Adam's Cool Website

What I'm Into This Week, May 25, 2023

Paddleboarding! Space trains! The weltgeist!

A fact about writing: When you do it as your job, it's very hard to convince yourself to do it for fun. I've been away from this blog for a few months, during which time Backpacker's published some work, including some of mine, that I'm very proud of. But that's demanded a lot of extra off-hours work, and no matter how good or fulfilling your reasons for doing it, looking at a computer screen becomes a kind of slow-drip torture after about ten consecutive hours. The urge to log off and do something, anything, else starts beating on the inside of your eyelids like a pulse.

I've been wrestling with the question of how to spend my free time more meaningfully lately. I feel caught between using it to better myself — "what am I doing browsing Netflix when I could be learning Python, or French, or orbital mechanics?!" — and using it to heal from the stresses of everyday life by whatever means necessary. Right now, I'm looking for a balance between those two competing tendencies. And isn't balance — even balance between hedonism and industry — a virtue in and of itself?

An afternoon paddle on a local lake

Paddleboarding

Last summer, The Boy and I got into a weekly paddling habit, rowing a floppy, $30 inflatable boat around reservoirs from Larimer County to eastern Colorado. This year, thanks to an extremely thoughtful holiday gift from my wife, we've upgraded to a Body Glove Solo inflatable SUP. We took it out for the first time over the weekend at a local lake, and so far, it's everything I could want out of a board: easy to maneuver, comfortable, and, most importantly, stable enough handle a rambunctuous toddler without dumping us in the drink. I'm always on the lookout for outdoor activities I can do with my kid on days when I don't feel like bribing or cajoling him down a hiking trail and so far, paddling has been a really rewarding one. I'm daydreaming about our summer on Colorado's rivers and lakes as we speak. (Inspired? Outside's Summer Gear Guide, up today, features reviews of the year's best new boards.)

Honkai Star Rail

I've tried, and bounced off of, a half-dozen gacha games to the point where I've mostly given up on them. Honkai Star Rail, the new game from the devs behind Genshin Impact, is the first one that's really grabbed my attention. For a free-to-play, it's unbelievably high quality, with a deep story and excellent design, and its turn-based, Persona-esque combat style works much better on mobile for sausage-fingered amateurs like me than Genshin does.

Plus, I just really fucking love space trains, a thing Honkai Star Rail features prominently. Does your game, TV show, or book feature a train flying through space? I'm already on board, man. I'm not even gonna ask how it works. Space rails made of pure, crackling energy? Alien wave motion particles? Magic? Shh. Shhhhh. I don't care. A childhood spent watching Galaxy Express 999 has drilled it into my subconscious that getting on a space train is an express ticket to adventures, if occasionally weird and existentially troubling ones. I'm baring my heart to you here, reader. I'm 34 and I'm too old to change. This is just who I am now.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

I decided that 2023 was going to be the year I "get" Hegel. It seems like every school of political theory or modern philsopher I delve into eventually leads me back to old Georg Wilhelm, so this year, I set myself the goal of actually trying to wrap my head around his thought.

I quickly gathered, however, that the reason no one has ever written a Hegel for Dummies is because A. his views defy easy explanation, and B. no one was worse at explaining Hegel's philosophy than, well, Hegel. Still, I've managed to chip away at it with some help from a couple of sources. The Philosophize This! podcast gave a pretty good ground-level breakdown of Hegel's views on phenomology and the world-spirit, and I've found Rick Roderick's widely-circulated lectures on Hegel helpful too. (Unfortunate side note: Start searching for philosophy videos on YouTube and you'll very quickly understand how teenagers get radicalized by the algorithm. Every third recommendation on my account is now from Jordan Peterson, a man whose worldview has the depth and clarity of an algae-choked kiddie pool.)

Appreciation Post: Public Transportation

They may not have the mystique of space trains, but let's put it on record that, RTD's migraine-inducing service cuts aside, I also still appreciate normal trains. For the past few years, my little suburb has enjoyed a direct connection to Denver thanks to a new light rail line, with stops a few minutes from my house. This past weekend, I loaded up The Boy into his stroller, jogged to the nearest station, and took a ride into Union Station to spend a lazy afternoon hanging out by the river and eating our way across every ice cream shop and restaurant downtown. I love how the mere act of getting on a train still blows his little mind. I also love not having to park. Everyone wins.