I believe that racial discrimination exists primarily in today’s day and age in two forms:
Attractiveness. We know attractiveness is partly biological, but it is also in large part cultural. White people are considered more attractive than other races. We also know “pretty privilege” exists and has a profound effect on how trustworthy, successful and smart someone is. We are biologically and socially hardwired to like attractive people.
Social economics. We know that white people own most of the wealth. We also know wealth is generational and can give you a huge advantage in life.
Let’s just run through a few examples:
Who has a better chance of being an actor? What about a tik tok star? An attractive person or an unattractive person?
Who has a better chance of being a banker? Or a real estate agent? Someone who’s parents are investment bankers, or if their parents worked at Mcdonalds?
I believe that affirmative action and other tools to remove bias are not meant to “even the playing field” or create an “equality of outcome” (even distributions) but rather to counteract biases that may be counter to the correct action or truth. For example, hiring a more attractive person even though they are lazier, dumber and have less experience.
I do believe that race can be very complicated and there are many instances that are not being considered here. However, I feel that those cases are more niche and require more thinking as to the best solution, such as:
Perceptions of blacks as more capable of crime.
Women not succeeding as much because of childbearing.
Broadly it is clear to me that this has two main implications:
Mainstream ideas about race discount the disadvantages of “ugly” low-income white people.
Mainstream race theory overcompensates for perceived roadblocks of “attractive” wealthy minorities (as they are not only privileged but are often touted as the beacons of hope when they are benefitting from the same system that is currently creating bias).
The only two things I would support affirmative action for would be affirmation action for looks (I don’t know how this would be measured exactly) and for social economic status. I believe that affirmation action in these two areas would:
Disproportionally benefit minorities as they are considered uglier and are often poorer
It would call attention to bias that we have very often in our own lives, a bias that affects our ability to make clear and rational decisions
We would see many competent and talented people who were formerly ignored, be brought to the top
Finally, I would say that all races and all people struggle with issues. There is little to no point in trying to make everyone happy. The main point is to somehow come up with a system where our biases have checks and balances that will guide us to making the most rational and clear decisions.
Being someone who has grown up a minority in America, there is a big wound racism creates within you, a feeling that there is something wrong with you. However, those wounds are opportunities to heal and become wiser, they are not something that everyone else needs to carefully tiptoe around (and be politically correct about). Wounds and pain are not bad things. We can show compassion without enabling people to not grow emotionally and not face their own demons.
I’ve been feeling the need to add much more intensity to my knee workouts but I don’t know what. I sought out some outside help from one of my favorite youtube channels that I discovered: Strength Side.
1. Foam Roll Lateral Leg,2-4 min. each leg 2. Single Leg HingeStretch, 20 sec. hold x 3 3. Knee Circles,20 each direction 4. Poloquin/Peterson Step Up, 15-20 (beginner) or 8-15 reps (full range) 5. Single Leg Calf Raise, 10-15 each leg 6. Sidelying Leg Lift, 8-12 reps with 6 sec pause at top 7. Split Squat, 8-12 reps, pause 5-10 sec on last rep before knee touches ground 8. Squat to Seiza, 2-6 reps *only if knees feel healthy
One of my good friends is obsessed with star signs and by proxy, I’ve gotten pretty into them as well. However, I’ve had my doubts. While it seems possible they actually tell you about what kind of person someone is (although I find it to be far less precise than systems like Myers Briggs and the Enneagram) one thing has always bothered me. Star signs make no logical sense.
How can the position of the sun and the moon determine your personality? Do all people who are born at the same time and place have the same personality? Where did they even come up with the correlations? Isn’t this based on mythology?
The first thing you should know about star signs is that everyone has multiple signs. The sign that most people focus on is the “sun” sign (basically the positioning of the sun when you are born) as it is supposed to be the dominant sign. However, there are signs for the positions of all the planets and the moon.
The three most “important” signs according to astrologers at the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant signs (in that order), and actually gave me this idea of why star signs are not completely bogus.
The Sun, for example, is dependant on the month of the year you are born, the moon the time of the month, and the Ascendant the time of day and location of your birth.
What first got me thinking was that it occurred to me that the personality attributed to each sun sign seemed to match the general climate and weather of the months the signs were connected to. For example, Capricorns are people born between December 22nd and January 20th the coldest times of the year for many places. Capricorns are incidentally known for being cold, calculating, and driven by a need to succeed. Taurus, known to be easygoing and mild are born April 20 – May 20 the most warm and mild times of the year. Leos are known for their fiery passion and confidence are born between July 23 – August 22, the hottest times of the year.
I asked before how everyone born at the same time in the same place had the same personality – perhaps they DO in some small part. Perhaps the climate and the time of day and month, the location on the planet have a profound effect on who we become and what we like because it determines the environment we are born in.
It is not inconceivable to me, for example, that babies born in winter may grow up to be harder colder, and more driven people (as a large generalization). And it’s not inconceivable that people born with the same Ascendant sign (with the same time and place of birth) might share a thing or two in common.
Even more beautiful is the thought that just as the position of the sun affects us with our seasons, perhaps the position of ALL the stars and planets affect us in some way – even if the effects are unseen and mysterious. Perhaps we are more a people of the stars than we know. I know I’d love to believe that.
I’ve been feeling pretty lost as of late. I am thinking about my youtube channel, about my job, about coaching, about my health and about my challenges with youtube and fitness. I’ve been stressed out about all these different things and I don’t really know how to tackle all of them at the same time. I don’t know what to focus on, which ones makes sense to put energy into, and how I will go about focusing on any of these things.
I’ve been feeling depressed, overwhelmed and depleted, constantly self medicating with youtube videos and games.
Recently, I’ve been inspired by this video:
Health is everything. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you don’t have to choose between that and health. You will be a better entrepreneur with better health.
I want to drop all of my other challenges and focus on this for a while.
I want to focus on my health.
I thought about what this meant for quite a while because health is such a nebulous topic. I feel that Brian Johnson in project Blueprint is taking a very scientific approach to health, but I want to take a more personal approach.
Here are the areas that I care about:
Mood: How positive and happy I feel overall
Passion for life: How motivated I feel about life, relationships and projects
Energy: How energetic and strong I feel
Flow: how in the moment and attuned to my body’s sensations I feel
Attractiveness: how healthy I look
Some ideas of times that I can measure these things:
When I wake up: great for seeing how well I slept
Around 10 AM: good for checking up on my morning routine
Around 3 PM: good for checking on my afternoon routine
Before I go to bed: good to seeing the cumulative effect of the day and how fulfilled I feel
I’ve tried these type of challenges before, but I feel that I sort of neglected the mental part of health, feeling healthier physically but mentally trapped and unhappy. I want to really commit to doing video journaling this entire time in order to make sure that I can express myself and work through mental challenges.
What would mean success to me is not just feeling much more happy, passionate, energetic, in flow and attractive, but also to create a lifestyle, mindset and routine that will maintain and grow that over time.
Last night, I went to bed at 11, but fell asleep after 1AM.
I feel totally drained.
Maybe its time to go back to bed for a little.
So I wrote that at 8 in the morning. I just took a nap after cooking for the entire morning with delicious tea eggs and soup. Then I spent a few hours napping and now I feel much better.
I really think my productivity is so much worse when my health is worse.
More napping, meditation, and exercise in the future! Napping if I’m sleep deprived, meditation and exercise if I’m not.
Today, the aim I want to focus on is content creation. I want to finish my post, and workout and meditate for the rest of the day.