I’d heard people talk about being inspired by their kids before, and didn’t really believe it as I hadn’t had the experience. But last night, Tovar inspired me.

I’d been exploring issues of autonomy and self-regulation with Shannon, as well as how we can be better parents, so that was my mental frame as I went in to cuddle him last night. As often happens when we go in after bedtime, he was playing outside his bed with the lights a bit bright, and jumped in fear at knowing that he’d been “caught” doing what he “wasn’t supposed to”, even though we’ve been very accepting of his playing before sleep, and never yelled or said anything harsher than “Please get in bed, it’s bedtime”.

This reaction had been bothering me for awhile, so after sharing a bit with Tovar about how I was doing and what had been going on for me that evening, I asked him about it. Keep reading »

On a related note, the entire concept of keeping a journal like that of your child’s formative years just rocks.

I’ve also tried to install integration with Facebook, so that any new posts get published to my Facebook wall by default. Will find out shortly whether that is working correctly…

The new Disqus commenting system offers quite a few advantages, including threaded comments (so you can reply to an individual comment), the ability to “like” individual comments as well as posts, links to learn more about the person who posted (including comments they’ve posted elsewhere), etc.

I’ve recently implemented this same commenting system at the Atlasphere and the Atlas Shrugged movie site.

If you’re not already familiar, I think it’s well worth signing up for a free account at disqus.com and trying it out. And you should still be able to comment without an account, if you prefer.

I’ve been posting less here during the past year since my divorce — as one friend noted, divorce has a way of forcing you to go inside for a while — but I’m feeling the urge to dust things off and start posting more often again. I’ve also been using Facebook a lot lately for photos and other things that used to wind up here on the blog, but that can only get you so far. I still like posting more important thoughts here, rather than in a Facebook note. Facebook’s lifespan for new content is way too short and it’s nice having your own brand, anyway.

Adobe’s BrowserLab says this new design is looking good in all the modern browsers, but let me know if you run into any issues. And I welcome your feedback, as always.

I was particularly intrigued by this summary of the ten key conclusions in Gary Taubes’s book Good Calories, Bad Calories. Based on other information I’ve gleaned over the years, and what I’ve observed in my own dietary changes, I’m inclined to agree with these.

1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization.

2. The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis — the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.

3. Sugars — sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically — are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.

4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.

5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not over-eating, and not sedentary behaviour.

6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.

7. Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance — a disequilibrium — in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance.

8. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated — either chronically or after a meal — we accumulate fat in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel.

9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.

10. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.

I rarely have time to read books lately, so I’m especially appreciative of good summaries like this.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon… I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals, or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness, and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Thank you, Johann.

I’ll be checking just two items when I board the plane: (1) my guitar and (2) a suitcase with my belongings. Today I put my remaining possessions in boxes, and tomorrow those boxes go in a storage facility here in Carson City.

Why Belgrade? Overall I’m in a significant life transition. Kathy and I are recently divorced (amicably, remaining close friends and business partners) and now seems like a time to see what the world has to offer that may be different, meaningful, and exciting.

A few years from now, I’d love to be remarried and starting a family. In the interim, I’m going to spend time getting to know a new culture (or variety of cultures) in Eastern Europe, participating in some of the pro-Rand and pro-freedom movements in the area, and making new friends.

Eastern Europe is a favorable destination because it is relatively more receptive to American values (when they show up) and because my friend Stephen Browne has been kind enough to connect me with his network of friends in the area.

Bulgarian publisher Kalin Manolov, for example, has recently published a Bulgarian translation of Atlas Shrugged, and he’s invited me to give a short talk to his new Ayn Rand Society on the 21st. So I’ll be spending time in Sofia that weekend.

Fortunately, I can continue to run Atlas Web Development from anywhere that I have an internet connection, so I’ll maintain the same professional activities I’ve been pursuing in the United States.

My plan is to rent an apartment in Belgrade, and use that as my office and home base for exploring other areas on the weekends. I’m also planning to start a travel log, for those of you who’d like to keep up with my adventures. I’ll post an announcement here once I do.

See you on the other side.

From Reason TV’s summary:

Joshua Zader’s intellectual relationship with Ayn Rand began as it does for so many, during his college years. He then blazed a trail uniquely his own among Rand admirers by creating The Atlasphere—an online networking and dating site for the fans of Rand’s novels with particular emphasis on The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Zader found inspiration in Rand’s portrayals of independence and integrity, saying: “Rand’s ethical vision was really one where we want to create a win-win world for everybody, and that there shouldn’t be conflicts of interest among rational people if you’re using an ethical system where everybody is treated as an end in himself.” Zader has seen the real life impact of Rand’s ideas through his work on The Atlasphere, which currently boasts over 19,000 members.

Zader discusses the some finer points of Rand’s thought and novels, her supporters, her detractors, and her continuing impact. As a student of Buddhism, Zader explores how her ideas relate to what may seem like a conflicting view of the world. Zader: “Sometimes I see Buddhism as a set of practices in search of a philosophy, in an analogous way that Objectivism could be seen as a philosophy in search of a set of practices.” Joshua Zader blogs at Mudita Journal.

Approximately 10 minutes. Joshua Zader was interviewed by Ryan Seals, filmed by Alex Manning and edited by Hawk Jensen.

I felt Ryan Seals did a good job of coming up with interview questions. I remain grateful for his creativity in suggesting topics to explore.

I will be very interested to hear how other Objectivists respond to my comments about Objectivism and Buddhism, which are bound to be controversial, at least in some circles.

What do you think?

UPDATE: I now have a transcription of most of the interview, for those who would like a text version.

The most valuable skill I’ve acquired through meditation is the ability to experience the sense in which I am not the same as my emotions. We have a tendency to unconsciously identify with thoughts and emotions, but it is also possible to dis-identiify from them, much as you might look around the theater and dis-identify from a scary movie. It is liberating.

I suspect this is is why Marsha Linehan et al have found mindfulness to be so effective in the treatment of BPD [borderline personality disorder]. Many of us have a tendency to identify too strongly with thoughts and feelings, or perhaps with the wrong thoughts and feelings, and it causes us to go out of balance. But if we can learn to step back and see ourselves through a slightly different lens, we see the illusions involved and don’t get so easily ensnared.

The process by which we identify with emotions, and can also learn to dis-identify from them, is probably the single most interesting thing to me in all of psychology. I’m convinced it accounts for a huge percentage of not only strong unpleasant emotions like rage and guilt and fear, but also for more long-term stable experiences like our self-esteem and the average success levels of our relationships.

The strength with which schizophrenics and other psychotics identify with their thoughts and emotions could potentially be a defining characteristic of psychosis. They appear to identify so strongly with every thought that pops into their noodle that they lose the ability to step back and reconnect with reality. I’ve heard that some schizophrenics (such as Mr. Beautiful Mind) do develop this very skill, to step back, and it helps them cope and maintain some sense of reality.

So what is the alternative? If we’re not our emotions or our thoughts or our actions or our experiences, what are we?

Buddhists — who have the most experience with this stuff, and taught Linehan the basics of what has become the most promising treatment available for borderline personalities — would say the trick is to identify your self with the witness or perhaps the flow of experience, rather than with the contents of any particular experience. You are process, not content.

So — you are not your anger; you are your capacity to observe your anger as it grows, tempts, and dissipates. You are not the new car you bought, or the thrill you get when you drive it; you are the observing presence that sees you are a little out of balance as you do it.

This is not a trick of semantics. It is a qualitatively different experience, and getting more familiar with it has saved me from doing all kinds of stupid things that cost me dearly in my youth.

I totally want to write a book about this.

• The Kindle is more like looking at paper than looking at a CRT or LCD screen
• No glare when you’re reading outdoors or in front of a window
• Larger screen, which means more readable fonts as well as less time spent scrolling and waiting for the screen to load

And it solves several problems associated with books, as well:

• Easier to hold in your hand. I’m guessing here from the videos, since I haven’t actually held one yet. But I’ve always been annoyed by the awkward way you have to use your fingers to hold open a new paperback. The Kindle looks easier.
• No more accumulating hundreds of books on bookshelves that you read once, at most, and then have to lug from one home to the next, in heavy boxes, when you move.
• Less money spent on books that you may or may not actually read.
• Less eye strain. At night, when my eyes are tired, I could have the Kindle “read” to me.

I like it…. I think I may get one for my birthday.

Do any of you have experience actually using one?

I was impressed not only with what he made — a weight rack that’s both more ergonomic and more safe than what you find in gyms today — but also with his idea of making a video to demonstrate its use.

I’m just starting to climb aboard the video-marketing revolution myself, so it’s timely for me.

Valhalla weight rack from Kirez Reynolds on Vimeo.

But really, who wouldn’t trust a man in knee-pads and flip-flops?