Ben Mann Monthly July: community, religion, therapy, startups
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! This is my first monthly post. My hope is to serve as a quick state dump of my life. Purposes:
An index for my memory
An menu of topics for my next conversation with you
A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it
Inspired by Gwern, a way to spread content I found valuable
It’s meant to be skimmable. If there’s anything you want to see more or less of, please let me know!
Experiments and experiences
Active listening with ~10 friends from this prompt
"Friends! I’m running an experiment. Let’s chat for an hour about whatever’s bugging you lately. You bring the topic, I’ll bring non-judgmental curiosity and my experiences. It’s like therapy, but I have no formal qualifications. I’ve been doing this occasionally with friends and want to see what it’s like with more intentionality. h/t Daniel Moreh"
I’ve seen clear improvement in my technique already and I think my friends are noticing. Expect a full post on this soon!
Swimming in the bay
I borrowed a wetsuit from a friend. Goggles, hood, gloves and boots are essential. It’s fun, but it’s filthy and far from home. If I lived in North Beach I’d do it a few times a week, but as things stand I’ll return the wetsuit at the end of the month and call it case closed for now.
Baking improvisation
I used to think cooking is forgiving to improvise, whereas baking is chemistry, so you need a recipe. I now believe it’s easy to improvise both if you know some basic ratios and techniques. The materials are usually cheap enough that failure isn’t expensive. You can also use the hack that if you just keep adding sugar it will become delicious. Proof recipe.
Ephemerisle
I’d describe Ephemerisle as the best playground for adults who want to let their inner children run free. It’s about art, self expression, building stuff, community, being authentic, nature… all the good stuff. I liked it better than Burning Man because it was small enough to really meet people, everyone was interesting, welcoming, and open, there was less friction to go and contribute, and it’s on the water.
SF co-op crawl
I live in http://archive.house. We’re one of the many “intentional living communities” in SF. This was a chance to see how 6 others organize themselves, what culture they’ve chosen for themselves, how the architecture affects their lives. It was great! I look forward to hosting part of the next crawl and seeing more. Takeaways:
Lofts are great if your ceilings are high enough. People often put a chill space under the loft, bed above
Almost everyone had some sort of weekly “house dinner” with varying degrees of exclusivity
Big spectrum from maximum hippy to maximum techie
If you can pay or add process to make a problem go away, like dishes, it’s worth it
Plants make a space feel more welcoming and home-y
Funny photos of housemates such as one house’s group calendar photoshoots are great for bonding
Gave me a sense that what we’re doing is upper quartile in quality. Great people, great space.
Religion research
There’s a big hole in society as religion retreats. How can we fill that hole? Planning to summarize my findings by EOY in a post. If you know of material similar to the following let me know!
I am not your Guru - Tony Robins, interesting fusion of talk therapy, shock and awe, CBT-ish stuff, general human psychology, theater
Going Clear - Scientology, which turns out to be built around a peer to peer therapy practice
Wild Wild Country - Big cult in oregon in the 1980s, believers still like it today
SF Unitarian Universalist service - Surprisingly bad onboarding experience, low quality content, but great rituals like singing and storytelling
The Righteous Mind - The ethical foundations on which political and religious doctrines are built, 5/5 highly recommend
Casual half marathon complete
I define a casual half as one where I roll out of bed, put on my running gear and run 13.1 miles without any special supplements like water or goo, solo, and then afterwards go about my day as if nothing happened. The idea was this would reflect a certain fitness level rather than push me to injure myself. Last week I completed my goal! It felt great. My training regime was to run 12 miles per week for a few months, splitting the distance as was convenient. If I hadn’t run enough by the weekend, I’d just do 6 and 6. Some weeks I did 2 miles a day. Towards the end I fell of the wagon a bit but it seemed not to matter.
Suicide hotline shadow
It turns out that the SF suicide hotline has plenty of volunteers, but little slack in the system to make meta-improvements. I cold-emailed to learn more and try to act as a kind of consultant. It’s been a bit slow going but I’ve learned a lot in the process. DM me for notes if interested.
Video dating app
The idea here was that text chat is low quality because it strips away so much information. As a test of the idea, I asked 10 Tinder matches if they would be interested in a video chat. Most didn’t respond and those that did seemed offended. I probably should’ve built more rapport before asking for video, but I still don’t think it’ll work out. My other test using the existing video chat apps was a horrible failure including racial slurs, nudity, and generally bad times.
Calorie counting
In my latest diet experiment, a few of my housemates and I are counting calories in MyFitnessPal. It seems to work really well because it creates awareness of binging. If my habit of entering my food in the app is strong enough, then I can catch myself in the middle of a pending binge and stop it. I also feel more comfortable when I do binge because I’m often under my limit for the day anyway. In ~2 months I went from 161 to 156 lbs, ran a half marathon, and PR’d a bouldering route (V5). I think I’m getting leaner and stronger at the same time.
General life updates
Quit Google, starting a company
As of June 15, I’ve been iterating on potential ideas and cofounders. Have a strong lead, hopefully by next month I’ll know whether it pans out.
Visited my brother in Portland burbs
Hiking, walking, talking, listening, baking, game playing, reading, hot tub every night, dreaming
Built a sauna in the back yard
Benefits
physical and mental relaxation
no-phone, quiet space for high quality conversations
longevity effects
deep sleep
Planning to go to acro yoga more regularly at Mission Cliffs
Content
A 5000-page equivalent web series. It’s a gritty, realistic scifi/fantasy exploration of people getting superpowers. It covers philosophical issues like good/evil, community, romantic relationships, altruism vs selfishness, life purpose, family and family baggage, bureaucracy vs vigilantism, and on top of that a twisty plot and action-packed imagination candy. I’m 1500 pages in if you want to join me! Beware, you might not want to put it down.
Melatonin review on Slate Star Codex
Turns out the proper nighttime dose is ~0.3 mg! I’ve been taking far too much, which explains why I woke up groggy after taking 10mg extended release pills. Many other great insights to boot.
Mission Detour
This is my third Detour. It lived up to the previous ones in Haight Ashbury and Chinatown. I saw beautiful street art I never would have before and have a better feel for my neighborhood and the forces shaping it.
Religion research (see experiment section)