Protecting your peace...

I’ve gone through many versions of “oh shit. now what?” since the start of November. I researched what it would take to move out of the country. I considered moving back to California. I cried. I lived in a base sense of dread and “why bother” for a while. I considered moving out of the country again. And yesterday—Inauguration Day—instead of vegetating in front of the tv watching terrible Netflix as I’d intended, I hid myself in my unheated basement, anxiety-ordered a new 3D printer, and got to work on revitalizing my Etsy shop. It wasn’t until a few hours later when I was scrolling through my shop’s instagram feed (specifically avoiding my personal account and any other news headlines or social media) that I saw a couple reels on the theme of “accidentally protecting your peace too much” that put it all in perspective for me. I was, subconsciously, protecting my peace.

A few weeks back, I wrote what I thought was going to be my next newsletter entry about reflections on 2024 and goals for 2025, but something wasn’t clicking. I was trying to force myself into some theme for the year or to find some thread to run through it all about financial independence or figuring out the next few years of my life. But, again, nothing was sticking. There’s too much ambiguity in life at the moment, in both the macro and micro senses. Setting some sort of decision-making framework around what gets me to the point of semi-retirement or a career break or whatever it is the future holds, feels too big a decision with too many existential unknowns at the moment. I couldn’t get it to come together. Until those reels.

My operating model for this year is going to be “How can I best protect my peace?” It’s probably going to include staying off of the news, which I did for a while, but the glimmer of hope between July and November sucked me back in. It’s probably going to include ruthlessly curating my social media feeds (I closed my Threads account and moved to Bluesky if you’re there). And, for now, it involved me muting a group chat with two of my oldest friends because they are ok playing in the snark zone of dread and I’m just not there.

I know I can’t hide my head in the sand from what’s going on in the country/world, but I do need to be OK with blocking some of it out and leaving room in my goals and plans for existential uncertainty. I still have a goal of figuring out a plan for semi-retirement or whatever’s next. Making those sorts of decisions right now, when it’s unclear what the economy is going to do, feels too risky for my appetite. The side projects that give me a creative outlet and end-to-end control have always been a grounding element for me in uncertain times. 3D printing and hanging out on maker/small creative business Instagram is such a wholesome place compared to the real world. It feels like what I need right now.

All that is to say: I’d dusted off this newsletter to explore what it might mean for me to “retire early,” but I originally started it as a documentation of whatever hobby or topic I was pursuing at the moment. Looks like the pendulum, for the moment, has swung back to where it started. So for now, I guess it’s kind of a blog of miscellany? I hope to provide some more “valuable” content in the future.

As an offering, here are some of the ways I’ve kept sane in the last few weeks of seeming-impending-doom mixed with a two week bout of daycare plague:

• 📺️ This series “Inside Everest” from Business Insider. It’s about a year old, but super interesting.

• 📺 I found this guy Liam Thompson’s channel, and I found his ability to make somewhat mundane topics into whole, long-ish form, engaging videos really interesting . Especially the Shakespeare one which is literally a video about him reading a book.

• 📺 Speaking of mundane, this one about “fire before electricity” was kind of fascinating. Thinking about candles as a technology is interesting and I was shocked by the part about innovation on wick braids.

• 📺 This video on burnout hit more than most articles I’ve read over the years. It was before my whole “maybe I should just hide in the basement and 3D print for a little while” revelation, or maybe it played a part in it.

• 🏗️ Magnatiles. Leo is finally into building and can easily lose an hour or three to these. I personally find them infuriating because they don’t physically connect and fall down super easily, but they do have a very soothing clack sound.

Until next time…

Jenn