Dunbar / Austin Part II
There’s a scene in one of my favorite books (Catch 22) where Dunbar is obsessed with doing boring things so he can extend his perception of time.
Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly. He had figured out that a single hour on the skeet-shooting range with people like Havermeyer and Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years.
Oh Dunbar you silly bitch. You’re doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing.
As all of us who survived the great pandemic of 2020 can attest:
The more time you spend doing something you find boring/un-pleasurable the more quickly that time will seem to have passed
Who among us can say 2020 felt like a lengthy year? Almost no one. Why? Because every damn day was spent doing pretty much the same thing.
I bet there’s a science to this. Something like temporal landmarks.
If you’re in the forest where everything looks the same you have no idea how far you’ve travelled. If you’re on a busy road with a buncha landmarks it’s a lot easier to tell how far you’ve travelled.
Same thing with time.
Here’s a reddit post that sums it all up:
In other words:
If you want to live a seemingly lengthy life fill it to the brim with interesting and different things
Throughout the past few years (especially 2020) time has felt like it’s flown by. I catch myself off guard when I calculate how many years I’ve been out of college (4), out of high school (8). It will probably only get worse from here unless I do something different.
Gotta roll the dice. Switch things up. Can’t just do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
Here’s the current fantasy:
Find a completely remote job and rotate locations every 3 months or so
Find a four day work week job (they exist!) and do some acting or focus more on music on the day off
Both would require some sacrifices (i.e. walking away from that sweet sweet tech money) but isn’t that a gamble I can take at this age?
I want to avoid being too comfortable and too complacent.
The remaining time in Austin was a blast. Here’s a random assortment of what I remember doing at Austin
Went to Terry Black’s for barbecue. Got their gigantic beef rib along with brisket, mac n cheese and creamed corn. Was pretty delicious but I either overate or got food poisoning because I spent the next day throwing up for hours.
Would not do again :/ and will probably stay away from barbecue for a while
Went to Veracruz tacos a few times. Really enjoyed working out of the patio in Radio Coffee and grabbing Veracruz tacos in the mornings. Great shrimp and breakfast tacos.
Veracruz, I love you. You served perhaps the best tacos I’ve had in my short time on this planet. How do you do it?
Tacos again and queso at Torchy’s tacos. I’m a sucker for queso. Torchy’s was pretty well rated so we went there. Slightly on the salty side for me but overall enjoyable. Torchy’s gives off an elevated Jack in the box vibe where they have kinda trashy late night food but they do it well. E.g. one of my tacos was a chicken finger taco—exactly the type of dish you’d expect Jack in the Box to attempt
Would go again for sure. Probably great as a drunk food
Met up with ToAnnie’s friends a couple times. Super nice welcoming people (shoutout Ryan, Kevin and Izzy). We played a couple of board games. The most memorable one was Boss Monster (would play again).
Final thoughts on Austin: fun city for sure. Love the open space. Love the patios all around where you can lounge for a while sippin on coffee or beer. Probably a little too hot for me in the summer but I can see why everyone’s moving over there. Also not a fan of the lack of sidewalks.
I hope it does not go the way of SF.
No Wydbot this week. Kinda gave it up while I was away from home. May get back into it once I’m back in my routine.