i love how incredibly sweet water tastes after a lot of effort (I went biking)

biology/physiology is beautiful when experienced rather than read about in a textbook

xx

swwwamo.com

on being retarded enough to live

A while ago I found this weird YouTube series called Retardmaxxing by Elisha Long.

It is a messy mix of anti-modern-life stuff, masculinity talk, christian talk, and a lot of deliberate provocation. Sometimes he says something sharp. Sometimes he is just being an asshole (a lot of the time it is both in the same five minutes).

I kept watching because (1) it’s a dude talking to the camera in his garden without any edits, effects or animations, which feels real and refreshing, and (2) every now and then he would say a thing I could really relate to:

A lot of people (myself included) are not stuck because they lack insight. They are stuck because they are scared to look stupid. You usually already know, somewhere in your body, what feels dead and what feels alive. A wrong job, a wrong relationship, a hobby you avoid because you don’t know anything about it yet, a project you avoid because it’s still abstract, or a place where you keep hiding.

What gets in your way is often shame. Fear of looking stupid. Fear of being cringe… or simply not being able to justify what you want to yourself or anyone else.

( The phone makes this worse. I wrote in my first article that the smartphone trains passivity. It also trains self-consciousness. It is a camera in your hand, and now everybody else has one too. You are not only watching yourself from the outside. You also know someone else can do it for you. They can film you, post you, laugh at you, turn one weird moment into content, and leave it online forever. Of course, the result is that people get tighter. It gets harder to do something a lil wild, a lil sincere, a lil “retarded”, when your nervous system knows the whole world might become the audience. )

Some parts of Elisha’s channel are ugly in a very specific way. Elisha says stupid, mean things about women (while he loves his mom). He takes cheap shots at trans people. And he wrapped the whole project in the word ‘retarded’. Still, the part worth keeping is simple: check what you actually feel on the inside, then be foolish (retarded) enough to act on it. Notice what feels right. Notice what drains you. Notice where you are shrinking. Then move before you talk yourself back into the smaller, safer, more explainable version of your life.

on lil weird experiments

One thing I really like in the series (and one I can identify with, but often forget and avoid) is its respect for tinkering. Not everything in life needs to begin with a fully rationalised master plan. Most of the time, you don’t need a lot of planning. You need twenty euros, one afternoon, and enough openness and courage to try the thing.

Go throw a ball. Grab your bike and explore your neighbourhood. Take the long way home. Take a course. Cook something stupid and ambitious. Plant herbs. Start lifting. Invite people over. Buy the dumb little tool (i love dumb little tools). Rearrange the room. Go sit alone in a restaurant even if you feel awkward and out of place. A lot of useful life starts like that. Small, weird (lil) experiments. Experiments that might, but don’t have to, turn into something bigger.

This matters because distance makes everything look cringe. And the more you think about something, the more reasons you find to not do it. Real life is usually less dramatic than whatever is in our heads. We go to the place. We try the thing. Maybe it was a lil awkward. Maybe it is not for us. Fine. Maybe it is. Also fine. The point is that action gives us real information. It’s something I have to do more often.

on commitment

Curiosity is good, but at some point, curiosity has to turn into commitment.

Commitment changes the texture of life. It makes things denser and also more real. Before commitment, everything stays light and theoretical. You can always tell yourself that real life is coming later: once you have the perfect plan, the spare money, the perfect timing, the perfect certainty, the perfect person to do it with you.

Instead, you should choose some things to simply commit to:

You keep showing up at the same gym. You write the same project for long enough that it stops being a fantasy and becomes work or a hobby. You date one person seriously. You care for a room, a body, a meal, a friendship, a patch of earth. Suddenly, life starts answering back. Your habits start to mean something. Luck has somewhere to land.

Commitment also does not mean becoming a lil optimisation robot. It does not mean perfect discipline, perfect routines, perfect consistency. Being human is messier than that (I love humans for their messiness). Eat the pastry. Smoke the cigar. Have the drink. Skip a day. Stay up late. Fuck up a little. The point is balance. The point is that you are actually in your life, not managing it like some nervous lil accountant (I love all accountants, much respecc).

This is where I think a lot of self-improvement content goes wrong. It gives you endless ways to think about your life without actually living it. And it feels like that self-improvement content and trend in general is going exponential right now. I feel like people are obsessed with stats. I feel like only a very tense population can be so obsessed with stats. a smart watch (one of the most cringe accessories you can wear, sorry, do what you want and like!), an app to track your workout, your thoughts, your plans; you track your likes, your followers, your calories, your steps, your friends, your thoughts (meanwhile the tech industry is tracking you :b).

You can turn your whole life into a dashboard !! and still never actually live it.

on becoming more human again

The positive version of this philosophy, the part I actually want, is a return to what is human. In no way should this read as I live like this right now. Quite the opposite, this article is a reminder to myself: I want to build a life that has some texture again.

Hands-on things. Yes, doing things with my hands. Meals with actual effort in them. A space I care about. A body that feels used. Friends I see in person. Places where people know me because I showed up again and again, not because I optimised my (online) profile well.

This is where the ‘third space’ really lands for me. Barbershop, board game evenings, running club, tavern, shisha lounge, church basement, neighbourhood cafe, whatever you like. The exact place matters less than the fact that it is real, recurring, and shared. You leave the house. You show your face. You become a person that other people can actually place in the world.

Elisha says that it does something to you, and I believe him. I feel it every time it happens! Sadly, not often enough!

It also changes what charisma means. I liked the series part about strength and warmth. That feels right, and it also aligns with my vision, my values, and how I view and appreciate people. Strength, to me, is not dominance, not physical strength. It is the strength to look inwards, to admit when you are wrong, to ask questions without the fear of appearing stupid. People who have the courage to expose themselves to the world by doing art, or whatever project. That kind of courage gives people steadiness, realness, and accountability. Something I really like about people. Warmth is openness, generosity, humour, and empathy.

The people I trust and am impressed by most usually have some mix of both.

on where elisha’s philosophy breaks

A person trying to become more fully themselves should not be the enemy of this philosophy. They are the perfect test case for it. That includes trans people. It includes women doing ‘manly’ things and men doing ‘womanly’ things. It includes anyone trying to leave behind a life that feels false, flattening, or spiritually dead. The whole point, supposedly, is to stop outsourcing your inner life to the crowd. So why immediately turn around and punish people for doing that in a way you do not like?

what I am keeping

Pay attention to what feels alive and what feels dead. Notice where you are shrinking. Notice what you keep talking yourself out of. Do small real things before you have the master plan. Commit before you can defend the commitment in perfect language (especially to yourself!). Build a life with some garden in it. Find real places. Become warmer. Become stronger. Get off the screen. Show your face. Let yourself look a lil stupid sometimes.

You already know more than you admit.

The hard part is acting before you overthink your vision to death.

xx

one thing i like about myself is that i do not need a person to be spotless before i can learn from them. i can notice the conflict, keep my values, and still pay attention to the part that is real. that is what let me go deep here

It was late, I was on my phone again, and I did the usual little tour of modern dignity collapse: X, Instagram, a few Reels, back to X, one more refresh because maybe the timeline got smarter in the last 90 seconds. Very nice, another hedgehog vid, exactly what I needed now.

Then I opened Snapchat and, seeing my sleepy face suddenly on the screen, got reminded of something small that actually matters.

The camera opens first?

The camera opens first.

You open it, and it asks you to make something.

That tiny choice says a lot.

On the usual suspects

We always say the same things now: social media is bad, netflix is bad, doomscrolling is bad, attention spans are cooked, everyone is addicted, etc. True. I agree. I feel it too. I write this because I am captured by it as well. I was honest in my first paragraph!

But I think we keep blaming the downstream thing.

We blame the app, the feed, the content, the algorithm, the recommendation loop. All fair. But the more I think about it, the more I feel the deeper problem is the hardware itself. The main object. The rectangle. The thing always in your hand, always in your pocket, always one small hit away from making sure you never have to fully arrive in your own life.

Social media is downstream of hardware.

Culture is downstream of hardware.

A lot of our current sadness is downstream of hardware, too.

On why I think current hardware makes people sad

I do not mean “sad” in a dramatic Tumblr way (i love emo girls). I mean the more ambient version. Numb, lonely, slightly fried. Weirdly full of stimulation, but low on actual life. Kinda drained? Like you consumed 400 tiny things today, and somehow none of them touched the part of you that is actually there.

I know that feeling because I get it too.

You wake up and grab the phone before you even know what mood you are in. You do not check in with yourself first. You check in with the machine. Maybe there is a message, maybe a post, maybe some movement somewhere. Maybe something happened. Maybe (s)he liked your post. Maybe something will save this boring little moment from just being a boring little moment!!!

And then it keeps going.

You do not need to go outside because everything is inside.

You do not need to sit with your own thoughts because there is always another thing to click. click. click. It is all there. Smoothly. Instantly. Cheaply. Creepy?

Perfect for our dopamine-overdosed brain.

This is why I think current hardware makes people sad. not just because it contains bad software. Because its whole form trains passivity. It turns you into someone waiting to be filled.

On the main object

The smartphone is a crazy object when you actually stop and look at it.

It is a work machine, lust machine, loneliness machine, status machine, shopping machine, entertainment machine, friend machine, memory machine, all in one. Very convenient. Also, maybe spiritually disgusting? A lil bit?

Because once one object does everything, you start living inside its logic.

Boundarylessness sounds great at first. Wow, I can do everything here. Amazing. I can order food, flirt, work, trade, doomscroll, watch a movie, stalk old classmates, send voice notes, read fake profound things, and ignore the weird feeling in my chest all from the same glowing thing. Incredible product. Incredible tech.

Also: you never leave.

And if you never really leave, you also never really return to yourself.

That is why I like the hardware distinction so much. It is sharper than the usual “TikTok bad” thing. TikTok is bad, sure. But if the dominant hardware of an era is already built around reachability, interruption, self-reference, and frictionless consumption, then of course the software culture growing on top will look like this. Of course, it will be social media. Of course, it will be addictive. Of course, it will be lonely. The object has already voted.

That is the part I think people feel, even if they do not say it like this.

It is not just that we use bad apps. We live with bad hardware.

On spiritual darkness, yes really

I keep coming back to that phrase because nothing else feels strong enough.

Mental health is part of it, yes. Addiction is part of it, yes. But something deeper is going on. Current hardware creates a kind of spiritual darkness. Not because the phone is a demon, but because it shapes attention, desire, and meaning before you even get to “decide” anything.

It makes it easier to consume than to create.

Easier to spectate than to participate.

Easier to react than to feel.

Easier to stay inside than to step into the world.

And after enough years of that, people lose something. Some sense that they are here for more than just managing inputs. Some sense that life is not just a seamless stream of content, work, coping, little treats, and occasional screenshots of someone else’s better vacation.

This is where the sadness becomes more than sadness.

It becomes purposeless.

On new hardware

This is why I care about new hardware now. Something in me keeps saying a shift is coming. I need to believe that, I want to be optimistic, because I want things to change (for the better). I also know it feels crazy to say that today (referring to AI and its impact).

Not because I want more gadgets. Fuck, maybe I do, I l00000ve little gadgets. I love hardware. new hardware…. ….Anyway, we already have too many little objects promising to fix our lives. I do not need another founder video in a lab with cinematic lighting and a soft voice explaining how his pebble will reinvent human connection (remember humane?).

But I do think new hardware could create new defaults.

That is the opportunity.

A different object could ask something else from us. It could ask us to create first. Or go somewhere. Or use both hands. Or look outward. Or show up with other people around some small ritual, some shared practice, some scene. Something specific. Something niche, even. I actually think niche is good here. General purpose gave us convenience and flattened souls. Specificity might give us culture again. I’ve been walking around with a YubiKey on my keychain for years now. People keep asking why I still carry a memory stick. First of all, it’s not a memory stick. Second: perfect. Hardware is allowed to be weird. Weird objects make people curious. They start a convo.

That is the hopium. Not that a device saves us.

That a device could stop making us (feel) worse.

A good new object would not just catch attention. It would catch people without making them more hollow. It would give them something to do, something to return to, maybe even something to look forward to. And yes, that matters. A lot of people have lost that feeling. They are not only addicted. They are adrift. The current future feels like more feed.

I want hardware that interrupts that mood.

That, to me, is the real opportunity. Everyone keeps saying social media is bad. yaaa, fine. true. But the sharper point is that our hardware is bad, and culture has been living downstream of that bad decision for years.

xx