AI Rant

We live in a world rich with opportunities, clearer for human rights than ever before (or at least, a few years ago before Trump's tirade on basic human decency), and yet, our problems of poverty, disease and mental health have either persisted or gotten worse. The dynamics that have created this dichotomy are complex and historied, and entirely self-inflicted, even if unintentional. But perhaps with Al's rise, as well as the threat of technological unemployment, we are equipped for the first time in history to actually tackle these problems at an individual and macro economic level.

Poverty, homelessness and hunger

Save for mental health issues, poverty, homelessness and hunger are rooted in a lack of cash, resources and access. Using Al to make paths to those resources can help individuals get back on track on their terms, not via a prescribed program a naive, although well-intentioned, government or charity program develops. Smart people should create tools that enable and empower the poorest among us to make better decisions for themselves what trades are in demand that can be lucrative and appealing, where are certain types of work most in demand geographically, etc.

Disease

[Insert legal disclaimer that I am not advocating for Al to replace medical attention]

Understanding symptoms in real-time and using context to eliminate causes and cipher out hypothetical causes in a personalized, unjudgmental way can lead to better personal health choices and more successful conversations with doctors and medical experts. For example, many of my symptoms are aggravated by being overweight, and while I understand that and am working to lose my excess weight, there are other factors that can be addressed to give me more immediate relief from symptoms, if only I understand them; however, when talking with a doctor, it often feels like the solution is just, get off your fat ass and lose the weight. Chatting with an Al chatbot is much less confrontational, feels like judgey, and gives space with no time limit to explore and better understand what's going on.

Mental Health

[Insert legal disclaimer that I am not advocating for Al to replace suicide prevention, etc]

For some people, for whatever reason, seeking counseling is either not a viable option (money/insurance, access, schedule), or feels like an insurmountable scary thing. An Al chatbot can provide direct advice for handling situations, and the recommendations get richer as it gets more context about your personal situation. It can ask you questions to help you reflect, and you can ask it for recommendations that you are most open to. For example, I've asked my Al chatbot to give me mantras to recite to remind myself of the mindset changes I want to make. You could ask it for advice on handling threatening situations in the moment, after, and how to prepare. You can talk through things and get reassurance that what you're feeling is normal and part of the human experience. Or if you are ready to pursue a therapist, you can ask it for advice about what kind of therapist to seek out, how to prepare for your appointment, how to determine if that specific relationship is going to work for you. It can give you the feeling of being in control when you most need it.

How we can use these ideas and tools to solve the world's problems

Knowledge and access are key - we need to develop ways to get the word out to the people most in need, and actually, everyone, really. And then we need to equip them, with free tools easy to navigate on both phones and computers because some people may not have access to one or the other.

For more privileged people, we need to understand what Al can do for us and utilize it develop these tools, as well as to brainstorm solutions to bigger picture issues. There are a few books that have come out recently that point to zoning laws and the immense web of restrictions and laws that builders have to navigate that contribute to the lack of affordable housing, and therefore to the homeless problem. We need people in government and large organizations to look wholistically at the system instead of each individual, maybe well-intended, rule and policy in place. When things become too hard, they don't get done. Let's re-evaluate the safeguards and the whole process needed for real solutions, and break down the barriers.

Sleep Apnea, Vegetable-based Ramen and the Milan Diet

Today I want to share some thoughts and reflections about my health. Weight has been an issue for me dating all the way back to high school - I yearn to be as skinny as I was then, even as I recall feeling fat compared to my peers at the time. But the major weight gain happened in a couple of waves.

My first year in college, I had a meal pass to school buffet, which meant I could eat multiple slices of pizza every day - and that is exactly what I did! Freshman 15? More like the freshman 40. I put on a lot of weight quickly while indulging. I'm sure weekend drinking didn't help, and the food I ate when I was hungover was just as bad. My period cramps got really bad, and so while I wasn't sexually active, I decided to go on birth control. The problem was that I couldn't swallow pills - even the tiniest birth control pill. So I did the 12-week injection instead. I was fine with the shot and the soreness that came with it, and it solved my period problems. Wonderful, right? Well, not exactly. The drug was known to cause depression and even suicidal thoughts, as well as significant weight gain. I do think I may have been a little depressed, which naturally turned into eating my emotions. I gained a lot of weight in a very short period of time.

During that time, I had another issue and had to swallow a pill for it. After years of getting advice from others and trying to practice swallowing pills, I figured out a method that worked for me. While the advice I got was usually, "Just don't think about it," what I learned was that I actually had to consciously think about it. My gag reflex would react to the foreign object if I pretended I was just drinking water, so I had to convince myself that I know what I'm doing and I needed to swallow this thing. But that wasn't all. I had to shove the pill into the back of my throat, almost choking on it, and then I threw back about a gallon of water, almost drowning myself until the pill went down. Dramatic, right? And it made a mess; I'd throw back so much water at once, basically flooding myself, that I'd spill a lot of water. But, the pill went down.

Learning that I could kind of swallow pills, I decided to switch my birth control method to the pill. Practice makes perfect, and over time I got better at swallowing without having to choke and drown myself. Although from time to time I still gag or a pill won't go down, and I definitely cannot swallow pills without water. Regardless, problem solved, right? Getting off the thing that caused weight gain (and maybe depressing leading to emotional eating) would allow me to lose weight, right?

Of course it wasn't that easy. Eating like I normally did, I still gained weight. I got into kenpo, started dancing again, started running again, but still gaining or at best staying flat. I tried various diets, Atkins and the like. As so many others, I'd see an initial drop and then it would lose its effectivity, and I'd gain the weight back and then some. And so the yo-yo dieting continued for years and years. I eventually became convinced that my metabolism was broken from all the dieting, and did the metabolism reset diet. I lost 12 pounds which is great, and I do think it "reset' my metabolism to an extent, but without constant maintenance it feels like it slipped back to being broken. I could eat well all week and have two slices of pizza and gain 5 pounds overnight. And that wasn't temporary, that became my new normal and I had to slowly work that off. I'd lose 2 of those pounds and then have another cheat meat and gain another 5. It was maddening. All that hard work to lose a couple pounds and one indulgence caused me to gain double.

In health, all things are connected. When I started running again, I also started coughing at night. It got so bad I finally went to the doctor three days before a race. I did a breathing test and was informed that I was using 25% of my lung capacity. I had asthma. I got an inhaler and was warned that the inhaler's positive effects would take many days to totally work, but I took it when I needed it. I ran my race but it was terrible because I felt personally defeated by having labeled my condition. The diagnosis of asthma seemed to change my identity as a runner to a sick person. I finished the race and had class afterwards, and I'll never forget that class because I sat in the back and hacked through it. But the damage was done. How could I lose weight running if I'm an asthmatic?

I gave it up for a while and sought out other activities. But walking, for one, was never as satisfying or beneficial. I have never been a speed walker, and in fact, I walk slower than anyone I know who isn't slowed by old age. I can tell myself to speed up, and I will a little, but not for long and not that much faster. I would joke that I have two speeds, running and ambling. So I'd get back into running for a time, and then stop, yo-yoing my running as I was my diets.

Then I read a book, "Rest," which really stuck with me. It talked about how active, rigorous exercise was actually good for being productive and creative in our work, among other things. I decided my half-ass running a half mile was insufficient, and I aimed to run a 5k, or 3.1, miles multiple times a week. I knew I had to work myself up to that, but to my surprise, my progress went faster than I expected, and I was regularly running 3.1 to 3.7 miles every day. This was when I was living in San Diego during the pandemic, so I got to run through Balboa Park and breathe in the ocean air from the nearby beach. My "wall" was around 1.5 to 2 miles, but once I pushed through that, I'd get a runner's high and didn't want to stop running most days. The only reason I stopped was because I knew I had to get to work. It felt great! I was losing weight and felt like I was getting stronger. One morning, just before leaving for a weekend in Yosemite, I went for my morning run. But within .4 miles, my hip started hurting. I had disciplined myself to push through the various aches and pains I sometimes felt while running. But this pain was different and persistent. I got to the point of tears and decided I had to take it seriously and stop running. I stretched and walked for a bit, trying to shake it off, but the moment I tried running again, there it was. I did a total of about 2 miles, mostly walking, before calling it quits. Later, I researched the issue and it seemed like it was related to being overweight and putting too much pressure and overuse on the joint. Once again, I felt defeated. Here I was trying to lose weight and really pushing myself, and my body just wouldn't have it.

With Ozempic and related treatments being all the rage, I looked into them on my own. Everything I've read indicates that they work by suppressing appetites. I had gotten to the point in recent years where I feel like I can control my portions and my appetite. I'm not a late-night snacker (usually, anyways), I don't obsess over sweets, and I've learned to cut my carbs. I can eat healthy, but I can't lose weight. It doesn't appear to me to be an appetite problem. In fact, I worry that I eat so little on a regular basis, if I suppressed my appetite, my body would go into starvation mode. The problem, I continued to feel, is still my metabolism. But I HATED the metabolism reset diet and couldn't get myself to do that again. I'd been considering buying a Lumen for a long time, which is supposed to tell you what your metabolism is doing and when to eat what. 

After a lot of consideration, I decided to pull the trigger on it, and it was interesting but didn't inform me very much. Virtually every day it told me it was a low carb day, with a handful of medium carb days sprinkled in, based on the fact that my body wasn't burning fat. Well no crap! I also found it super challenging to even do the breathing the Lumen wanted. It has you breathe in for 10 seconds, which was fine, then hold your breath, which was fine, then exhale for 10 seconds while it counted down. I struggled to make it to 2 seconds remaining, and often would run out of air by 3 or 4 seconds remaining. This meant that my reading was incomplete and I'd have to do it again, which was exhausting.

Separately, I had seen a couple documentaries and am convinced that the production of food how we're doing it now is unsustainable and bad for us. While our ancestors and people living in Blue Zones might consume meat once a week, we were largely using meat as the center of every meal. Raising enough livestock to keep feeding the world in this way meant more and more forests were chopped down to grow the grains and foods needed just to feed our meat animals. And the idea that protein only comes from meat and can't be found in plants somehow is accepted but untrue. Where do the animals get the protein, anyways? One of my long-time-ago ex's was really into sustainability and explained to me that he tried to eat more chicken than beef since the amount of water and food needed to raise one pound of chicken meat was substantially less than one pound of beef, which made sense to me. So I tried to keep that in mind to craft my intake towards poultry instead of beef.

Sam has a philosophical aversion to eating anything that comes from a pig, which has been a difficult consideration in practice for me. He has never asked me not to eat pig in front of him or anything like that, but knowing he doesn't like it means I'm not going to order it for us. It turns out, I eat a lot of pig! Bacon and sausage for luxurious breakfasts, pepperoni on my pizza, salami in my sandwiches, barbecue pulled pork for a Texas dinner. In addition to never eating pig meat, Sam also tried to minimize how much other meat and poultry he ate. His influence paired with my understanding of the sustainability of our food chain has made me again reconsider my preference for meat. An ad on facebook about a plant-based instant ramen that was high in protein intrigued me, and I ordered a sampler on Amazon. For the most part, it was somewhere between good and bland. But adding a heap of garlic chili sauce made it addicting! I started eating it once (and sometimes twice) a day, and suddenly, I started losing weight with minimal exercise and no other change to my habits. The warm broth and feeling of satiation, paired with the weight loss results, made me an addict to something completely plant-based.(Not that I'm selling anything, but the brand is Immi if you're interested.)

Another fun dieting "trick" I had picked up from a long-ago-ex was "the pickle diet." The premise being that pickles are tasty, filling and relatively low in calories. Snacking on pickles instead of, say, chips, or eating a pickle before a meal, would help get that full, satiated feeling with fewer calories. While unproven, there is also a notion that pickles and pickle juice help athletic recovery from sore and stiff muscles - something I feel I can attest to. Often when I go out dancing, I drink some water but clearly not enough, because despite not having an ounce of alcohol, I wake up the next morning feeling depleted and hung over. Pickle juice, I've found, has helped that, as well as just chugging water for the entire following day.

Somewhere along the line I developed a snoring problem. My family pointed it out to me but it always felt like a judgey, lecturing way. I didn't want to hear it. The connection to not getting good sleep and not being able to lose weight was not yet apparent to me and I dismissed it as nonsense. I knew I was overweight - I ate too much and moved too little. Calories in, calories out, right? It got so bad on our family Christmas vacation in Hawaii that nobody would sleep in the same room as me and everyone was going to extraordinary lengths to get away from me. I was annoyed at my family - how bad could it be, really? I had slept with a snoring boyfriend and eventually just got used to it. They could do the same.

It was Sam who really reframed my thinking on this. He wasn't judgmental or condescending, but curious. The problem wasn't just that I snored, but that I wasn't getting sufficient rest. So, I'd fall asleep during the day. He caught me sleeping in the car in Scotland while he was driving. He noticed me nodding off during the Taylor Swift concert at Wembly Stadium. I was apparently quite the spectacle when I was snoring on the bus coming back from Stonehenge. He got a kick out of me sleeping in the rowdy crowd at a soccer match near Richmond. And most shocking to me was when I passed out on the boat part of the London tour, because I love boats!

I was also sleepy at home. It wasn't frequent but I would fall asleep in front of the TV. The most disturbing though was that I'd start nodding off in the car on my morning commute. Just a couple hours after waking, the 15 minute commute would lull me to sleep and I had to fight with myself to keep my eyes open. It was worst at red lights, and once I got honked at for not being alert when the light changed. Often, I'd be so groggy and exhausted by the time I reached my office parking lot that I'd park and allow myself a power nap that would last 20 or 30 minutes.

I knew the jig was up. I had to see a doctor and get my diagnosis which I knew from what people told me would likely be sleep apnea and I'd have to get a CPAP and that would suck. I was not looking forward to it. My Mom had had a CPAP and she ended up stopping her usage because it was too annoying to her and my Dad. I was determined that if that's what I had to do, I would get it my all. I first had to get a referral from a general doctor. So I went in to see her.

Besides daytime sleepiness and nighttime snoring, not being able to lose weight, being asthmatic and having year-round allergies, there was still another issue I had. My ability to regulate my emotions, or more correctly, my physiological responses that looked like emotions, aka crying, seemed to have greatly diminished. I'm not saying I never cried when I was younger, many boyfriends had been frustrated with me when we'd fight and I'd cry. I think it started with anger issues when I was a child and I learned that I could not unleash my fury so I bottled it up inside and that became tears. When I was mad, I didn't get violent or yell, I'd cry. Even when other people were mad, I'd cry. That was true for years. But it had gotten so bad that the littlest thing could set me off - good or bad. I'd get a compliment from my boss and I'd cry. Sam would pinch me a little too hard and I'd cry. I'd see stranger propose at the Taylor Swift concert and I'd cry.

So when I talked to my doctor, she connected a lot of the dots for me. My symptoms sounded like I had sleep apnea. Of course I wasn't losing weight: I had no energy to work out, no willpower to eat the right things, and my body wasn't metabolizing like it should in deep sleep at night. Having felt heard and relieved it wasn't "my fault", I started to cry. And she asked what was wrong and I said, well, this sucks too. I can't control my tears. And she told me, interestingly, that assuming I had sleep apnea, that meant my body was in a constant fight or flight state and never recovered from that. So little triggers could cause crazy emotional responses. That made sense to me. I asked her if I'd have to get a CPAP and she said likely yes, but reassured me that people who use it regularly say it's life changing.

It's actually a little crazy how all these conditions are connected. My asthma, allergies and presumed sleep apnea are all conditions caused by, or contributed to, and made more likely by being overweight. But losing the weight is made difficult (to impossible) by having asthma and sleep apnea. A death spiral that started with overeating and weight-inducing medications that cannot seem to be reversed. I had to get to the root of it. If better quality sleep will help me to have more energy and better emotions and potentially improve my metabolism, then I had to address the sleep problem.

Completely full of conviction now, I went to my sleep doctor and told him my symptoms. He agreed it was likely sleep apnea and checked the size of my throat hole or whatever. He showed me a chart with 6 shapes of throat holes and said mine was the tightest of them all, which made me physically prone to sleep apnea. He'd have to do a sleep study to confirm, but he was pretty confident. I had the option of doing an at-home study or in-clinic study. The at-home study was lighter, had fewer diagnostics, and sometimes could be inconclusive which would result in the need to do the in-clinic study anyways. I wanted the full gambit. I wanted to be as close to 100% sure as we could be. I wanted to give my doctor all the information possible so he could get this right. If it was sleep apnea or something else, I wanted to know and get the treatment I needed.

I found the sleep study a little hilarious. To be fair, it was quite comfortable, I had my own room with an attached bathroom, which I was grateful for because I tended to have to use the bathroom multiple times at night - another symptom apparently of sleep apnea - the body doesn't turn off the mechanism causing you to have to pee. But being connected to a million sensors meant that when I had to use the bathroom, I'd have to signal my nurse to disconnect me. Instead of disconnecting all the individual things, they plugged into a master machine and she would disconnect that and hang it around my neck while I did my thing, and then reconnect me when I was done. The goop in my hair and the suction marks on my body were funny to me, as was the way I looked when I was all connected up. When I was up for another bathroom break early in the morning, my nurse informed me that it was close enough time to the end of the sleep study anyways, so after using the bathroom, we could take the things off and I could get dressed to go home. As she was disconnecting me, I was concerned that my discomfort had prevented me from sleeping enough and asked her if they had gotten sufficient data. "Oooooh yeaaaah," she said, snorting a little, "we got LOTS of good readings on you." I thought that was a little funny even though I wasn't quite sure what it meant.

When I got my results back, they were absolutely stunning. Most notably, I had 98 "events" per hour. PER HOUR! That meant that 98 times per hour, I would choke or stop breathing. Fight or flight indeed. When I talked to my doctor about the results, he was concerned that the CPAP wouldn't be enough, and I might have to move to a bi-PAP which is more intense. But he said we should start with the CPAP and he assured me that even if it wasn't enough, it would still help greatly. But it would take a couple weeks, and I was nearing my trip to Milan for two weeks. So the CPAP would have to wait.

Knowing that it was very easy to gain weight on a business trip, I had bought a travel scale with me to monitor my weight for the two weeks in Italy. I knew I'd be tempted with all the pasta and pizza to overindulge in carbs, and so much as looking at pizza caused me to gain weight, so I wanted to give myself real-time feedback. To my surprise, however, while I gorged on the hotel breakfast buffet, polished whole individual pizzas at lunch, and ate a full meal of pasta or similar for dinner, I lost weight every day. I missed my plant-based ramen a little bit, but I was eating so good and so well in Italy, and losing weight, so I didn't mind too much.

My asthma, however,  was aggravated by the smog of Milan, the second hand smoke on campus at my work site, and probably the cold weather to an extent. I was using my inhaler multiple times per day but it got worse and worse. I knew from recent experience with something similar, and having been seen by a doctor back then, that as long as I didn't have a fever, I could rest assured I wasn't sick. But my asthma would need to be treated with something more intense than an inhaler.

I picked up my CPAP when I was back home, and didn't have time between returning and leaving for Tucson and then to Australia to see a doctor about a more intense treatment for my asthma. So I hacked through my holiday in Tucson with my family and in the ICU where my sister was beating the odds in her own medical issues. When I got to Tasmania, Sam told me what I could already sense, that the ocean air on our beach in Howrah was some of the cleanest air in the world. He
walked me through a breathing exercise which I felt was unnecessary, but I liked that he cared so much. I gulped in all the fresh ocean air I could while I was there, and I could tell my aggravated asthma was subsiding a little every day. We went north for a two day mini trip, and the mountain air up there was equally refreshing. Even in Sydney, walking out to Darling Harbor, I felt like my breathing was improving day over day.

I have been religious about using and maintaining my CPAP. I got the distilled water needed and changed it daily, I sanitized the tubes with apple vinegar, I got baby wipes and wiped down my mask every day. I had to use it for a minimum of 4 hours every night. The average didn't matter, so even if I used it 6 hours one night, I still had to use it for at least 4 hours the next. So I tracked my usage and made sure I got my 4 hours. The app had instant feedback and the results were telling and felt very accurate to what I could remember. That is, when I was struggling with my mask fit, the app would say I needed to correct it, and when I felt like my mask was good, the app would confirm.

But the most shocking result was that the events were now in the single digits per hour, around 5 typically. From 98 events per hour down to 5 is a 1960% improvement! Almost instantaneously, too, I had stopped dozing off during the day. It was no longer a struggle to stay awake in the car. And, I was still losing weight even after returning from Milan. I also feel less stuffed up from allergies, which could be seasonal but I suspect the humidifier effect on the CPAP is contributing at least.

Over the course of a several weeks, I felt healthier and healthier. I still puff on my asthma inhaler before dancing, but I no longer felt as winded or in need of another inhaler puff after dances. One night, I was waiting for my inhaler refill to come in but went dancing anyways. I was sure my current inhaler was completely out of dosage, but I sucked on whatever fumes I could grasp. And I didn't cough at all that night, despite not having a real dosage of inhaler. I am feeling healthier now than I have in a long time. I feel happier, too, and have emoted less. I've felt more in control of my tears and my ability to get things done. It has been quite a change. I'm not sure I'm ready to call it "life changing," but I can see how all these things are connected and relieved that I am working on the root of the issue, or at least one major contributor.

Recently, however, my weight has started to tick up again even though I'm doing the same things - eating my plant-based ramen, dancing, eating salads or lean meals when I'm not eating my ramen, drinking my water, etc. As such, I renewed my subscription for Lumen and am trying to use it more to figure out what's going on and what I need. To my surprise, I have been finding it easier to make it through the breath recording - I can now exhale all the way to 10 where I wasn't able to do that before. Something has improved, even if my weight is waffling.

I recently listened to "The Dorito Effect" which confirmed what I kind of suspected - the processed food wasn't as good for us as the food in, say, Milan, which wasn't packed with preservatives and artificial flavoring. I really do think there is something to that. The book also talks about how the "good" food has been "dumbed down" and made to taste worse and carry less nutrients - chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, for example. Chicken used to taste good on its own apparently, but the way commercial farms feed them to get fatter quicker is causing a loss of the taste and nutritional value, leading to use not only getting less out of the chicken itself but also having to smother it in sauces to make it taste good. It makes me just want to get a piece of land, raise my own chickens, grow my own crops and make my own sourdough at home. That sounds like a lot of work, but my goodness, this feels like a bad situation, doesn't it? What else are we to do?

Well for now, I'm looking forward to a full month in Milan, knowing that I was losing weight while gorging my appetite there. In the meantime and after that trip, I will have to focus back on eating pickles and plant-based ramen and other good things and drinking more water, getting the sleep I need, dancing and exercising, and so on and so forth…. and the health journey continues.

Oh yeah, and here's a vid of my dance group performing last night!

Sleep Deprived or Depressed

 I have been in a lull with my work and my recent review was a pretty strong testament to that. My boss was amazingly crafty in delivering an appreciative message while expressing the things I need to work on, and I felt like I had disappointed him and let myself down. I've known that I likely have sleep apnea for quite a while, but in Hawaii having my family reject even sleeping in the same room as me kind of irritated me to the point of deciding I have to deal with it. Well, life has been busy, but I finally decided to pursue a sleep study.

I have this weird anxiety about making phone calls or answering the phone, so it takes me some mental energy to prepare for making phone calls. So this process is a little hard for me. First, I tried calling the sleep center directly, but they said I would need a referral from a primary care doctor - which I don't have. So then I tried Teledoc, thinking that there wasn't anything a doctor would need to examine me physically for, so I hoped I could get the referral that way. I was very frustrated to find out that the doctor took the appointment knowing that's what I wanted but couldn't give me a referral. So I ended up turning it into renewing my asthma inhaler so at least I'd get something out of the fact that I had to pay for the Teladoc appointment. So, I finally researched a good doctor and made an appointment.

I have to say, not only was I seen quickly which is always nice, but the doctor immediately made me feel like she cared and was going to help me get the care I needed. When I explained to her both my sleep issues and my emotional challenges, she connected the two and explained how the lack of sleep puts my body into fight or flight mode and constantly stresses out my body even if I don't feel stressed. It was such a relief to know that maybe there's nothing wrong with me mentally, it's just a health condition which I have no control over. I even brought up being overweight and she said that when you're suffering from lack of sleep then it's much harder to make good eating choices and have the energy to work out. Not only that, but that stress on your body puts you into starvation mode and conserves fat, which could relate to why I've felt that my metabolism is broken. So, it seems like maybe this sleep problem is more than just annoying my family - it's been making my life much harder and hurting my health. I felt so seen and heard.

The doctor did ask me a number of pointed questions relating to mental illness to determine if I was depressed, and she asked directly if I was depressed. I wasn't totally truthful in my answers, knowing that affirmative answers may lead to a depression diagnosis or suspicion or whatever. I didn't want to go down that path because I don't believe it's true of me. But afterwards, it made me wonder why I was so guarded about it. Is it the stigma? Or denial? I mean, I have been in a rut lately and disengaged with my work which I usually love. On paper, my life is pretty damn great, and I'm still discontent. Maybe I am depressed? But I think it's easy to feel like that if I'm tired, too, and it's taken me this long to get to pursuing a sleep study, I think I'll see if that solves some problems and go from there.

A Dancer, an Athlete

Another Camp Hollywood is in the books! This was just my second time attending. I lived in California when I attended last year, and was encouraged by my Arizona friends to attend when I visited the Kat's Korner in Phoenix. I enjoyed it so much that I bought the early bird ticket for this year before I even left.

Little did I know that I wouldn’t live in California when the event came around this year. But, I had my full weekend pass and my hotel room with the pool-facing balcony already booked, so I decided it was worth the flight from DFW.

Coming off my UK trip though, I only had one weekend of down time and that was obviously spent doing some productive things like unpacking, laundry, and packing. Being a morning person, these late starts for the dances - 8 or 9 or 9:30 - are past my typical bed time. Crazy people here will dance until 4 or 6 am and later! That's when I get up usually - the time to which I sleep in even! Add to that the intensity of attending 3 or 4 classes during the day, and the event is just absolutely exhausting.

I felt like I was dragging myself through the event all weekend. The feeling of freedom and having no responsibilities or requirements when I arrived Thursday quickly dissipated into pushing myself to attend classes and put myself out there at the social dances. Part way through the weekend, I concluded that I would enjoy the event more if I had a roommate or a "group" to belong to. Being a transplant everywhere I've lived in recent years means I don't have those strong relationships with anyone from my new home, and I wasn't really included in the coordination of my Arizona dance friends. As such, it was more like I ran into people. To her credit, my dance instructor in Texas, Linh, was very kind and thoughtful to add me to her group chat so I could have dinner with them on two occasions. But especially the last night, once I went to my room, I was on my own to get to the  dance, and the bed was so comfy, and I was enjoying listening to my audio book, and I was so tempted to just stay in bed.

Part of my struggle is definitely the lack of fitness. Our style of dancing is intense and a single song, especially one on the faster side, can wipe me out for quite a while. I sweat a lot and so I do things to accommodate that fact - changing shirts between classes or wearing layers so that the sweat doesn't get to where my partners primarily touch. It certainly didn't help that my back was hurting and is probably out of alignment, and my asthma inhaler stopped working. I'm so broken!

There were other times, though, that I, like, didn't want to dance. It's hard to explain the feeling. I logically know I love dance. I had re-discovered that fact years ago. And there were certainly times when I completed a dance with a new partner and felt exhilarated by the interaction - the exchange of ideas and clever leads and follows, smiling and laughing knowingly. Those moments, I know, are a big part of why I love dance. Having new things thrown at me or unfamiliar flairs that I followed without missing a beat is so exciting. But then I'd sit down and be completely out of breath, the sweat would pour out of every inch of my body, and I wouldn't want to dance again. There were also times in which I was dancing with someone and couldn't will my feet to move fast enough to keep up to the beat. I felt like giving up half way through. I didn't want to play anymore. I certainly enjoy watching people dance, and so I don't mind sitting on the sideline for multiple songs in a row. It just felt like every time I was asked to dance, it was hit or miss whether I'd make it through and enjoy it or whether I'd hate it and wish I hadn't even come. I can't make sense of it. Chalan came Friday night and his dancing is quite repetitive, which on the one hand is easy to follow and doesn't kill me, but on the other hand is a bit boring. Other than pretty limited repetition, I can't put my finger on any reason I wouldn't enjoy the dance. It was just waves of laziness, really.

It also varied a bit night to night. Some nights I was more enthusiastic about dancing and other nights it felt like a slog the whole way through. Maybe it was just a lot - the lack of down time I allowed myself. Which begs the question, how best to enjoy it, should I come again next year? Should I skip the classes, as many people do? I'd say no, actually, because I like the classes forcing me to go through so much physical exertion, leading me to dance with multiple people, and spacing out the exhaustion. Is it really just an extrovert thing - I need to have a more dedicated person or group of people to hang with to shake off my lazy indifference? Maybe; I can't see how that would hurt. I mean, I did enjoy getting dressed with the full space of my room and having my balcony to take breaks on, but there's no reason a roommate or group would have to take those elements away consistently. Largely, I think I would enjoy it more if I was more in shape and felt rested when I slept. I suspect that whatever causes my snoring to be intolerable is also causing the length of my sleep to be less restful than a sleep of that length should be. Therefore, I either need more sleep (hence skipping classes) or better quality sleep.

Several weeks ago at dance troupe practice, Linh had given us a little pep talk about how we were dancers and should therefore train, stretch and practice like dancers, like athletes. I was a little inspired by her talk, and certainly accepted it fully as truth. But while I started acting on the advice, I didn't continue it consistently. I do feel still agree, though, I need to treat myself like an athlete, take care of my body and health consistently and with more than just a decent diet. There is a big question mark as to how to get myself to do this more / better. Getting more sleep and being rested may be the key so I will start with that at the least while pushing myself to do something in the mean time.

Halloween: In Memoriam

My life changed on Halloween last year.  I didn’t know it then; I thought it was a phase that I’d shrug off, a period of mourning that would heal with time.  It healed some, but seems it nevertheless changed me for good. 

One year ago I got the horrific news that a family member had been struck by a vehicle and killed instantly.  She had been walking down the road holding hands with her loving husband.  They had just moved to Florida together to start their dream retirement.  All I could think of was how full of life she had been, one of the most joyful people I knew, and how detrimental it would be to poor Jim, her husband who had to pick up the pieces of their life that she left too soon.  

I’d known people who had died before.  I’ve lost grandparents to those things that take you in old age.  I’ve known families who have lost babies within days or months of giving birth.  I’ve seen teenagers get in with the wrong crowds and lose their lives.  I’ve had classmates who died in war.  But no death has shaken me like Joyce’s.  Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of her being so full of life and love, and then such sudden death.  Perhaps it struck close to home - I go for walks, and I drive, and she had no influence on the outcome.  

I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something more to her death.  It’s a tragedy, but not just a tragedy.  It’s horrible irony, but not just a shame.  It’s as if her death was supposed to have meaning to me, a purpose, and so fate made it so.  

Ever since Halloween last year, I’ve had an uncanny notion of Joyce watching over me when I drive, shunning me when I steal a glance at my phone, and praising me when I avoid a pedestrian who didn’t hear or see me coming.  Joyce’s story has made my passion for autonomous vehicles not just selfishly indulgent, but imperative for mankind.  And she made it personal.  It’s no longer about the “cool” factor of the technology.  Joyce is to human drivers as Hiroshima’s Peace Park is to the atomic bomb – a vivid memorial that begs modern society to do away with such destructive forces.  

We don’t know what caused the driver to veer suddenly to the side of the road, but I think it’s fair to assume that the driver was distracted, whether it be by a cell phone or otherwise.  I’ve been in a collision because the driver behind me was fidgeting with his radio, something that we don’t villanize as we do texting or drunk driving.  

What I’ve come to learn in my research is that there are far too many variables when it comes to driving behavior.  No one product or activity can ever make a driver completely dangerous or completely safe.  I’ve texted while driving in order to stay awake.  I rationalized that an alert but distracted driver is safer than a driver whose eyes aren’t even open.  Drivers who have had a couple drinks are often safer drivers than those who have had no alcohol at all – slightly inebriated drivers are aware of the risk of getting caught and therefore behave better.  

Thus, I’m not going to crusade against any one behavior – texting, drinking, applying makeup, aggressive driving – because none of these are inherently more or less dangerous than any others.  Instead, I’m crusading against the one aspect that puts us in danger at all, and that’s putting human beings behind the wheel.  We are far too comfortable with driving, far too distracted by life, and far too bad at it (statistically, you are worse than you think).  We need smart vehicles to take over, so that we can spend our time doing being distracted.  

Take the human element out of driving, and you remove the human error that puts us in danger every time we get near a roadway.  Until then, the only thing I can think to do is be the best driver I can be, and I hope that Joyce approves from above. 

Back to the Future: A Sneak Peek at 2045

There is a big difference between following current trajectories into the future to imagine a dismal fate, and believing that the small efforts today can turn those trends around.  Maybe its the hopeful optimist in me, or maybe its my faith in humanity's ability to prevent foreseeable disasters, but I believe 30 years from today will be an awesome time to live.  There are three areas that I'm most anxious to fast-forward to: technology, health and the economy.

Self-driving cars will be practically mandated; it won't contravene hard law to drive oneself, but it will be rendered completely impractical and economically challenging because insurance rates will skyrocket for non-autonomous vehicles.  A new industry will arise around furnishing and "pimping" your self-driving car, free from the restrictions of forward-facing seats and the tethers of strict safety features.  Cars will morph into lounges of productivity, comfort and service, while zooming along safer roads than ever seen in the history of the car. 

Programming will be taught in schools instead of cursive.  Some will excel at it and become programmers, but most people will know basic computer languages. 

3D printing as a technology will mature into a mass production tool for specific applications, such as wearable technologies, on-the-go sound equipment and hot-off-the-printer food delivery services.  Most middle-class people will have some sort of 3D scanner at home, with many also having a 3D printer for specific housekeeping requirements. 

Speaking of housekeeping, robots will be employed in most homes to do the mundane work - washing and putting away dishes and clothes, taking out the garbage and recycling, vacuuming and cleaning surfaces. 

Wearables will be as pervasive as cellphones are today, and will become more invasive as we get accustomed to the Internet of Things.  These technologies will drive the turnaround of the obesity epidemic, bringing diabetes, asthma, IBS, heart disease, allergies and even cancer to their knees.  Your device will inform you that you are low on a specific nutrient and will select recommendations from your list of favorite foods as well as new dishes to try at local restaurants to satisfy your dietary requirements.  Restaurants will have no choice but to offer tasty, healthful options to win and retain customers.  Your device will also walk you through your grocery store identifying products that you may enjoy based on your tastes and dietary needs, avoiding those that you have a habit of over-indulging on.  Health and weight loss will no longer be a pressing matter, as it will be so effortless to stay healthy that obesity will seem like a frivolous concept, and all the diseases that are correlated with poor dieting will seem foreign. 

The economy will accelerate like never before, primarily because we will have long since done away with partisan politics and replaced the political system with an issues-based and performance-driven model. Flourishing in this economy is as simple as getting paid fairly for what you excel at, enjoy doing or what you are learning.  The increased transparency of skills, qualifications and talent compared to relative salaries in every field will make it nearly impossible to be under- or over-paid.  There will be more part-time and flex-time jobs and the development of hybrid jobs - where you spend part of your time in one function, and the rest of your time on another function - to best make use of the skills and value each person brings to an organization.  With job satisfaction and productivity up, and economic uncertainty diminished, the finance will be a no-brainer.  The work week will be shorter, providing us more time to exercise and participate in activities that keep us healthy. 

These are the things that I see as inevitable, if not a slightly optimistic or accelerated view of 30 years from today.  The future is ours to invent, and if we don't invent it, someone else will.  Deciding what aspect of the future to be a part of making is an ongoing challenge for me, but its the right way to think for any company or individual wanting to be around and see these things come to fruition in 30 years. 

The Three Things Everyone Should Learn: Act III

You have undoubtedly heard or seen the outcries that music and art programs are being cut from school budgets and why this is bad for the kids. But there's a good chance that you don't comprehend what YOU are missing out on, if you don't dance. It's not all artsy-fartsy, it is just as practical, maybe even more so, than the other two "must-learns" in this series. Don't believe me? Read on. 

Dance has been a part of almost every culture since the beginning of civilisation, and for that reason among others, represents more diversity than the diversity of the world's languages and religion combined. Two people dancing the same genre can have their own incredibly unique stylizations, and new forms of dance spring up, especially in densely populated regions, all the time. At the core, it is aerobic, so it's good for the heart and a great way to lose weight. But it's so much more than other aerobic activities, because it is expressive, mentally challenging (in a fun way, of course) and uses varying muscle groups at different times and in different styles. You learn about yourself and become more aware of your surroundings as you learn to dance.  Have you ever been in line at a grocery store or similar setting, and had been bumped into multiple times by someone whose back is to you? I would say that this lack of spacial reasoning can be alleviated with dance and experience on the stage or in a crowded dance floor. It's a personal pet peeve of mine, and a compelling reason to me to keep (better yet, increase) the arts in schools. 

Science Tells Us to Dance

Look, there are a lot of artistic aspects of dancing, but that doesn't mean

science is absent from it. Children at very young ages intuitively move, clap and wiggle when they hear music they presumably enjoy. So it's built into our DNA. Nobody, or at least almost nobody, is literally born with two left feet. If you can walk (and even for many who can't walk), the capability is there; whether it comes easily or with great difficulty may depend on how much musical background you have, but you can always start developing it now. As we get older, we need dance even more; compared to other physical activity like walking or biking, dancing activates more parts of the brain, keeping us mentally healthier, and reducing the chances of dymentia and alzheimer's. 

Society Tells Us to Dance

At many traditional types of weddings, one of the first acts of a newly married couple is the first dance. We start much earlier than, with school dances being a major part of the traditional high school experience. There are several popular

TV shows dedicated to dance competitions, such as Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, and Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition. Amazing Race challenges often also involve local dance styles. Dancers perform at top award shows, during half time for basketball and football games, and in music videos. Football players themselves express touch down victory through their unique end zone dances. There are many popular quotes about dancing like nobody is watching and the like. My favorite of these is, "It's not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." I don't think it's meant to be taken literally, but if you do learn to dance in the rain literally, then you can learn to handle the things life throws at you. 

To me, one of the most compelling reasons to learn to dance, besides the health benefits, is that dance is so social. Whether it's a girls' night out at a hot night club or a ballroom dance workshop, relationships can be forged in the comraderie of dancing experiences. I think dance teaches you to be comfortable in your skin, and gives you confidence, and when you have that then you can go out dancing by yourself and make friends. I met my boyfriend at a dance workshop that I attended by myself not too long after a rough breakup. If I had needed someone to go to the workshop with me, I either wouldn't have gone at all, or I wouldn't have put myself out there nearly as much. But because I went alone, he and I started talking, and we were dating within a week or so. Guys I've met otherwise, in school, at bars, through online dating, haven't worked out for me in the long run. 

Employers Tell Us to Dance

Creativity is one of the most valuable assets to employers. Communication skills is another. Ability to learn and adapt is also valuable. Dance may not be on most job requirements, but it can enhance and develop these crucial

characteristics. Many styles of dance entail both choreography and improvisation, and each of those develops different abilities. When improvising, you have to literally think on your feet, recalling your vocabulary of moves and stringing them together in a fresh way. When learning choreography, you have to take in information quickly, commit it to memory, repeat it back and adapt as variations and styling are added. Sometimes you have to break habits, we call muscle memory, in order to perform the given choreography, which again is a challenging mental exercise. Creating and teaching choreography also require adapting, strong communication skills and creativity. 

In addition to the valuable skills you learn through dance, having dance on your resume can set you apart. Your potential employer may have had dance experience, or have a son or daughter or niece or uncle who dances, and it can create an instant point of connection and interest other than your work in your day job. When I say I dance, people almost always want to know more, like what style and where do I dance, how did I get into it, etc. It's a great way to show that you're more than a (fill-in-the-blank) worker, with an artistic and very human flair. 

Get Started

I won't try to hide my bias; I think a great way to start is by taking some east coast swing dance lessons. It's fun, doesn't require crazy hip movements or stiff arm positions, and it can be danced to different tempos of music. Maybe best of all, you get to pair off with members of the opposite sex, because it is a very social dance. 

Lindy hop and Charleston are very closely related to east coast swing, and blues, balboa are somewhat related. So if you get involved with one, you'll probably get exposure to the others, and eventually want to learn them as well so you can go in and out of them seamlessly. 

I believe it is important to study multiple kinds of dance, even just a little of each. I've found that I can incorporate bits and pieces from one style into another, and having a broad vocabulary of dance styles allows me to also pick up new styles easier. Other styles I've enjoyed taking classes in include hip hop, tribal belly dance and pole dance. The only downside is that those are less social, more about performing alone or with a group. 

Lots of people enjoy salsa and the various related styles as much as I enjoy

swing. Both swing and salsa have whole communities with various venues in many regions, meaning you can pick up those styles and go dancing several nights a week if you want. Interestingly, there are many moves that are shared between salsa and swing, and simply stylized differently. So if you've gotten good at one, it's not as hard to learn the other. 

There's so much more I haven't even touched on here, but to wrap up, I'll summarize by reiterating that dance is good for your physical health, mental health, social life and work life. And yes, it can be a spiritual activity to, so it is good for your soul. I dare you to find another activity or topic that applies to so many aspects of our lives. Mind, body, heart and soul, what else is there? Just dance.