Notes About Nothing #9

atmospheric rivers, inaccurate perceptions, lively visuals, and grammar

Happy New Year, friends! Being back on the west coast feels strangely familiar. Maybe it’s because I just spilled coffee on a hoodie that I’ve spilled coffee on almost every time I come to this coffee shop by my current residence. Maybe it’s because of how cloudy and wet it’s been (we’ll get to that in a bit) after a rather wet stint on the east coast. Or maybe it’s just a testament to how quickly we can become familiar with new spaces, routines, etc.

Like, being back in my bed here felt great, but what felt even greater was lighting the same incense that I light every day before I greet the meditation cushion, as well as going for my daily morning walk, which I didn’t get to do as consistently back in New York. However, the walks I did do in New York were special in their own right. Simply put, it doesn’t get very cold here in the Bay Area, so going for a stroll in bright, sub-25-degree temperatures left a certain red numbness on my face that relieves itself in the most wonderful way when you step back inside. It fills you with a very specific type of energy and makes hot coffee that much more heavenly. Mix that with a steady stream of god-level bagels and time spent with the people I love most, and you get a whole lot of hope for the coming year.

I’m aspiring to put up one of these Notes About Nothing posts—where I acknowledge/elaborate on/wonder about an unrestricted range of things that have caught my attention as of late—about once every week as a sort of foundation for this whole writing thing, with room for deeper dives as they come. So let’s get into it!

• Like I said at the start, saying it’s been “wet” here in California is quite the understatement—bomb cyclones and atmospheric rivers are actual terms that describe what’s going on, which began far before I arrived back, much more accurately. As a recently ordained Californian, this comes as a bit of a surprise in the midst of the extreme droughts that have gripped the state in recent years, confirmed by the fact that it hadn’t rained more than a few times since I moved in June. I’m realizing now, though, how it would be weird if something like this didn’t happen, given the conditions and history of this state. Whether it’s social dynamics, ecosystems, or athletic endeavors, pushing something to an extreme will likely lead to some sort of rebound in the other direction. With yet another storm system on the horizon, I recalled—from the deep recesses of my graduate assistant brain—an article I read back in 2020 titled The Biblical Flood That Will Drown California. Sure, it’s a clickbaity title, but it’s also a fascinating and rigorous analysis of the socioeconomic, geologic, and ecological history of the state, which includes the Great Flood of 1861–1862. I think it’s a great read for anyone, regardless of where you live, as California’s Central Valley—an area that has been under 15 feet of water before and very well could be at some point in the coming decades—produces about a quarter of our nation’s food supply. I realize that I’m stoking a bit of fear here, which I don’t like to do, but I think that the “precipitation whiplash” that the article references (extremely wet seasons interrupted by extremely dry ones, and vice versa) serves as an interesting metaphor not just for climate chaos, but for many of us on an individual and collective level. One week into the New Year, many people may already be finding that a quick-fix, do-or-die, all-or-nothing approach to change isn’t very sustainable. California’s stature as one of the leading agricultural producers in the world comes on the heels of relentless intensification and rampant pesticide use in a move away from the diversification that we know can help buffer the effects of extreme weather, ultimately making it more vulnerable to the Megafloods referenced in the article. In our food systems and our lives more broadly, what is the price of doubling down if we stop to ask why? Even if we think we’re taking a long-term perspective, is it long-term enough? Faced with the recurring swings from one extreme to the other—in our weather patterns, in our daily moods, in our “this not that” attitudes—how can we refocus our collective attention on the gentle power of compassionate consistency?

  

• Next on the list of things lodged in my psyche is another post from Seth Godin’s blog, which I’ve endorsed many a time already. This one discussed The Massie Effect, which is the tendency of people who support good causes to believe they are in the minority. To quote from the article:

  A study at Princeton showed that almost 80% of Americans believe we should take action on the climate, but those people believe that only 37% of their fellow Americans agree with them.

  That’s kind of wild. And think about other areas of your life in which this may be the case. If you think “no way people buy into that/are interested in that,” chances are, they are into that! This made me kind of sad at first because it’s like we’re sitting on this big latent pot of untapped energy to put towards acting on important problems, simply because we think (often incorrectly) that others don’t share that energy. But it also gave me a little more energy to explore topics of any kind that I might view as niche but might not be if I just take the time to broadcast that interest. People are ready to join you—find them, and get to it!

  

• I’ve been reveling in this video from Odesza—arguably my favorite group—for days. It may not give you as many chills as it gave me if you’re not familiar with The Last Goodbye, but I think the creative decision-making in these 106 seconds was wonderful. And if you look at the description of the video, you’ll see how many people collaborated to put together such a thing, from the confetti animation to the sound design. It makes me really excited for what the future of visual art will be, especially when combined with music—the stills, the colors, the shapes, the beat-matching... And if you’re not already a fan of Odesza, this two-part mix (here and here) is a great place to start. And while the video I linked to at the start of this bullet is their most recent visual masterpiece, this one is another creative and energetic manifestation that makes me really appreciative of visual arts/music. Fanboying done… for now.

• Lastly, a thought-provoking quote I saw on the Instagram account NITCH (which I love):

  Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it…that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing…an actor, a writer…I am a person who does things…I write, I act…and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

  — Stephen Fry

  “We are not nouns, we are verbs.” Let that marinate for a bit after you lock your phone or close down your computer. What box have you put yourself in (I am X) that you might be freed from if you simply changed the grammatical tense to I do X (perhaps often, perhaps rarely)? There’s definitely merit to associating something with your identity when doing certain things, like building a new habit (i.e. If I say I am a runner, I am more likely to take steps to align my actions with that identity because I wish to become that person). But this can also be limiting—if all of a sudden I can’t run (temporarily or permanently), then what? If I am just a person who runs, all of a sudden I can be a person who does XYZ. I guess the point here is identity is a really powerful thing, so we should use it wisely and not get overly attached to something because we’ve accepted that we are that thing. I think this one could open up some great conversations… you know what to do!

Until next week, I hope! Sending love to you.