho tiempo después de ese comentario para que la conversación muriera y apareciera un silencio incómodo.

No sé exactamente qué había detrás de su respuesta. Tal vez ya no quería hablar más. Tal vez no sabía qué recomendarme. Tal vez sinceramente pensó que era la mejor opción.

Pero lo que empezó a interesarme no fue tanto su intención, sino el gesto en sí.

Porque claro, técnicamente tenía todo eso accesible en mi laptop o en mi teléfono. ChatGPT podía recordarlo todo, organizarlo mejor e incluso, probablemente, priorizar actividades y lugares según mis gustos. También era práctico para ella: nos ahorrábamos varios minutos de conversación y el esfuerzo de intentar recordar nombres, calles, restaurantes o detalles que quizá se le escapaban.

¿Era eso lo único que yo quería? ¿El acto práctico de recibir recomendaciones?

Creo que no. En realidad, también quería conectar con esa persona. Quería descubrir qué cosas teníamos en común, en qué puntos podíamos reconocernos, ver su expresión corporal cuando hablaba de un lugar que le gustaba, escuchar el tono con el que recomendaba algo, contagiarme un poco de su entusiasmo. Básicamente, quería conectar. Probablemente ni siquiera lo tenía del todo claro en ese momento; era una intención más intuitiva que racional.

Como seres humanos, buscamos seguridad, pertenencia y bienestar a través de los vínculos sociales. No solo queremos datos; queremos señales humanas, esto está profundamente anclado en nuestra biología y en nuestra psicología.

No sé si esto tiene que ver también con mi contexto cultural. Como latinoamericano, y particularmente como venezolano, siento que hay algo muy natural en saludar, conversar y buscar conexión incluso en situaciones pequeñas.

Después de presenciar este caso, se me viene la pregunta:

¿Cuántas oportunidades de encuentro estamos dejando pasar porque una herramienta puede darnos una respuesta más rápida?

“Todas las maravillas de la tecnología y los prodigios mecánicos son solo toneladas de chatarra a menos que mejoren la vida de la gente”. – Jacque Fresco

El otro día estaba reunido con un grupo de nómadas digitales y salió una conversación sobre la inteligencia artificial: sus aspectos positivos, sus riesgos, sus posibilidades. En algún momento mencioné esta anécdota, y una chica del Reino Unido me habló de un hermoso poema de Shawn Smucker titulado Please Use AI..

Eso me hizo pensar en muchas situaciones en las que yo mismo he usado la IA para obtener un resultado práctico, adquirir conocimiento sobre un tema o entender mejor una situación compleja. Muchas veces la uso, por ejemplo, para consultar detalles sobre recetas de comida. Me ahorra tiempo, me simplifica el proceso y me da una practicidad real en el día a día.

Y, sin embargo, pienso en otra cosa.

Las últimas notas de voz que conservé de mi madre antes de morir fueron precisamente sobre unas recetas que solo ella sabía preparar. Cada vez que las escucho, no puedo evitar conmoverme. A veces incluso lloro. Esas notas no son solo instrucciones de cocina. Son su voz. Su cadencia. Su manera de cuidar. Su presencia atravesando el tiempo. Eso, los videos y fotos, son mi recuerdo.

Después de su muerte, esas notas se volvieron un recuerdo precioso. Un pequeño espacio de consuelo que me acompañará durante el resto de mi vida.

En otra ocasión, recuerdo que tenía un concierto y mis camisas estaban algo arrugadas. La verdad es que nunca me había tomado el tiempo de aprender a planchar correctamente. Sabía que probablemente, después de ver un par de videos en YouTube, podría resolverlo por mi cuenta. De hecho, así aprendí a doblar mejor la ropa cada vez que viajaba.

Pero esa vez tomé otra decisión: le pregunté a mi prima, que me lleva alrededor de quince años y que aprendió a planchar con mi abuela.

Mientras me enseñaba y planchaba conmigo, sentí una cercanía enorme. Me contó cómo había aprendido desde pequeña, cuando tenía catorce años, junto a mi abuela. Entre camisa y camisa, fueron apareciendo anécdotas de su infancia y de su adolescencia. Lo que empezó como una tarea doméstica terminó convirtiéndose en un pequeño acto de memoria familiar.

Nuestros vínculos se fortalecieron no a pesar de la fricción, sino gracias a ella.

También recuerdo muchas veces en las que he sido yo quien ha dado consejos o ayuda a otros. En esos momentos me he sentido útil. Me he sentido bien. Me gusta ayudar, colaborar, compartir lo que sé. Hay algo enriquecedor en ofrecer ayuda, recibirla, necesitar a otros, dejar que otros también se sientan necesarios.

¿Cuántos de esos momentos preciosos me habría perdido si simplemente lo automatizara todo?

Y digo esto admitiendo que uso mucho la IA: para recibir consejos, organizarme, resolver dudas prácticas, estudiar o entender mejor ciertas situaciones. Me parece una herramienta maravillosa. Pero justamente por eso creo que conviene preguntarnos por sus límites. ¿De verdad nos conviene eliminar toda fricción? ¿Cuándo tiene sentido, incluso pudiendo automatizar algo, preguntarle a un familiar, a un amigo o a un conocido? ¿Dónde sigue siendo valioso ofrecer y recibir ayuda?

No Toda Incomodidad Es Un Error

«¿Te insulta alguien? Te está entrenando para ser paciente. ¿Te trata mal un vecino? Te está entrenando para ser tolerante. Del mismo modo que un entrenador de gimnasio te prepara con pesas difíciles, las personas difíciles son las pesas que entrenan tu carácter». – Epicteto en Disertaciones

La idea puede sonar dura, pero tiene algo profundamente útil: no toda incomodidad es un error que debemos eliminar. Algunas incomodidades son parte del entrenamiento de vivir.

Pienso en esto cuando observo cómo cada vez preferimos más la comunicación escrita, controlada y editable. Muchas personas, y me incluyo, a veces preferimos enviar un mensaje antes que llamar. El mensaje nos permite pensar, corregir, borrar, responder cuando estamos listos. La llamada, en cambio, nos expone. Nos obliga a improvisar, a sostener silencios, a escuchar el tono de la otra persona, a responder en tiempo real.

Entiendo por qué puede generar ansiedad. Hablar directamente con alguien implica perder parte del control. Pero justamente ahí también hay una práctica. En la vida real vamos a tener que conversar con otras personas: en entrevistas de trabajo, al alquilar un piso, al salir con alguien, al resolver un conflicto, al hacer nuevos amigos, al pedir ayuda o al ofrecerla.

Esa fricción entrena nuestras habilidades sociales. Nos enseña a leer gestos, a ajustar el tono, a tolerar la incomodidad, a reparar un malentendido, a estar presentes. Si eliminamos toda situación que nos incomoda, también eliminamos muchas de las oportunidades que nos forman para estas situaciones.

Durante muchos años me costaba hablar frente al público y expresar con claridad lo que quería. Pasaba demasiado tiempo en mi cabeza, esperando quizá que los demás adivinaran mis necesidades. Incluso me sentía culpable por pedir ciertas cosas, aunque no supiera muy bien por qué. Con el tiempo empecé a tomar acción y a entenderme mejor. Recuerdo haber visto un video sobre habilidades sociales donde alguien decía, más o menos: “abraza la incomodidad; no pasa nada, nadie se va a morir. Así se aprende”. Esa idea se quedó conmigo.

En esa incomodidad se entrenan capacidades que ninguna interfaz perfectamente personalizada puede reemplazar. La paciencia, la presencia, el tono, la escucha, la reparación, la capacidad de improvisar y de leer al otro se desarrollan practicándolas.

Podemos pensarlo así: los astronautas necesitan entrenar sus músculos cuando pasan demasiado tiempo sin gravedad, porque de lo contrario se atrofian. Algo parecido puede ocurrir con nuestros músculos sociales. Si evitamos constantemente toda situación incómoda, si delegamos cada interacción difícil, si buscamos siempre la respuesta más rápida y menos expuesta, corremos el riesgo de perder práctica precisamente en aquello que nos permite convivir.

Fricción y placer cuando estás creando.

He trabajado muchos años en el mundo de la tecnología como desarrollador de software. He creado aplicaciones, páginas web y scripts que automatizan áreas de mi vida, y también herramientas que prestan un servicio a instituciones, empresas privadas u ONG. Siempre he encontrado algo profundamente satisfactorio en terminar algo que empiezo, y suelo disfrutar bastante lo que aprendo en el camino.

Cuando termino un ensayo, o cuando empiezo un proyecto de código y comienzo a levantarlo con todo su stack tecnológico, hay una sensación muy particular. Configurar el entorno, instalar paquetes, preparar la base de datos, pensar la arquitectura, diseñar el modelo entidad-relación, construir el backend y conectar todas esas piezas tienen algo de oficio. Se disfruta ver cómo, combinando ciertas partes y herramientas, algo empieza a funcionar.

Aunque no sea físico, aunque sea digital, sigue siendo algo lógico, consistente, estructural. Algo con un propósito, orientado a un resultado. Hay un placer especial en diseccionar capas, entender componentes, ver cómo se relacionan entre sí y descubrir qué hace que un sistema cobre vida.

Por supuesto, nada de eso lo he creado desde cero completamente. Yo no inventé los lenguajes de programación, ni los frameworks, ni las librerías, ni la computadora que uso. Tampoco inventé la electricidad ni la electrónica sobre la que se sostiene toda esta tecnología. Pero eso no invalida el proceso. De la misma manera que un carpintero no necesita haber cortado el árbol ni extraído la madera para experimentar el placer de construir una mesa.

Mi punto es que hay un disfrute real en adentrarse en el interior de un tema práctico, en entender cómo se relacionan sus capas y componentes.

Recuerdo muchas veces sentirme frustrado instalando Linux por primera vez, sin saber por dónde empezar, cómo instalar un paquete o cómo resolver la instalación de una librería que necesitaba para crear comunicación asíncrona en Django hace más de nueve años.

Tuve que revisar foros, leer documentación, preguntar en comunidades de Python, equivocarme y volver a intentar hasta dar con la solución.

Hacer funcionar algo me obligó a investigar, a tener paciencia, a ser lo suficientemente curioso como para entender qué había detrás y cómo hacerlo andar.

Ese proceso no me dio solo conocimiento técnico. Me dio también una perspectiva sobre cómo se conectan las cosas y, sobre todo, paciencia para enfrentar problemas difíciles sin una guía clara.

Probablemente me enseñó aspectos de la tecnología que no se aprenden solamente leyendo un libro o escuchando a un profesor. Hay cosas que se aprenden equivocándose, frustrándose, observando las propias emociones y descubriendo cómo gestionarlas. Aprendes que a veces lo más sensato es levantarte, tomar un descanso y volver más tarde. Otras veces, en cambio, conviene quedarte varias horas concentrado, siguiendo una pista hasta el fondo, aunque todavía no sepas exactamente adónde te llevará.

Con el tiempo vas desarrollando una especie de sabiduría práctica: cuándo parar para poder avanzar mejor, cuándo insistir, cuándo pedir ayuda, cuándo buscar otra estrategia, cuándo aceptar que todavía no entiendes lo suficiente. Y, sobre todo, aprendes a confiar en que eventualmente podrás acercarte a una solución.

Hoy, con el desarrollo asistido por IA, muchas veces basta con preguntar, enviar un par de prompts, revisar la respuesta y sentir que el trabajo está “hecho”. Y en muchos casos eso es extraordinariamente útil. Pero también puede hacernos perder una parte valiosa del proceso: esa fricción, esa frustración y ese esfuerzo que construyen músculo intelectual y resiliencia.

Lo preocupante no es solo que podamos perder tolerancia a la frustración. También podríamos debilitar nuestra capacidad de pensar cómo abordar una tarea, cómo descomponer un problema, cómo formular hipótesis, cómo probar caminos distintos y cómo sostener la atención cuando la respuesta no aparece de inmediato.

Perder esa capacidad puede ser fácil, porque la IA nos ofrece constantemente el camino de menor resistencia.

No Se Puede Delegar El Conocimiento

Recuerdo haber leído un artículo muy interesante de Matt Gemmell, exdesarrollador de software, titulado What Have You Tried?_

(Articulo que solo sobrevive en archive.org debido a que cerro su antiguo blog)

El artículo hablaba de una actitud frecuente en ciertos desarrolladores: enfrentarse a un problema y, antes de haberlo intentado seriamente, pedir directamente la solución completa en otro lugar.

Por supuesto, en ingeniería muchas veces el objetivo práctico es entregar una solución, construir código para un cliente o desbloquear un problema concreto. Pero la crítica de Gemmell apuntaba a la falta de voluntad para alcanzar ese objetivo mediante un proceso honesto de autoaprendizaje, experimentación, intentos fallidos, refinamiento y mejora progresiva.

Me da la sensación de que este proceso puede debilitarse todavía más con la IA, especialmente cuando el afán principal es entregar resultados rápidos.

Si las nuevas generaciones aprenden a crear código principalmente a través de asistencia automática, corren el riesgo de saltarse una parte fundamental del aprendizaje:

El esfuerzo de formular el problema, intentar una solución, equivocarse, investigar, volver a probar y entender por qué algo funciona.

Ese proceso importa porque no solo te prepara para resolver el desafío actual. También construye una biblioteca interna de problemas conocidos, patrones, intuiciones y caminos posibles. Con el tiempo, empiezas a reconocer situaciones similares, a generalizar conocimientos y a abordar problemas desconocidos con más confianza. Aprendes a investigar de forma más enfocada. Aprendes a pensar.

Aunque el artículo de Gemmell está dirigido a la ingeniería y a la resolución de problemas complejos, creo que también aplica a la virtud y a la sabiduría.

Me recuerda mucho a la crítica que Séneca hace de Calvisio Sabino en las Cartas a Lucilio.

Séneca cuenta que Sabino era un hombre riquísimo, pero no especialmente culto. Para compensarlo, compraba esclavos muy instruidos: uno sabía de memoria a Homero, otro a Hesíodo, otros dominaban distintos poetas o áreas del conocimiento. Así podía rodearse de cultura sin haberla trabajado interiormente. Si necesitaba citar algo, sus esclavos lo recordaban por él.

En cierto sentido, estaban a sus pies como asistentes a demanda. Estaban, literalmente, a un prompt de distancia.

La crítica de Séneca era durísima:

El conocimiento no se puede delegar de esa manera. Puedes comprar libros, maestros, esclavos cultos o herramientas, pero no puedes comprar la transformación interior que produce el estudio. No basta con tener cerca a alguien que sabe. No basta con tener acceso inmediato a respuestas.

La IA nos pone frente a una versión contemporánea de esa misma tentación.

Podemos pedirle que cite libros que no hemos leído, que resuma ideas que no hemos meditado, que escriba argumentos que no hemos sufrido intelectualmente. Puede ser una herramienta extraordinaria, pero también puede convertirse en una forma elegante de aparentar profundidad sin atravesar el esfuerzo que la profundidad exige.

Con esto no quiero decir que la IA impida aprender. Al contrario, creo que puede ayudarnos a ir mucho más lejos. Podemos usarla para conocer mejor cada capa de un problema, preguntar por aquello que no entendemos, pedir ejemplos, contrastar ideas, profundizar en cada interacción. De hecho, eso intento hacer muchas veces. En ese sentido, puede ser una maestra extraordinaria.

Pero hay una diferencia entre usarla para aprender y usarla para saltarnos el aprendizaje. La primera opción exige más tiempo, más preguntas, más atención. La segunda nos entrega una sensación rápida de resultado, pero puede dejarnos sin haber incorporado realmente nada.

No debemos confundir asistencia con formación.

A eso voy: el peligro que veo es que podemos perder demasiada fricción. Queremos la solución instantánea, la respuesta inmediata, el resultado presentable, sin pagar el precio de aprender de verdad la herramienta, sin navegar la frustración, sin dejar que la información se asiente en nuestra mente y en nuestro cuerpo. Saber no es tener información alrededor; saber es haberla trabajado, digerido e incorporado hasta convertirla en criterio.

Carl Sagan ya advertía algo parecido cuando decía que vivimos en una sociedad exquisitamente dependiente de la ciencia y la tecnología, en la que casi nadie sabe nada sobre ciencia y tecnología. Para él, depender de aquello que no entendemos era una fórmula segura para el desastre.

Eficientes Para Qué

Nuestro sistema económico nos pide resultados para ayer. Nos empuja a ser más rápidos, más productivos, más eficientes. Quien entrega antes suele ser premiado. Quien responde más rápido parece más comprometido. La empresa que desarrolla una aplicación, un producto o un negocio antes que sus competidores puede capturar más mercado, más atención y más ganancias. La campaña de marketing que se vuelve viral con rapidez parece haber cumplido mejor su función.

No es solo que nos guste la inmediatez. Es que, a nivel económico, la inmediatez se premia y la demora se castiga.

La lentitud aparece casi como una falla moral o económica. Si algo tarda, parece ineficiente. Si algo exige pausa, parece improductivo. Si alguien necesita tiempo para pensar, dudar o madurar una decisión, puede parecer menos capaz que quien responde de inmediato.

Vivimos bajo una presión constante por ser eficientes. Pero la pregunta importante es: ¿eficientes para qué? ¿Para quién? ¿Para producir más, vender más y responder más rápido, o para vivir mejor?

Una empresa puede producir el doble con la mitad de trabajadores. Un programador puede generar mucho más código en menos tiempo. Podemos responder mensajes instantáneamente, crear imágenes en segundos y delegar decisiones a agentes.

Desde cierta métrica, todo eso parece progreso.

¿El progreso orientado a producir más y generar más dinero se traduce necesariamente en bienestar humano?.

No pretendo resolver aquí toda esa discusión. Me interesa, más bien, una pregunta más concreta: ¿qué ocurre con el tiempo que supuestamente ganamos?.

Para pensar esto vuelvo a Séneca. De nuevo en sus Cartas a Lucilio, en la primera carta se ha vuelto una de mis preferidas. Allí Séneca reflexiona sobre el tiempo como nuestro único bien verdaderamente irrecuperable, y sobre lo poco que solemos valorarlo.

Nos enojaría o entristecería mucho que alguien nos quitara nuestras posesiones materiales. Defenderíamos nuestro dinero, nuestra casa, nuestras cosas. Pero cuando algo o alguien nos quita tiempo, muchas veces ni siquiera lo cuestionamos. Lo material puede recuperarse. El tiempo, no

Séneca le pide a su amigo Lucilio algo aparentemente simple: que reclame su tiempo para sí mismo. Le advierte que parte del tiempo nos lo arrebatan, parte nos lo roban y parte se nos escapa sin darnos cuenta.

Con el uso masivo y acelerado de la IA, la pregunta importante no es solo cuánto tiempo nos ahorra, sino qué ocurre después con ese tiempo.

¿Vuelve realmente a nosotros? ¿Se convierte en contemplación, descanso, conversación, juego, pensamiento propio? ¿O simplemente es absorbido por un sistema que inmediatamente nos exige aprender más, producir más, consumir más, responder más rápido y mantenernos competitivos?

Si una herramienta me permite hacer en una hora lo que antes hacía en tres, eso podría ser una forma de liberación. Pero también puede convertirse en una nueva expectativa, ahora se espera que haga tres veces más.

Entonces no gané necesariamente dos horas de vida; gané capacidad productiva que puede ser absorbida de inmediato por nuevas demandas.

Por supuesto, esto no es un problema exclusivo de la IA.

La IA es una herramienta. Pero ninguna herramienta existe en el vacío.

La misma tecnología que puede ayudarnos a cuidar mejor la salud, aprender más rápido o resolver problemas complejos también puede ponerse al servicio de vigilancia, manipulación, explotación o guerra.

La diferencia no está solo en la capacidad técnica, sino en los incentivos, instituciones y estructuras que deciden hacia dónde se orienta esa capacidad.

No desarrollaré aquí toda esa discusión, aunque probablemente merece su propio ensayo.

Por ahora me basta con dejar abierta esta pregunta:

Cuando una tecnología nos ahorra tiempo, ¿ese tiempo vuelve realmente a la vida humana o es capturado de nuevo por la maquinaria de la productividad?

¿Qué No Quiero Delegar?

Para mí queda claro que hay ciertas fricciones y ciertos procesos que no deberíamos saltarnos tan fácilmente.

Trabajo todos los días con IA y conozco de primera mano lo extraordinariamente útil que puede ser. Sé lo fácil que sería pedirle que escriba un ensayo en segundos, mientras yo paso horas, e incluso días, reflexionando, corrigiendo y reescribiendo.

Entonces, si me preguntan. ¿Por qué escribir yo?

Porque escribir me obliga a embarcarme en un proceso propio de estudio. Me obliga a leer artículos, autores y escuelas de pensamiento; a reflexionar sobre distintas ideas; a conectarlas con mi experiencia; a preguntarme cómo las he sentido, vivido o entendido; a llevar ciertos argumentos más lejos de lo que inicialmente pensaba.

Muchas veces, al escribir sobre una idea, descubro que no era tan sólida como parecía. Cuando busco una metáfora o un ejemplo concreto, tengo que volver a mi propia experiencia. Siento que mi mente empieza a hacer nuevas conexiones. Entiendo mejor mis propias ideas y, a veces, también el mundo que intento describir.

No estoy solamente produciendo un ensayo como resultado. El ensayo también está haciendo algo conmigo.

A esto podríamos llamarlo fricción formativa: una dificultad que exige algo de nosotros y que, al atravesarla, desarrolla una capacidad o transforma nuestra comprensión.

Recuerdo que cuando empecé a programar, una de las primeras cosas que hice fue crear un script para clasificar automáticamente los archivos descargados en una carpeta según su tipo: si era un video, lo enviaba a una carpeta de videos; si era un PDF, ODT o DOCX, lo movía a documentos generales, y así sucesivamente.

Ese pequeño script me facilitaba una tarea repetitiva que hacía con frecuencia, que me quitaba tiempo y que, honestamente, no sentía que me estuviera enseñando demasiado.

Cuando automatizamos tareas repetitivas, aburridas o puramente administrativas, la tecnología puede devolvernos vida. Recordarnos pagar facturas, revisar nuestras finanzas, hacer mantenimiento a ciertas cosas, declarar impuestos o mover archivos de una carpeta a otra puede ser tremendamente útil.

En mi opinión, esas son fricciones inútiles: tareas que demandan atención, tiempo y energía sin producir aprendizaje significativo, vínculo humano o criterio nuevo.

Conclusión

Cuando empecé a escribir este ensayo, no sabía si tendría una respuesta. Ni siquiera sabía si tendría una pregunta. Solo quería expresar algunas preocupaciones generales sobre la tecnología, la IA, la automatización y esa tendencia creciente a eliminar toda fricción posible.

Ahora siento que, al menos, tengo una pregunta:

¿Qué cosas no quiero delegar aunque pueda?

¿Qué estoy cediendo al automatizar esto? ¿Qué fricción me estoy saltando? ¿Esa fricción era inútil o podía ser formativa? ¿Podía incluso ser disfrutable? ¿Qué estoy perdiendo al eliminarla? ¿Qué cualidades, experiencias o vínculos dejaría de cultivar?

En mi caso, no siento ningún problema en delegar que alguien más prepare mis impuestos. Tampoco me inquieta automatizar recordatorios, mover archivos o simplificar tareas administrativas que solo consumen atención sin devolverme demasiado.

Pero definitivamente no quiero delegar mi experiencia de aprender cómo funciona mi casa, cómo manejar mi dinero, cómo cuidar mi salud, cómo elegir amigos, cómo conversar, cómo improvisar, cómo pedir ayuda, cómo ofrecerla y cómo navegar por la vida.

Estas preguntas debería hacérselas cada persona.

Porque la tecnología es una herramienta, no tiene sentido rechazarla, sino aprender a usarla sin entregar partes esenciales de nosotros mismos.

Antes de automatizar algo, tal vez convenga preguntarnos:

¿Qué estoy ganando al delegarlo?
¿Qué capacidad dejo de practicar?
¿Qué experiencia humana estoy evitando?
¿Quiero convertirme en alguien que ya no necesita ejercerla?

Jamás se ha tratado de ser antitecnológico ni de romantizar toda dificultad.

Necesitamos aprender a discernir.

Parafraseando a Jacque Fresco: la promesa más noble de la tecnología no debería ser producir más, sino liberar tiempo, energía y sensibilidad para que podamos descubrir qué significa ser humanos.

• Gustave Caillebotte- Chrysanthemums in the Garden at Petit-Gennevilliers, MoMA

-“You looking good.”

-“Devil’s confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad. He looked at her and the word ‘bad’ took on another meaning.”

Toni Morrison- Beloved

I should have a picture under the dictionary definition of the word “hermit” because I truly embody the very essence of one. Lately I have even been leaning much more into it. It feels like a pull, not a negative pull into a chasm that is inescapable, but a pull toward a gentle seclusion that tends to me quietly, gracefully. Social media is a foreign concept to me now, although I know I, as a human, need the connections and interaction. Now is just not the time. Now is a time to assimilate life lessons, to parse through the dense memory of my past with a fine tooth comb and articulate to myself certain realizations, certain wisdom that has been otherwise overlooked. Much of it stings at first, my heart swelling with emotion that transcends time and space. Memories begin to flow without me even trying. They are shown to me as if just yesterday these events happened, which makes it all the more better to see through a new perspective. Fall and winter are naturally the times of year this process tends to happen. The leaves change color and begin to fall away. So too does my mind work to change my inner world, shedding memories like autumn leaves. I pick them up and rotate them by the stem, turning them fast between my thumb and forefinger. I suddenly embody the little girl within these memories, seeing through her eyes and through omnipotent ones simultaneously. I see the transgressions made by adults and send myself intense thoughts of love and support knowing she feels it in her time, although she does not know how or why. Healing takes an immense mental and emotional toll that many can only take so much of. Diving in again and again takes strength and courage that transforms you into a much wiser being. I myself am a hypocrite if I never acknowledge my ego that continues to battle with me for control over my memories and current reality. My ego hates being told what to do, hates wasting time on things she deems unworthy. She uses intense language to describe the emotional pain she feels doing normal everyday things. All she wants is to be left alone, with all the time in the world to think, dream, feel, breathe, and do. Writing comes naturally to her, a small reprieve that allows her thoughts a physical form, otherwise she writhes and trembles with all the intensity of a raging storm in the middle of the ocean ready to capsize the ship carrying her heart and mind as its crew. I write and I mediate everyday, yet my rage flows steadily at regular intervals in response to triggers that my ego refuses to compromise with. I am aware of reality, I am aware of certain things that must be done, but the rage refuses to withdraw. I self destruct, have so many times before and continue to. I am not proud of it, but at least it makes me human. I cannot be sage all the time despite wanting to be. I cannot be positive in every moment. I must go through the rollercoaster of human emotion and learn to accept them all as they are. There is a great deal of work ahead of me to be faced through my fear and mental and emotional torment. I give myself no choice in this matter. No matter what it takes I will get better, be better, and do better.

concrescence, or growing together

Of my week, all things said and done, I relished the persisting troubled sleep. Night upon night of sweetly shipwrecking on the rocks. To me nocturnal restlessness is by far the more interesting state of mind. Waking in the middle of night with the troubled mind of a thousand spot fires on the verge of growing together into that fiery front greater than the sum of its parts. Concrescere! A convulsion of many minds in one. Darting this way and that. Each haplessly splashing about a few spades of water in its tiny bucket. Or else glued to the spot in sheer terror.

My stir and panic was about control. Useless control. Even worse is the retreat into timidity which follows. For the sake of timidity, I had been smothering out the very life of my mind with endless distractions. Distractions which titillate, but only ever so slightly. Distractions devoid of meaning in case of suddenly irrupting into roaring significance. But now I cannot unsee this poison keeping me subdued.

When did I choose to wake? At four o’clock this morning, precisely. I was a nervous tremble. Spot fires everywhere. I plugged my earhole to soothe myself with the sounds of a podcast. But the host’s gentle voice was too tinny in the tiny earphone. And, following his cadence of thought, I myself began to think his thinkings at the annoying remove of bafflement or utter boredom – I could not tell which. So I exasperatedly flicked the earphone aside. For some minutes I lay waiting and watching my thoughts fly past in great traumatic rivers. Then, as goes all flirting at the boundary, I first surrendered myself to them and then, once along for the ride, recast my surrender as taking a noble stand. The biggest swells and soaring crests began collapsing upon themselves. The river subsided and a single mottled pebble remained. Its stillness stayed my own raging appetite for comfort. And I rose and went to clean forks and spoons in my tiny kitchen sink, and make chai. Only now I have passed to the other side can I laugh huge guffaws at the faux nobility which got me here. It is time to kick down my ladder? Is it time to kick the pricks?

The moon has been shining bright, full and with a silvery glow without warmth these past three days!

And tonight it was only 98% full but bright as ever nonetheless!

And it made me think of this Song of Songs: Ohia/Magnolia electric co. “Almost was good enough”

It’s one of my favourites, even the lyrics really does strike a chord

First:

Did you really believe, come on, did you really believe That everyone makes it out? Almost no one makes it out Almost no one makes it out

And then, finally

For once, almost was good enough Almost was good enough Almost was good enough

It’s good,

Cöda 5609c

Op alle slakken leg ik zout en ik zaag ook planken van dun hout het kan me niet verrekken dat ik maanden bezig ben om die slakken te dekken of dat mijn planken zelfs niet goed genoeg zijn voor de scandinavische meubel bakker als ik het niet doe lig ik alle nachten wakker ik laat me echt alles op de mouw spelden ben te slecht in koprekenen om op mijn tellen te letten het kan me niet verdommen dat het gevaar in drommen op me af komt door foute aftreksommen mijn armen niet meer op kan tillen door overgewicht als ik het zou laten deed ik geen oog meer dicht ik weet van geen wijken zet ontzettend veel zoden aan alle dijken het maakt me echt niks uit ook al gaat de hele wijk met mij achteruit halve en hele zoodjes moeten elke dijk en masse bedekken zodat er rede is om de wekker te zetten.

Welterusten

I had some reservations about Gwyn Thomas’s book The Dark Philosophers when I read it earlier this year, yet I liked it well enough to want to try one of his later productions. I settled on a volume of his short fiction entitled Gazooka and Other Stories, first published in 1957. I wanted to like this book but can’t say that I did. I finished it yesterday. Most of the pieces in the collection are in a more or less comedic vein, and the tendency of humour to age poorly accounts for some of what I disliked. It’s not the worst of such cases — relatively little in it has fully curdled — but an air of mustiness prevails.

I get the impression that Thomas was first and foremost a prodigious talker: an unstoppable anecdotalist and raconteur. Without the music of his voice to animate the words, they can seem to lift a little feebly from the flatness of the page. If there had been such a thing as an audiobook version read by the author, that would have been the ideal way to approach it. There is altogether too much dialogue for my liking: characters often talk or think in overdone half-page paragraphs, minimising narrative momentum.

To my taste the story that worked best was one called ‘A Teacher’ which was one of only a couple of pieces in the book not aiming for laughs. The title story is by some distance the book’s longest (‘gazooka’, I gather, is just another word for kazoo). It concerns some farcical events centred on a marching band (of kazooists), set in a South Wales Valleys town in the summer of 1926 — the grim year of the General Strike. Events unfold with exasperatingly slow wordiness, with ostensibly humorous set-pieces failing to raise a smile. Plodding through with scant enthusiasm I was much surprised at the genuinely beautiful ending that Thomas contrived for it.

---

After a bad experience with vintage sealing-wax I’ve acquired some that’s newly-made in the traditional style, concocted in France to a 17th-Century recipe by J. Herbin. I won’t be using it often, so the box of ten sticks of wax may even last beyond my lifetime. It would have been more sensible to get just a few loose sticks, but in doing so I would have missed out in the glorious old-school packaging a full box provides.

---

Via Discogs I obtained a second and better-sounding CD copy of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk (as mentioned in the entry before last). Ordered together with it was Les Fleurs, a 2001 compilation of music by Minnie Riperton. Hitherto I’d only been familiar with the famous ‘Lovin’ You’ and (though I had more than once forgotten its name) the title track. Spanning a progression from psychedelic soul through to disco, it’s a fine introduction to her work. Her pre-disco numbers are more to my taste than the later output. Riperton’s voice is exquisite throughout: crystal-clear diction; a bright, clear timbre — and those astonishing high notes.

I just made myself eat canned salmon for lunch. I haven't had canned salmon in a very long time. I don't like salmon, in general. Not cooked, not canned, not smoked. I only like sashimi with a generous dollop of wasabi and pickled ginger.

Because I haven't had it in forever, I forgot what it looks like upon opening the can. It looked worse than sardines. When I eat sardines, it is with skin and bones. This had skin and bones, too.

I may give the other cans away.

This is a note to myself that I will likely never read. “No matter how much you like sashimi, and no matter how much you think your body would enjoy having the canned salmon added to your diet — it is not for you. The bones are different than in the sardines, and it's possibly even more fishy. Ugh! You just burped salmon! You never burp! Nope! No! Nadal! Whatever were you thinking?!”

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Why Leave Wyoming?

I’m going to ride around the South in an old truck, sit on tailgates, and take photographs. Out-of-the-way places and the people who live there, not big cities. Talk to folks about place. A piece each month, with a few snapshots.

On the way back with my dog, I noticed near the Arkansas–Missouri line it became… Southern. I pulled into a 1950s style roadside hotel, the Rainbow Trout Lodge, at Mammoth Spring. In the damp evening air I heard crickets, sweet music I had forgotten all this in the snow and wind of Wyoming. I smelled honeysuckle, and behind the hotel a bank of kudzu led down to a river filled with trout.

I walked across the road to a barbecue joint that served sweet tea while Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” played. Their motto was “I like to get my butt rubbed,” referring to a spice rub on slow-cooked pork butts over an open pit. I noticed, however, only women wore those shirts.

Most of the rebel-flag-waving crowd don’t understand this song, which was a reply to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” Listen carefully to the lyrics as it questions George Wallace and points to one of Alabama’s moments of truth in Birmingham in 1963, when four young girls were killed in a church bombing: “Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth.” For many of us, yes, it does.

My mother grew up next door to Wallace in Clio, Alabama. She and her sister described him as a short little boy called “Runty” who was bullied and cried a lot, wetting his pants. His parents had him learn boxing to defend himself. Of course he became a Golden Gloves boxer and later bullied folks back on a monumental scale as governor before someone shot him and put him in a wheelchair.

While waiting on a plate of ribs I sucked sweet tea like an addict on dope, listening to Skynyrd’s words, and realized just how much the South was in me. That is why I came home. Despite my love for Wyoming, I needed to leave. For months I struggled with the decision. Both parents were gravely ill, hospice had been called in, and my workday became a barrage of calls from nurses and social workers with updates.

Then the hard question came: “Don’t you think it’s time to come home?”

I asked for two weeks off without pay. A numbing silence ensued. That made the decision for me. I had known a racist white sheriff who let Black inmates out for a week to be with dying parents. This was a different culture—all about a dollar to folks like this.

My line to the mayor of a small town was, “With no respect… fuck you and the horse you rode in on.” If I had not quit, I would have been fired after I said that, so it’s probably the best explanation for my departure. Not hard to say to a man who referred to Black folks as “darkies.” It confirmed what I had known for a while: maybe it was time to move on, pursue my passions, and stop dealing with other folks’ problems.

My day job had been director of planning in Wyoming for a town and county. Not the best job, but it was doing a good thing protecting a community’ reaching culture, state benefits and it let me see the places I wanted to photograph.

Wyoming is the least populated state in the nation for good reason. My woman, while visiting—she refused to move there—remarked that Arby’s had the best coffee in town.

I’m a cowman, seven generations in my blood, so a place with a lot of cattle worked for me. I had rented a small house in a feedlot operation. Reflecting on that fact, it’s a wonder she even came to visit. A ranch hand vividly described swarms of black flies in summer that took two layers of screening on the windows to keep out.

My woman likes to garden and lounge around nude as God made her, sipping mint juleps on summer evenings. The stench of cow shit and biting black flies in hot Wyoming summers held little appeal. I had thought she could wear a beekeeping suit, but that idea didn’t fly.

Wyoming is… unusual. Author Annie Proulx wrote of a bizarre landscape and culture where the ground opened up and swallowed people. From what I observed, November to April was eroded rock outcroppings cracking in a freeze-thaw cycle, with blizzards and wicked winds that never stopped. Graves were dug with jackhammers. In some communities they just kept the dead in a freezer and had a mass burial after the spring thaw.

In most places that have hard winters there is skiing, hockey, snowmobiles, ice skating, and coffeehouses. Not there. People sat at home and stared out windows. I asked a local doctor, a fellow Auburn graduate, about winters. “Well, a lot of cabin fever and suicides. Depression is the big thing here. But there is always spring”

I realized, in the depth of that winter reviewing my photos, that almost every photograph I have ever taken was an effort to understand and define the American landscape—mostly the cultural landscape, as J.B. Jackson would define it. That’s what I write about, think about, and photograph. My year in Wyoming only sharpened that instinct.

I’ve had this idea in my head that won’t go away. Despite the notion that humans shape the land and imprint their will upon it, the land really shapes us—how we think, how we live, and the culture we construct—far more than we give it credit for. My photographs and drawings explore this hidden influence.

I think my short tenure as an investigator in law enforcement also gave me the idea to write this column. In one case I learned of an inmate held off the books in a county jail, waiting for a trial for a decade. It was hard to believe when the local newspaper had never heard of him. But when I knocked on his mother’s door and interviewed her, the story of Kharon Davis got out. It became known as one of the worst delayed trials in modern American memory.

That taught me the most interesting people are often the ones we never know about. The thinly disguised ad-monsters called “newspapers” rarely listen to the disenfranchised, the misunderstood, or the rural poor. But it is with these people that the real truth about a place is found.

Headed back to the South, I am ready to face a hidden landscape: moonshiners on remote creeks, mobile meth labs in plain sight, inmates starved into plea deals, a preacher who believes the Garden of Eden is in Edwin, Alabama, Bigfoot hunters prowling the banks of the Choctawhatchee River with night-vision gear and drones.

People say the South is a different world from the rest of America. But the real question is why.

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There exists an alternate version of this post with the profanity intact. I let it simmer for awhile, and then removed it all before posting. There was a lot.

These are the mornings I like the best. I can get up and sit here typing things for a little while before I have to start thinking about going to 'that place'.

Today might be my last day before vacation begins. I say might be. As they did with Canada Day; they are now doing with Truth and Reconciliation Day. They told us that they switched it from Wednesday to the following Monday. Months ago I had booked Thursday and Friday of this week, plus all of next week. It was all booked and approved. Plan was to start vacation on the stat holiday Wednesday. When they made the announcement to us about the day being switched, I made the mistake of going and talking to the boss about it.

I asked, “I have Monday booked, so does that mean I get to be off Wednesday?” His response, “I can't make you come in, but I would rather you were here. It is month end.” I was annoyed, but I can't say that I was surprised. That was a few weeks ago. His response kind of caught me off guard, and I was like, I suppose I could come in. The closer it got though, and now that the day is tomorrow; my mind has changed. This is my vacation start, booked and approved months ago. I never talked to the boss again about it. Nothing yes or no was officially confirmed.

I have an app on my phone that I use to request and confirm vacation requests. I have been checking it often to see if he has gone in to the system and altered my approved requests for the vacation day to better suit the needs of the company. If nothing has changed before tomorrow morning then I'm not going to show up.

I will take screen shots of the approved requests, and also screen shots of the time stamps on the screen shots. Then if he tries to be difficult about it I have something to show to HR. A modern version of 'having it in writing'. I shouldn't take it personally, but I do. Also though, he could have been like, oh yeah, no problem, enjoy the vacation. I guess he's just doing his job. Being an a-hole.

If he does change my request, then I will accept the mistake I made talking to him about it, and I will show up tomorrow.

When month end arrives they are always saying, all hands on deck. It drives me insane. How quickly and efficiently we get the orders out the door has very little to do with quantity of workers present. It is more about how the work is being done. The quality of our processes has been on a decline for years now. I feel sometimes that we could get twice as much done with half the people if things were being done right. That is quite an exaggeration, but really not exaggerated by much.

There are so many things contributing to the loss of quality in the workforce these days. In this company where I work a lot of it began with a high turnover beginning when covid began. We are constantly a workforce of new people. A lot of long term workers left back then, and never came back, even when this version of normal began when covid was shoved to the back burner, (or maybe it was shoved right off of the stove, still boiling?). I think we are also being impacted by the rise of fascism, and the decline of intelligence that is coinciding with the rise of A.I. use. The oligarchy that has always been unfair are choosing to tip things even more precariously in their favour with the fascists help. That is my opinion anyway. I feel that is all contributing in subtle ways to our decline as a company. Subtle in my day to day work days. Not so subtle in society at large.

Most of the problem though, also IMO, is that no one seems to be able to understand the physical work side of the processes. The physical work is being directed by a crew of people who have never done it themselves. All they see is numbers on screens, and there is just nothing in their brains that translates that to what is happening in the physical warehouse.

Coffee is done. And time to get ready. Hopefully starting tomorrow I won't have to think about this work crap again until after vacation.

I really didn't even want to blog honestly. I like being obscure and invisible in most situations. Sometimes something is too important to me and I have to stand up and let my voice be heard. It doesn't mean it is, but at least I try.

This all started because of a writing I put together and my wife edited titled “DIY Tech Privacy.” It's still very important to me, and I'd like it to be important to you as well. That is why I speak to you all in this sphere of very limited influence. This started with three platforms and I was very open to continuing these three. But two have stood out and one has really shined. Truly who knows what is best when one starts something? Often we find ourselves in a chaotic mess...

First the attempt was to completely bypass engaging in any sort of self-created-content-centered-platform path, and I hoped that others would post content for me. Honestly it was a selfish reason. I thought that the ideas were strong enough to ride on the wispy tails of others. I brought the “DIY Tech Privacy” write-up to others that I find very inspiring. They had built up their audience and I had a hope that those I found inspiring might find what was put together inspiring as well. If they did, it would save me a lot of effort. The effort of creating any sort of platform to share these ideas with others. I could stay in obscurity and write from time to time for other people. I was mildly hopeful that I could sit in the shadows and write longer, more detailed informational write-ups for other more significant “influencers.”

Well it turns out I'm not very good at this, or significant, or something-or-rather. As I started sharing content with people I respect and think pretty awesome, there wasn't much back-and-forth. It was more of a sending of ideas and mostly getting a void back. And that is very understandable. The people I'm trying to talk with have influenced many people, they likely have 20,000+ regulars and some well over 100,000+ regulars. It is a little bit rude attempting to nudge in on that sort of scale when starting at zero.

I hope you see where this is going. I am an obscure shadow of a figure. And that is what I desire to be. But I have ideas like many of you that at least I find to be important. To me the idea that one single individual connecting to another is important. If the majority of humanity agreed with me on everything I'd assume that I was way off the mark. I'd doubt myself and probably stop talking. But that is very likely not going to happen thankfully, that is for the politicians, they love to have at minimum the majority +1. At least from the voting class of society.

So I very much appreciate those I sent the write-up to that linked it for others. Thank you for that, one person alone added over a third of the viewers to the DIY Privacy Tech post. This has brought the primary post I started this for to over 300 reads and counting. Over 40 downloads have happened as well. This is more than I ever really expected, and I hope people are sharing it and more importantly using the information. This is a drop in the ocean in terms of influencing the human race, but that's perfectly fine (the human race is nuts, lol). Through all of this I very much appreciate the voice from James Corbett. I reached out to him first, and it seems to me this was for a reason. He's honest with an ethic built in stone and I hope others see that he is full of wisdom.

We had some small back and forth emails and I was guided through that to send this information far and wide. If I care about it then put it out there. It was clear he was not going to be my easy way out, but I think that is for the best. If he had just posted my write-up I may have been done. But maybe I shouldn't be done.

We all are far more rich, diverse, and full of potential than most of us give ourselves credit for. Meaning, you are awesome and you matter. Keep thinking, and doing, and being, and reasoning, and changing, and seeking truth. If the minority just gave up, what hope is there really? We all need to share our voice wherever we can. In return we may get some push back – especially if it isn't mainstream. And we may need to refine our ideas. And that is great! So let's keep putting our ideas out there, and refining our ideas. If people continue to do that there is a potential good things will happen.

So as I got a light push back I decided to figure out how to put these ideas out there. I'd say this was primarily inspired by Corbett – I thank him for this. It is desirous to me for people to take action, and do things they can do on their own. Without going to the false gods of politicians and law.

I'm sharing a little bit here on why this blog exists. This is also a thanks to the platforms that make this easy. I did not want to make a website from scratch. I've done that before and overall didn't like it. So thank you Bear Blog, Write.As, Mataroa, and others who make an outlet for people without heavy algorithmic controls to push their own narrative.