Spent most of the day moving @anomalily's livestreaming gear to her new office, and we decided to build it in to her desk! Everything is neatly tucked away, the cables are hidden under the desk and gear inside this drawer.
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"text": "Spent most of the day moving @anomalily's livestreaming gear to her new office, and we decided to build it in to her desk! Everything is neatly tucked away, the cables are hidden under the desk and gear inside this drawer.",
"html": "Spent most of the day moving <a href=\"https://anomalily.net/\">@anomalily</a>'s livestreaming gear to her new office, and we decided to build it in to her desk! Everything is neatly tucked away, the cables are hidden under the desk and gear inside this drawer."
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The state of the fluffy (late December 2025 edition)
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"type": "entry",
"published": "2025-12-22T18:00:15-08:00",
"url": "https://beesbuzz.biz/blog/5701-The-state-of-the-fluffy-late-December-2025-edition",
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A Year in Four Seasons: 2025 Was One Hell of a Ride
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"type": "entry",
"author": {
"name": "Jared White",
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"photo": null
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"url": "https://jaredwhite.com/articles/year-in-review-2025",
"published": "2025-12-21T08:07:08-08:00",
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"html": "<img alt=\"\" src=\"https://res.cloudinary.com/mariposta/image/upload/w_1200,c_limit,q_65/magical-fall-waterfall.jpg\" /><h2>I went into this year wondering if I was about to make a terrible, terrible mistake. Did I? Well you\u2019ll just have to keep reading.</h2>\n\n<p>Never a dull moment. Count your blessings. I survived. It\u2019s about the journey, not the destination. Follow your heart. <em>That was a hell of a thing.</em></p>\n\n<p>Many platitudes & clich\u00e9s flood my mind as I consider what I\u2019ve done, what I\u2019ve been through, what I\u2019ve accomplished, and what I\u2019ve failed at in <strong>2025</strong>. I won\u2019t tell you this was the worst year since the pandemic, because that would be <strong>2023</strong> for personal family reasons I will fully reveal one day (but that day is not today). Yet I\u2019d be lying if I said <strong>2025</strong> was a walk in the park\u2026although, ironically, <strong>I did a lot of walking in a lot of parks! \ud83d\ude02</strong></p>\n\n<p>This year was fairly unique for me in that I truly went through all four seasons in an emotional and energetic sense. My winter looked nothing like my spring which looked nothing like my summer which looked a bit like my fall but also sort of not. And I must admit, <strong>I rather liked that temporal topology.</strong> I liked it so much I\u2019m trying to consider how to take steps to ensure 2026 follows similar contours. If the life I\u2019m living in August 2026 doesn\u2019t look all that different than my life in February 2026, I will have failed. <strong>And failure is not an option.</strong> *<em>dramatic closeup</em>*</p>\n\n<p>All right, so let\u2019s put some skin on these bones and detail what my year looked like\u2026at least to the extent such an objective can be manifested in one blog post.</p>\n\n<h3>Winter 2024\u20132025: I Can\u2019t Take It Anymore</h3>\n\n<p>I started out the year mad as hell and not gonna take it any more. Such malaise certainly had its roots in prior months, and that was in part due to the shocking U.S. presidential election results, yes, but also the carryover of certain family issues from 2023 into 2024. While those issues got more-or-less \u201cresolved\u201d in late 2024, the lingering mental anguish certainly wasn\u2019t going to dissipate in a day. I\u2019d also spent a significant period of time in the last few months of 2024 fairly sick\u2026one bout of respiratory illness after another which certainly wasn\u2019t life-threatening but was definitely life-thwarting.</p>\n\n<p>One realization I\u2019d first had all the way back on July 3, 2024 was that <strong>I wasn\u2019t happy where I lived</strong>. Oh I was happy to be in <em>Portland</em>, but not my specific abode. I tried some various changes: most notably, where my home office was located. It was an improvement, but ultimately it was a band-aid.</p>\n\n<p>My growing malaise, coupled with increasing financial difficulties, all culminated in an epic drive out the Oregon coastal town of Lincoln City right after New Year\u2019s in January. Something in me broke, or perhaps something in me was restored. In any event, it was the mental shift I needed to embark on a course of action <em>which would completely change my life and define what this year would mean to me.</em></p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://jaredwhite.com/articles/revelation-in-the-car.jpg\" alt=\"in my car looking at sunset over the Pacific Ocean, having a subliminal revelation about my life\" /></p>\n<p>I knew what I needed to do. Mere days after the mind-melting occurrence of one Donald J. Trump becoming President of these United States\u2026<em>again</em>\u2026I submitted my 30 days\u2019 notice to the landlord, and on February 28, 2025, I left; left the world of stationary housed people behind; left a predictable, \u201cnormal\u201d life in search of a different kind of stability, an inner spiritual groundedness. <strong>In short, I became a nomad.</strong></p>\n\n<p>I haven\u2019t quite finished writing my full travelogue, but <a href=\"https://jaredwhite.com/tag/nomadlifestyle/\">you can read all of the various installments and other ancillary bits about my adventures here</a>. (Accompanied by many photos & videos!)</p>\n\n<h3>Spring: The World I\u2019m Passing Through</h3>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://jaredwhite.com/20250522/passing-through\">As the Bruce Hornsby song goes</a>, I willingly and eagerly became \u201ca vagabond and a drifter\u201d and indeed it was \u201cnot so hard to be.\u201d</p>\n\n<p>I won\u2019t cover my travels too much here because that\u2019s what the travelogue link above is for. Instead, now that I\u2019m on the other side of those adventures (spoiler alert!), I can form a few concluding thoughts about my experience.</p>\n\n<p>One: <strong>I miss being a nomad desperately.</strong> I had a variety of fears going into the nomadic lifestyle for the first time, but one of them was this: <em>that I would love it too much</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Yeah. \ud83d\ude04</p>\n\n<p>I\u2019m very grateful my eventual reentry into stationary housing was an excellent one (more on that below), and I don\u2019t at all want to sound dismissive of that. But I will say: I would rather live on the road out of my car than live in a house I don\u2019t like or in a location I can\u2019t stand. My \u201callegiance\u201d to house living is on pretty thin ice these days.</p>\n\n<p>And in many ways, that\u2019s a really good thing. As mentioned, my financial picture this year did not start out in the healthiest of places, and to be brutally honest, it\u2019s now in the fucking shitter. But I often muse on how good it was I got to experience life without \u201ca place to call home\u201d because if at some point I\u2019m \u201cforced\u201d back into the nomadic lifestyle rather than choosing it willingly, I already know what that\u2019s like. And\u2026<em>it\u2019s actually pretty fucking fantastic.</em></p>\n\n<p>(I understand many people classified as \u201chomeless\u201d who are desperately poor and have no resources at all experience a way of life which is often not good at all. I was extremely fortunate to be able to continue working on the road through the magic of computing and Internet access. I recognize that being a \u201cdigital nomad\u201d vs. being a nomad due to crushing poverty cannot be compared in good faith. My lived experience though is that where I once had the fear of \u201cI could lose everything\u201d\u2014aka lots of material stuff in a house\u2014I no longer have that fear. <strong>I learned it\u2019s possible to be happy with relatively little\u2026</strong>a lesson learned by many wise sages and great spiritual leaders throughout history.)</p>\n\n<p>Two, and this is very much related: the ways in which American politics is so often <strong>unnecessarily cruel to poor people and vagabonds</strong> is <em>despicable</em>. (I suppose one could argue this is hardly unique throughout the history of civilization\u2026or maybe <a href=\"https://nebula.tv/videos/jdraper-we-didnt-start-the-class-war-the-tudor-homelessness-crisis\">it\u2019s just a Tudor thing</a>.) If I suddenly inherited massive wealth, I would put all of it into local library systems, community centers, public restrooms, volunteer wellness facilities, and other non-commercial \u201cthird places\u201d. I am <strong>dumbfounded</strong> by how rank consumerism and unfettered capitalism has made it nearly impossible to live a dignified life outside of a heartless & relentless transactional system. Our culture is so spiritually ill, so poisoned with an addiction to the pursuit of money, <em>we actually look down on the poor</em>. Like there\u2019s something \u201cwrong\u201d with them, rather than something tragically wrong with us.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Listen to me when I say:</strong> I have more respect for the beggar on the front steps of the library than I do the rich capitalist who backs inhumane policies which will lead to the closure of said library.</p>\n\n<p>All of the strength I now have to join protest movements, write endlessly about the dangers of LLM proliferation, and fight back against online watering holes being overrun by fascists, has come from the inner strength I received from my travels. <strong>I believe everyone should travel at certain times in their lives.</strong> There is nothing which will open your eyes more. And I don\u2019t mean \u201cvacation travel\u201d with a fancy jet and a fancy hotel and a fancy party you got invited to over the span of a few days. I mean more of an aimless, \u201cnothing but what you can carry\u201d sort of travel spanning a meaningful breadth of time. <strong>That, my friends, is an education worth more than all the gold in Trump\u2019s ugly penthouse.</strong></p>\n\n<h3>Summer: Rescued by a Friend</h3>\n\n<p>As much as I might paint the picture that, as a nomad, I was carefree and without any responsibilities, nothing could be further from the truth. I also am a father, and so on the regular I would have to return to the same general area of Oregon and spend time at a hotel with my kids. And I knew this was eventually unsustainable\u2026as much as <em>I</em> might enjoy my ability to travel around and have adventures, my kids need the kind of stability which comes from knowing each of their divorced parents has got their shit together. As my teen emphatically put it: \u201cDad, you can do all that stuff <em>after</em> you retire!\u201d <em>(And so I shall, without a doubt!)</em></p>\n\n<p>Thus as the spring progressed and I began to make plans for the summer, I started to take the idea of \u201csettling down\u201d seriously once more. I\u2019d already downsized quite a bit so I could fit my remaining stuff into a modest storage unit, but as everyone knows even small apartments for rent in most urban centers on the coasts of the U.S. can cost a pretty penny.</p>\n\n<p>A little ahead of schedule, I was thrown a lifeline: a dear, dear friend of mine had recently gotten engaged, and as a consequence of them and their fiance moving in together into the main floor of a gorgeous old Portland home, a cozy AirBnB-vibes basement apartment (of said home) was suddenly available to rent. Might I be interested?</p>\n\n<p><em>Interested?</em> <strong>Interested?!</strong> <em>WHERE DO I SIGN ???</em> \ud83e\udd2f</p>\n\n<p>OK sure, it was a slightly more introspective decision than that\u2026but not by much. And so, on May 22, 2025, I received the keys to my sweet little castle. Again, I would have preferred this to have happened truly in the summer (as after only three months of glorious nomadism I was hardly ready to hang up my hat), but sometimes you don\u2019t choose timing. <em>Timing chooses you.</em> And I knew this was absolutely the right next move for me.</p>\n\n<p>All in all, this was a Good Summer. In spite of \\*<em>gestures wildly</em>\\* everything happening the world of technology & politics this year, I was deeply thankful to have landed in a place which felt so <em>me</em>\u2014not just a house but a <strong>home</strong>. (And very much adjacent to a local community of creative Portlanders whose presence in my life I definitely will never take for granted.)</p>\n\n<p>It was fun to rethink how I wanted to set up a house, <a href=\"https://humansare.social/c/downthelane/p/2127/art-decos-revenge-the-rise-and-fall-of-millennials-and-their-gray\">what kind of decor and design to aim for and why</a>. And it was exciting to experience a completely different <em>style</em> of living in Portland: previously I\u2019d only lived near the city center in a very urban environment. Which was exactly what I needed at the time I was there! But now I was in more of a true residential neighborhood, albeit still close to public transit as well as many cute-as-all-get-out \u201cstreetcar corridors\u201d <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6uy6Sw3P3o\">which define the highly-desirable urban fabric of Portland\u2019s east side</a>.</p>\n\n<p>If you love early 20th century bungalows and all things Arts & Crafts (as I do!), this whole region will make your heart explode. \ud83d\ude0d</p>\n\n<h3>Fall: Descent to Turbulent Undercurrents</h3>\n\n<p>Despite my multiple attempts to course-correct my career as a software engineer throughout the summer of 2025 and find more stable financial footing, it had become clear that the hellish toxic stew of Trumpian politics & Big Tech\u2019s death march into the Cult of AI was destined to thwart any meaningful progress. And so with the winding down of the year and the literal specter of increasing darkness in the outside world, I found myself once again fending off that double-headed monster of depression & fatigue.</p>\n\n<p>I truly wish I could end my <strong>Year in Review</strong> on a positive note. And yes, it\u2019s accurate to say a number of things are going pretty well. I had a lot of renewed success in open source the second half of the year, culminating in back-to-back releases of <a href=\"https://www.bridgetownrb.com/\">Ruby web framework Bridgetown 2.0 and 2.1</a>. I feel like <a href=\"https://pixelfed.social/@essentiallife\">my photography this year</a> took a significant leap forward in quality, and I look forward to pushing further into travel photography in 2026 (and of course, you have to travel in order to do travel photography <em>heh heh</em> \ud83d\ude0f). I wrote a whole hell of a lot this year, <a href=\"https://plus.intuitivefuture.com/\">juggling multiple publications & newsletters</a> better than I ever have in the past.</p>\n\n<p>While all of that creative output is personally rewarding, I can\u2019t claim I benefited financially from it much at all. Which, again, isn\u2019t the primary reason I publish\u2026never has been. But as someone who would <em>like</em> to diversify and make a steady partial income from content creation, it\u2019s frustrating.</p>\n\n<p>Closing out the year as winter begins once more and a New Year daws, I wonder what the future holds for me. It\u2019s not a feeling of dread, per se. Dread implies I can envision what evils might befall me. And that\u2019s the thing: <em>I really can\u2019t.</em> My mind\u2019s a blank. I\u2019ve never felt so uncertain about my career, even while wishing wholeheartedly that I could continue it (I\u2019m very content being a professional freelance programmer, even though I don\u2019t want that to be my only hustle). I\u2019ve never had such a conflicting feeling about what might happen in technology & politics in 2026.</p>\n\n<p>This isn\u2019t a \u201cpredictions\u201d post. I\u2019ll save that for the next one. But I <em>am</em> predicting an overarching theme, and unfortunately it\u2019s not a pleasant one: <strong>collapse.</strong> Or perhaps more accurately: <strong>apocalypse.</strong></p>\n\n<p>May you be reminded that an apocalypse doesn\u2019t have to be fully doom and gloom. <em>Good things can come out of apocalypses.</em> The end of one age can precipitate the beginning of another. So the implosion of the MAGA movement, the bottom falling out of AI, and the record scratch moment for sales of hulking EVs\u2026these events will be very discomforting for some but ultimately beneficial to all. OK, I\u2019d better save the rest for my predictions list\u2026</p>\n\n<h3>Winter 2025\u20132026: There and Back Again</h3>\n\n<p>And now it\u2019s wintertime, one year after my consternation about where and how I was going to live. I need no longer worry about where and how I\u2019m going to live. (Where and how I\u2019m going to make an honest day\u2019s living\u2026still up for debate!)</p>\n\n<p>I went into this year wondering if I was about to make a terrible, terrible mistake: throwing everything I still own into a single room-size storage unit, loading some must-haves into my crossover, and venturing forth into points unknown. <strong>Turns out, that was among the very best decisions I have ever made in my entire life.</strong> Then I wondered what would become of me if I did want to settle down again. <strong>And that decision was made by the universe on my behalf, via circumstances I never could have engineered on my own.</strong></p>\n\n<p>So in that regard, though this year brought with it many obstacles, 2025 also gave me a greatly renewed sense of\u2014for lack of a better word\u2014<em>faith</em>. I have a lot of faith in synchronicity, in friends, in amazing people I meet near and far, and perhaps most importantly in my self. And what more could you ask for as you celebrate the holidays with the family you love and the communities you care about. \ud83d\udd4e\ud83c\udf84</p>\n\n<p><em>See you on the flip side\u2026</em></p>\n\n\n\n <br /><p>\n \n <a href=\"https://jaredwhite.com/tag/lifehacks\">#lifehacks</a>\n \n </p>",
"text": "I went into this year wondering if I was about to make a terrible, terrible mistake. Did I? Well you\u2019ll just have to keep reading.\n\nNever a dull moment. Count your blessings. I survived. It\u2019s about the journey, not the destination. Follow your heart. That was a hell of a thing.\n\nMany platitudes & clich\u00e9s flood my mind as I consider what I\u2019ve done, what I\u2019ve been through, what I\u2019ve accomplished, and what I\u2019ve failed at in 2025. I won\u2019t tell you this was the worst year since the pandemic, because that would be 2023 for personal family reasons I will fully reveal one day (but that day is not today). Yet I\u2019d be lying if I said 2025 was a walk in the park\u2026although, ironically, I did a lot of walking in a lot of parks! \ud83d\ude02\n\nThis year was fairly unique for me in that I truly went through all four seasons in an emotional and energetic sense. My winter looked nothing like my spring which looked nothing like my summer which looked a bit like my fall but also sort of not. And I must admit, I rather liked that temporal topology. I liked it so much I\u2019m trying to consider how to take steps to ensure 2026 follows similar contours. If the life I\u2019m living in August 2026 doesn\u2019t look all that different than my life in February 2026, I will have failed. And failure is not an option. *dramatic closeup*\n\nAll right, so let\u2019s put some skin on these bones and detail what my year looked like\u2026at least to the extent such an objective can be manifested in one blog post.\n\nWinter 2024\u20132025: I Can\u2019t Take It Anymore\n\nI started out the year mad as hell and not gonna take it any more. Such malaise certainly had its roots in prior months, and that was in part due to the shocking U.S. presidential election results, yes, but also the carryover of certain family issues from 2023 into 2024. While those issues got more-or-less \u201cresolved\u201d in late 2024, the lingering mental anguish certainly wasn\u2019t going to dissipate in a day. I\u2019d also spent a significant period of time in the last few months of 2024 fairly sick\u2026one bout of respiratory illness after another which certainly wasn\u2019t life-threatening but was definitely life-thwarting.\n\nOne realization I\u2019d first had all the way back on July 3, 2024 was that I wasn\u2019t happy where I lived. Oh I was happy to be in Portland, but not my specific abode. I tried some various changes: most notably, where my home office was located. It was an improvement, but ultimately it was a band-aid.\n\nMy growing malaise, coupled with increasing financial difficulties, all culminated in an epic drive out the Oregon coastal town of Lincoln City right after New Year\u2019s in January. Something in me broke, or perhaps something in me was restored. In any event, it was the mental shift I needed to embark on a course of action which would completely change my life and define what this year would mean to me.\n\n\nI knew what I needed to do. Mere days after the mind-melting occurrence of one Donald J. Trump becoming President of these United States\u2026again\u2026I submitted my 30 days\u2019 notice to the landlord, and on February 28, 2025, I left; left the world of stationary housed people behind; left a predictable, \u201cnormal\u201d life in search of a different kind of stability, an inner spiritual groundedness. In short, I became a nomad.\n\nI haven\u2019t quite finished writing my full travelogue, but you can read all of the various installments and other ancillary bits about my adventures here. (Accompanied by many photos & videos!)\n\nSpring: The World I\u2019m Passing Through\n\nAs the Bruce Hornsby song goes, I willingly and eagerly became \u201ca vagabond and a drifter\u201d and indeed it was \u201cnot so hard to be.\u201d\n\nI won\u2019t cover my travels too much here because that\u2019s what the travelogue link above is for. Instead, now that I\u2019m on the other side of those adventures (spoiler alert!), I can form a few concluding thoughts about my experience.\n\nOne: I miss being a nomad desperately. I had a variety of fears going into the nomadic lifestyle for the first time, but one of them was this: that I would love it too much.\n\nYeah. \ud83d\ude04\n\nI\u2019m very grateful my eventual reentry into stationary housing was an excellent one (more on that below), and I don\u2019t at all want to sound dismissive of that. But I will say: I would rather live on the road out of my car than live in a house I don\u2019t like or in a location I can\u2019t stand. My \u201callegiance\u201d to house living is on pretty thin ice these days.\n\nAnd in many ways, that\u2019s a really good thing. As mentioned, my financial picture this year did not start out in the healthiest of places, and to be brutally honest, it\u2019s now in the fucking shitter. But I often muse on how good it was I got to experience life without \u201ca place to call home\u201d because if at some point I\u2019m \u201cforced\u201d back into the nomadic lifestyle rather than choosing it willingly, I already know what that\u2019s like. And\u2026it\u2019s actually pretty fucking fantastic.\n\n(I understand many people classified as \u201chomeless\u201d who are desperately poor and have no resources at all experience a way of life which is often not good at all. I was extremely fortunate to be able to continue working on the road through the magic of computing and Internet access. I recognize that being a \u201cdigital nomad\u201d vs. being a nomad due to crushing poverty cannot be compared in good faith. My lived experience though is that where I once had the fear of \u201cI could lose everything\u201d\u2014aka lots of material stuff in a house\u2014I no longer have that fear. I learned it\u2019s possible to be happy with relatively little\u2026a lesson learned by many wise sages and great spiritual leaders throughout history.)\n\nTwo, and this is very much related: the ways in which American politics is so often unnecessarily cruel to poor people and vagabonds is despicable. (I suppose one could argue this is hardly unique throughout the history of civilization\u2026or maybe it\u2019s just a Tudor thing.) If I suddenly inherited massive wealth, I would put all of it into local library systems, community centers, public restrooms, volunteer wellness facilities, and other non-commercial \u201cthird places\u201d. I am dumbfounded by how rank consumerism and unfettered capitalism has made it nearly impossible to live a dignified life outside of a heartless & relentless transactional system. Our culture is so spiritually ill, so poisoned with an addiction to the pursuit of money, we actually look down on the poor. Like there\u2019s something \u201cwrong\u201d with them, rather than something tragically wrong with us.\n\nListen to me when I say: I have more respect for the beggar on the front steps of the library than I do the rich capitalist who backs inhumane policies which will lead to the closure of said library.\n\nAll of the strength I now have to join protest movements, write endlessly about the dangers of LLM proliferation, and fight back against online watering holes being overrun by fascists, has come from the inner strength I received from my travels. I believe everyone should travel at certain times in their lives. There is nothing which will open your eyes more. And I don\u2019t mean \u201cvacation travel\u201d with a fancy jet and a fancy hotel and a fancy party you got invited to over the span of a few days. I mean more of an aimless, \u201cnothing but what you can carry\u201d sort of travel spanning a meaningful breadth of time. That, my friends, is an education worth more than all the gold in Trump\u2019s ugly penthouse.\n\nSummer: Rescued by a Friend\n\nAs much as I might paint the picture that, as a nomad, I was carefree and without any responsibilities, nothing could be further from the truth. I also am a father, and so on the regular I would have to return to the same general area of Oregon and spend time at a hotel with my kids. And I knew this was eventually unsustainable\u2026as much as I might enjoy my ability to travel around and have adventures, my kids need the kind of stability which comes from knowing each of their divorced parents has got their shit together. As my teen emphatically put it: \u201cDad, you can do all that stuff after you retire!\u201d (And so I shall, without a doubt!)\n\nThus as the spring progressed and I began to make plans for the summer, I started to take the idea of \u201csettling down\u201d seriously once more. I\u2019d already downsized quite a bit so I could fit my remaining stuff into a modest storage unit, but as everyone knows even small apartments for rent in most urban centers on the coasts of the U.S. can cost a pretty penny.\n\nA little ahead of schedule, I was thrown a lifeline: a dear, dear friend of mine had recently gotten engaged, and as a consequence of them and their fiance moving in together into the main floor of a gorgeous old Portland home, a cozy AirBnB-vibes basement apartment (of said home) was suddenly available to rent. Might I be interested?\n\nInterested? Interested?! WHERE DO I SIGN ??? \ud83e\udd2f\n\nOK sure, it was a slightly more introspective decision than that\u2026but not by much. And so, on May 22, 2025, I received the keys to my sweet little castle. Again, I would have preferred this to have happened truly in the summer (as after only three months of glorious nomadism I was hardly ready to hang up my hat), but sometimes you don\u2019t choose timing. Timing chooses you. And I knew this was absolutely the right next move for me.\n\nAll in all, this was a Good Summer. In spite of \\*gestures wildly\\* everything happening the world of technology & politics this year, I was deeply thankful to have landed in a place which felt so me\u2014not just a house but a home. (And very much adjacent to a local community of creative Portlanders whose presence in my life I definitely will never take for granted.)\n\nIt was fun to rethink how I wanted to set up a house, what kind of decor and design to aim for and why. And it was exciting to experience a completely different style of living in Portland: previously I\u2019d only lived near the city center in a very urban environment. Which was exactly what I needed at the time I was there! But now I was in more of a true residential neighborhood, albeit still close to public transit as well as many cute-as-all-get-out \u201cstreetcar corridors\u201d which define the highly-desirable urban fabric of Portland\u2019s east side.\n\nIf you love early 20th century bungalows and all things Arts & Crafts (as I do!), this whole region will make your heart explode. \ud83d\ude0d\n\nFall: Descent to Turbulent Undercurrents\n\nDespite my multiple attempts to course-correct my career as a software engineer throughout the summer of 2025 and find more stable financial footing, it had become clear that the hellish toxic stew of Trumpian politics & Big Tech\u2019s death march into the Cult of AI was destined to thwart any meaningful progress. And so with the winding down of the year and the literal specter of increasing darkness in the outside world, I found myself once again fending off that double-headed monster of depression & fatigue.\n\nI truly wish I could end my Year in Review on a positive note. And yes, it\u2019s accurate to say a number of things are going pretty well. I had a lot of renewed success in open source the second half of the year, culminating in back-to-back releases of Ruby web framework Bridgetown 2.0 and 2.1. I feel like my photography this year took a significant leap forward in quality, and I look forward to pushing further into travel photography in 2026 (and of course, you have to travel in order to do travel photography heh heh \ud83d\ude0f). I wrote a whole hell of a lot this year, juggling multiple publications & newsletters better than I ever have in the past.\n\nWhile all of that creative output is personally rewarding, I can\u2019t claim I benefited financially from it much at all. Which, again, isn\u2019t the primary reason I publish\u2026never has been. But as someone who would like to diversify and make a steady partial income from content creation, it\u2019s frustrating.\n\nClosing out the year as winter begins once more and a New Year daws, I wonder what the future holds for me. It\u2019s not a feeling of dread, per se. Dread implies I can envision what evils might befall me. And that\u2019s the thing: I really can\u2019t. My mind\u2019s a blank. I\u2019ve never felt so uncertain about my career, even while wishing wholeheartedly that I could continue it (I\u2019m very content being a professional freelance programmer, even though I don\u2019t want that to be my only hustle). I\u2019ve never had such a conflicting feeling about what might happen in technology & politics in 2026.\n\nThis isn\u2019t a \u201cpredictions\u201d post. I\u2019ll save that for the next one. But I am predicting an overarching theme, and unfortunately it\u2019s not a pleasant one: collapse. Or perhaps more accurately: apocalypse.\n\nMay you be reminded that an apocalypse doesn\u2019t have to be fully doom and gloom. Good things can come out of apocalypses. The end of one age can precipitate the beginning of another. So the implosion of the MAGA movement, the bottom falling out of AI, and the record scratch moment for sales of hulking EVs\u2026these events will be very discomforting for some but ultimately beneficial to all. OK, I\u2019d better save the rest for my predictions list\u2026\n\nWinter 2025\u20132026: There and Back Again\n\nAnd now it\u2019s wintertime, one year after my consternation about where and how I was going to live. I need no longer worry about where and how I\u2019m going to live. (Where and how I\u2019m going to make an honest day\u2019s living\u2026still up for debate!)\n\nI went into this year wondering if I was about to make a terrible, terrible mistake: throwing everything I still own into a single room-size storage unit, loading some must-haves into my crossover, and venturing forth into points unknown. Turns out, that was among the very best decisions I have ever made in my entire life. Then I wondered what would become of me if I did want to settle down again. And that decision was made by the universe on my behalf, via circumstances I never could have engineered on my own.\n\nSo in that regard, though this year brought with it many obstacles, 2025 also gave me a greatly renewed sense of\u2014for lack of a better word\u2014faith. I have a lot of faith in synchronicity, in friends, in amazing people I meet near and far, and perhaps most importantly in my self. And what more could you ask for as you celebrate the holidays with the family you love and the communities you care about. \ud83d\udd4e\ud83c\udf84\n\nSee you on the flip side\u2026\n\n\n\n \n\n \n #lifehacks"
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Finally got the power supply for the motorized shades installed! I mapped out most of the wires, at least enough to know which ones need to be powered. I didn't bother getting out the ladder to trace the 6 that are super high up tho.
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"text": "Finally got the power supply for the motorized shades installed! I mapped out most of the wires, at least enough to know which ones need to be powered. I didn't bother getting out the ladder to trace the 6 that are super high up tho."
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Spent the day frantically trying to wrap up a bunch of work projects before people turn in to pumpkins over the next two weeks. Here's a photo of the bunny that lives in the yard.
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"text": "Spent the day frantically trying to wrap up a bunch of work projects before people turn in to pumpkins over the next two weeks. Here's a photo of the bunny that lives in the yard."
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welp, we failed the mechanical inspection today because someone didn't hook up the microwave hood ducts. This is definitely not my job, but also I'm kind of surprised I didn't even notice this in the last couple months. Unrelatedly, the plumbing inspector went batshit and failed us for no reason, but that's a story for another time.
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"text": "welp, we failed the mechanical inspection today because someone didn't hook up the microwave hood ducts. This is definitely not my job, but also I'm kind of surprised I didn't even notice this in the last couple months. Unrelatedly, the plumbing inspector went batshit and failed us for no reason, but that's a story for another time."
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It feels crazy to drill a hole through the perfectly nice cabinets, but this will be great when it's done. Unfortunately the hole didn't line up because the drip tray drain was welded on at a weird angle. So now I need to get a hole saw and make this hole larger.
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"text": "It feels crazy to drill a hole through the perfectly nice cabinets, but this will be great when it's done. Unfortunately the hole didn't line up because the drip tray drain was welded on at a weird angle. So now I need to get a hole saw and make this hole larger."
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New bed! Turns out it's way easier to build a bed in the room instead of moving an already built bed.
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"text": "New bed! Turns out it's way easier to build a bed in the room instead of moving an already built bed."
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Trying to get to the bottom of the weird error the hot tub is showing. They wanted me to take a photo of the wiring, so here it is.
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"text": "Trying to get to the bottom of the weird error the hot tub is showing. They wanted me to take a photo of the wiring, so here it is."
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I didn't expect to have to trim this electrical plate cover to fit. Apparently I installed the closet track too close to the hole, tho that's the only place it could go because that's where the stud is.
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"text": "I didn't expect to have to trim this electrical plate cover to fit. Apparently I installed the closet track too close to the hole, tho that's the only place it could go because that's where the stud is."
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Sprinkler guy missed a few caps when he was here... bathroom, bedroom, entry. Not giving me a lot of confidence.
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"text": "Sprinkler guy missed a few caps when he was here... bathroom, bedroom, entry. Not giving me a lot of confidence."
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Wrapping up 2025
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"name": "Wrapping up 2025",
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"text": "Sorry for the radio silence the past little bit. Even though I recognized I was going into a fallow period, I was still trying to get something out at least once a month, and I totally missed November. It\u2019s not just the writing \u2013 I\u2019m behind on my RSS feeds and other regular media diet, too!\n\n\n\nWhat I\u2019Ve been up to",
"html": "<p>Sorry for the radio silence the past little bit. Even though I recognized I was going into a fallow period, I was still trying to get something out at least once a month, and I totally missed November. It\u2019s not just the writing \u2013 I\u2019m behind on my RSS feeds and other regular media diet, too!</p>\n\n\n\n<img width=\"1024\" height=\"355\" src=\"https://nadreck.me/backend/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-10-11-18.30.49-1024x355.jpeg\" alt=\"\" /><a href=\"https://nadreck.me/2025/12/wrapping-up-2025/#more-12160\">What I\u2019Ve been up to</a>"
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{
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"published": "2018-12-08T14:41:40-05:00",
"url": "https://david.shanske.com/all/",
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Ten Commandments
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"text": "Thou shalt not believe in that which has not been demonstrated empirically\nThou shalt not worship anyone, regardless of their social influence\nThou shalt strive to improve the situation for everyone, including yourself\nThou shalt allow yourself rest and hydration\nThou shalt leave yourself open to possibilities\nThou shalt not bring direct harm to others, and choose options which minimize indirect harm\nThou shalt respect the consent of others\nThou shalt not intentionally mislead\nThou shalt not treat the success of others as thine own failure\nThou shalt question everything, including these commandments",
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oh no, due to a series of misclicks, I just accidentally archived the most recent 100 emails in my inbox.
if nothing else, reviewing my "all mail" folder is doing a good job of making me question how important emails in my inbox actually are.
if nothing else, reviewing my "all mail" folder is doing a good job of making me question how important emails in my inbox actually are.
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"text": "oh no, due to a series of misclicks, I just accidentally archived the most recent 100 emails in my inbox. \n\nif nothing else, reviewing my \"all mail\" folder is doing a good job of making me question how important emails in my inbox actually are.",
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"type": "card",
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Dear Men, What is Preventing You from Looking Like…Aragorn?
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"html": "<img alt=\"\" src=\"https://res.cloudinary.com/mariposta/image/upload/w_1200,c_limit,q_65/king-aragorn.jpg\" /><h2>The first installment in my new series on the lifelong struggle with Performative Masculinity and the storied images of manhood in pop culture past and present.</h2>\n\n<p>Hey, so remember that brief window in time years ago when the term <em>metrosexual</em> was all the rage in news media as a way of describing straight men who express an interest in fashion and personal grooming the way some gay men do? As a humorous riff off of the word, I wrote in my diary in 2022 that I was <em>Aragornsexual</em>.</p>\n\n<p>And although it\u2019s a silly joke, I haven\u2019t been able to stop thinking about it since.</p>\n\n<p>(<em>Note:</em> credit for the painting above goes to Portland artist <a href=\"https://www.dakotarandall.com/\">Dakota Randall</a> \u2014 you will definitely want to <a href=\"https://posterspy.com/posters/king-aragorn/\">view the full image here!</a>)</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When I was young</strong>, it was rare for me to see anyone on the silver screen who looked how I felt about myself.</p>\n\n<p>I watched captains and kings, cowboys and explorers, men among gods and gods among men. I watched superheroes such as Batman (the original 1989 version of course) and hackers-turned-kung-fu-masters such as Neo. I watched new dads, cool dads, moron dads (I really don\u2019t understand why every 90s comedy features a father figure who is a complete idiot. Is this what led to the backlash which produced the manosphere? \ud83d\ude02). I watched teen boys in school, which was always an interesting window into an alien planet because I was homeschooled and never went to public school. I can tell you this much: in every clich\u00e9d scene where the nerd was getting beat up by the jocks, I was the nerd.</p>\n\n<p>As I was saying, it was a real challenge for me to find any role models I felt I could emulate convincingly. And then came <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>.</p>\n\n<h3>It Was the Hair (But, Like, More Than That)</h3>\n\n<p><strong>But really, it was the hair.</strong> \ud83d\ude06</p>\n\n<p>Most of my life I\u2019ve worn my hair long. I <em>hate</em> how I feel when my hair is short. The longest I ever went with a traditionally short \u201cguy\u201d haircut was throughout the early days of my marriage. I won\u2019t stand here and tell you that growing my hair back out was a prelude to our divorce; let\u2019s just say it was a bellweather of many deeper issues.</p>\n\n<p>But I\u2019m getting ahead of myself. Like the rest of America in 2001, I watched <em>Fellowship of the Rings</em> and I was spellbound. Truth be told, I wasn\u2019t the world\u2019s biggest fantasy buff\u2014that would be my dad. He had a massive collection of Tolkein, yes, but also many of the later authors following in Tolkein\u2019s footsteps. And he himself was an aspiring fantasy author. I wish I could point you to some of his published works, but, alas, he never published anything. (We\u2019ll set aside that source of father-son conflict for another time\u2026)</p>\n\n<p>Regardless, in my teens and twenties I\u2019d gotten hooked on YA fantasy like <em>The Earthsea Cycle</em> and <em>The Chronicles of Prydain</em>. Oddly enough, Tolkien wasn\u2019t never a go-to author for me. I think I enjoyed the genre he spawned without ever falling too deep down that particular rabbit hole. I certainly understand and respect the level of reverence other people have for LOTR. To them, it is basically The Bible.</p>\n\n<p>At any rate, seeing the way Peter Jackson and his incredible cast & crew brought the world of Middle Earth to life on screen, now that was truly something. Being a huge fan of the art style of Alan Lee, I was pleased to find his design sensibilities were a major source of inspiration for the look of the films.</p>\n\n<p>But enough jibber-jabber about Middle Earth. I want to talk to you about <strong>Aragorn.</strong> <em>Here</em> was a man I could get behind.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/22596790/lotr-aragorn-hot-sexy-viggo-mortensen\">As stated so well on Polygon</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\u201cI think it relates to how he tends to embody a kind of perfect (to me) masculinity,\u201d wrote Polygon contributor Chris Eddleman. \u201cHe is both rugged and gentle, humble and capable, affectionate but fierce in the face of adversity.\u201d</p>\n\n <p>\u201cHe has all the \u2018traditional\u2019 masculine attributes like strength, protectiveness, bravery but he\u2019s not a bully,\u201d said Kiki Intarasuwan across multiple tweets and DMs. \u201cHe\u2019s also kind, compassionate, not afraid to show his emotions and he respects women\u2019s choices. When I think of Aragorn, I think of the scene where he consoles Boromir as he dies and then <a href=\"https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/22547637/boromir-death-scene-lord-of-the-rings-masculinity\">kissing him on the forehead</a>. That and the battle of Helm\u2019s Deep were really turning points for him because he initially wasn\u2019t ambitious and didn\u2019t want to be king. But his compassion and vulnerability make him a good leader and he naturally stepped up in that role.\u201d</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Listen, I love me a good 80s or 90s action movie, but while I might enjoy Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones or even Arnold Schwarzenegger as, er, Ahnold in whatever he\u2019s up to, I never emotionally resonated on a <em>personal</em> level with any of those dudes. I simply was unable to point to a gruff, stoic, sweat-slicked muscle man and say <em>yep, I could be him! I\u2019ll save the day, win the girl, and slyly wink at the camera as we ride off into the sunset</em>. Fun? Yes. Inspirational? Not exactly.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Then along comes Aragorn, a wildly different character</strong>. I\u2019d never seen anyone like him. Right from the start, he gets played almost in what you might say is a <em>feminine</em> way. There\u2019s the way he moves through his environment in a \u201cflowy\u201d manner. He\u2019s soft-spoken, almost a whisper at times. Even though he\u2019s a hell of a fighter, he\u2019s tender-hearted. You can tell he\u2019s reluctant to hurt anyone, even though he\u2019s prepared to die in service of protecting the vulnerable in his care.</p>\n\n<p>And then there\u2019s the <em>look</em> of Aragorn. The long hair. The tender eyes. The patchy facial hair. OK, let\u2019s go there. This <em>is</em> an essay about Performative Masculinity after all. \ud83d\ude05</p>\n\n<p><strong>I\u2019ve always had a difficult relationship with my facial hair.</strong></p>\n\n<p>I\u2019ve perpetually struggled with growing a thick, full beard. There are parts of my face where hardly any hair grows at all. At the same time, I <em>hate</em> the way I look without any facial hair at all. I naturally have a very round \u201cbaby face\u201d and am hardly what you might call square-jawed. Without the extra length I get from a beard\u2014even if it\u2019s a goatee\u2014I don\u2019t feel very \u201cmanly\u201d.</p>\n\n<p>So I\u2019ve goofed around with a variety of subtle adjustments to where and how I grow my facial hair over the years, hoping to avoid tipping anyone off that I just can\u2019t grow a very thick mustache or beard even if I wanted to.</p>\n\n<p>And it certainly didn\u2019t help that virtually <em>all</em> the traditional masculine heartthrobs of classic Hollywood were clean shaven. Did I look like Cary Grant? Or Gary Cooper? Or Jimmy Stewart? <em>Obviously not!</em> In fact, guess who often <em>did</em> show up with a goatee or even longer hair? The Bad Guy.</p>\n\n<p>This is a trend that often shows up even in many modern(ish) movies. Think about it\u2026when a dude suddenly shows up with <a href=\"https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Good_Hair,_Evil_Hair\">shoulder-length hair</a> and <a href=\"https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Beard_of_Evil\">a goatee</a>, is he the Good Guy, or the Bad Guy? <strong>I think you already know the answer.</strong></p>\n\n<p>(Not to beat this particular horse to death, but compare the Bad-Guy-Turned-Good look of Tony Stark aka <em>Iron Man</em> to Goody-Two-Shoes Steve Rogers aka <em>Captain America</em>. Who sports the <a href=\"https://beardstyle.net/tony-stark-beard/#:~:text=strong%20stubble%20look.-,%2310%20Anchor%20Beard\">oddly-trimmed goatee</a> and the scragglier hair? Bingo.)</p>\n\n<p>Then there\u2019s Aragorn. <strong>He\u2019s a bit of a mess.</strong> He looks like he tries to keep his facial hair well-trimmed but, y\u2019know, he\u2019s living the hard life as Strider on the road, so it\u2019s sort of coming in patchy. He\u2019s also more of a mature man by the time we meet him, so you\u2019re starting to see some gray flecks appear. Gray! (As someone who is in their early 40s and has obviously graying hair, I continue to relate!)</p>\n\n<p>And because it\u2019s fantasy, Aragorn can get away with wearing an outfit which naturally features lots of flowy elements; subtle artistic touches like broaches and necklaces and such. No button-down shirts, stiff trousers, or bowties in sight.</p>\n\n<p><em>Be still my beating heart!</em> \ud83d\ude0d</p>\n\n<h3>Reluctance to Wield Power</h3>\n\n<p>Topping it all off, Aragon exhibits a quality we rarely see in action heroes. He\u2019s rightly scared of his own foibles and inadequacies as he sees them. He\u2019s afraid of who he might become if he were to embrace his perceived destiny as King of Gondor. He\u2019s all too aware of the history of Men (and his own bloodline) and how easily they might become corrupted by the allure of power as offered by Sauron.</p>\n\n<p>Hear what I\u2019m <em>not</em> saying: I\u2019m not saying that Aragorn is \u201cinsecure\u201d in his abilities. He\u2019s actually very confident that he knows how to fight, and he\u2019s secure in his physical strength and prowess. In this respect, his character arc is quite different than many of the coming-of-age superhero stories we so often come across. Aragorn\u2019s story isn\u2019t the story of some snot-nosed kid who suddenly gets powers and then is either afraid of them or excited to have them but regardless gets to the point where they\u2019re ready to give up\u2014the bad guys are just too powerful, and the good guy isn\u2019t good enough or powerful enough to beat them\u2014and they need some sign to convince them they can win the day. No, Aragon\u2019s story isn\u2019t anything like that. He\u2019s already a battle-hardened warrior by the time we first meet him!</p>\n\n<p>Aragorn\u2019s story isn\u2019t \u201cwith great power comes great responsibility.\u201d Rather, it\u2019s \u201cwith great power comes great evil.\u201d Aragorn isn\u2019t afraid of <em>losing</em>. He\u2019s afraid of who he\u2019ll become when he\u2019s <em>winning</em>.</p>\n\n<p><strong>And that\u2019s what makes him such a fascinating character.</strong> It\u2019s also what makes his character arc stand apart from a couple of other heroic and/or tragic figures in LOTR: Boromir and Faramir.</p>\n\n<p>Faramir\u2019s trauma is that he\u2019ll never live up to the expectations placed on him and his brother by their father. Faramir is a much more reluctant warrior than Aragorn even, because you get the impression if it were up to him, he wouldn\u2019t be a warrior at all. Boromir, on the other hand, is a bit of an obvious picture of <strong>performative masculinity</strong>, even \u201ctoxic masculinity\u201d. Deep down, Boromir <em>is</em> insecure and is <em>desperate</em> to please his father by being the strong man, the big man, the powerful <em>winning</em> man. He\u2019s going to swoop in and save the day by any means necessary\u2014pesky scruples be damned. And yet\u2026he\u2019s really not a bad dude at heart. It\u2019s just that his heart is not in the right place. That\u2019s what makes him such a tragic figure: <strong>you know he could rise to the occasion, and yet\u2026he doesn\u2019t.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Faramir, meanwhile, is forced by terrible circumstance to become the leader his brother never could. While it\u2019s true he\u2019ll never be seen as a <strong>great warrior</strong> and an epic commander of men like Aragorn, nevertheless he\u2019ll do his part. He\u2019s a good man, trying to find an honorable path through evil days.</p>\n\n<p>I\u2019m sure entire books could be written about the similarities and differences between Aragon, Boromir, and Faramir: all three warriors, but all three starting and ending their tales in radically different places.</p>\n\n<p>There are so many moments throughout the LOTR films that I just love about Aragorn, but my favorite moment and a pivotal scene in the plot is when Elrond, Lord of Rivendell, comes to present <em>And\u00faril</em> to Aragorn. If you\u2019ll permit me, I\u2019ll include a portion of the screenplay because it gives me chills, every single time:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>ELROND: The man who can wield the power of this sword can summon to him an army more deadly than any that walks this earth. <strong>Put aside the Ranger. Become who you were born to be. Take the Dimholt Road.</strong> <em>\u00d3nen i-Estel Edain</em> (I gave Hope to the D\u00fanedain)</p>\n\n <p>ARAGORN: <em>\u00da-chebin estel anim.</em> (I have kept no hope for myself.)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Chills.</strong></p>\n\n<p>In this moment, Elrond commissions Aragorn in his true purpose. He implores Aragorn to go on this dangerous mission with uncertain ends because it is the only hope left for victory. Aragorn can\u2019t merely stay on the sidelines of history any longer (fighting yes, but fighting as a Ranger). Aragorn has to step into his own shoes. He has to start fighting <em>as a King</em>, leading an army no one else can lead\u2014not only to win the world war against Sauron, but to save the life of the Elven maiden whom he loves.</p>\n\n<p><strong>I\u2019m not crying, you\u2019re crying!</strong> \ud83d\ude2d</p>\n\n<h3>Gender Neutrality and Aged Wisdom</h3>\n\n<p>Viggo Mortensen\u2019s career-defining, strangely gender-neutral portrayal of a compassionate, wise, and reluctant King of Men almost didn\u2019t happen. Originally the production hired Irish actor Stuart Townsend to play the role of Aragorn. As compared to Mortensen, Townsend is certainly younger and more dashing. It\u2019s easy to imagine him playing a devil-may-care, on-the-nose action hero with boyish charm and a woo-the-ladies attitude.</p>\n\n<p>Accounts differ as to why Townsend was let go at the last minute, but it seems Peter Jackson and co. realized they needed an <em>older</em> actor to play Aragorn. And, well, <a href=\"https://www.cbr.com/lotr-why-aragorn-actor-fired-recast-explained/\">the shake-up was quite rocky and uncertain</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Production on <em>The Fellowship of the Ring</em> was forced to start without its Aragorn as Peter Jackson scrambled to find a replacement for Townsend. Eventually, he paid a call to Viggo Mortensen, a then-little-known actor who had auditioned for the role during the casting process, and officially offered him the role. However, there was a catch: <strong>if Mortensen wanted the role, he needed to get on a plane and fly to New Zealand the next day.</strong> With such little time to think about the decision, Viggo Mortensen nearly turned Peter Jackson down. The actor was reportedly concerned about the little time to learn all the necessary skills and lines, as well as replacing Townsend, feeling awkward about taking the role from someone else.</p>\n\n <p>While Mortensen had reservations about accepting the role, his son was far more certain. <strong>Henry Mortensen was a massive fan of the</strong> <strong><em>Lord of the Rings</em></strong> <strong>novels</strong> and enthusiastically informed his father of just how monumental the role of Aragorn truly was. With the endorsement of his son, Mortensen accepted Jackson\u2019s offer and flew to New Zealand the next day.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><em>Aww, isn\u2019t that adorable?</em> A principal reason we have the iconic and genre-expansive portrayal of Aragorn today is thanks to Viggo Mortensen listening to his son. True masculinity in action.</p>\n\n<p>There\u2019s just so much about the way Viggo Mortensen embodied this role. When you consider the sorts of tropes we regularly come across in popular media, there\u2019s the picture of the <strong>hippie artistic type</strong>, flowers in their hair and <em>peace and love, man</em> in their heart. Or maybe you get the <strong>nerdy book type</strong>, solving problems using more brain than brawn and always rolling their eyes at the jocks surrounding them. And then there\u2019s the <strong>he-man type</strong>, a big lug who blunders his way into doing the right thing after much bluff & brouhaha.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Mortensen seems to draw from an entirely different well.</strong> Perhaps he was inspired by the knights of old and their stories of chivalry. Perhaps he was inspired by religious figures. Perhaps he relied on his creative instincts which came from a childhood spent in many places & pursuits outside of the United States and its cultural rat race. However this came together, Viggo Mortensen gave us an Aragorn and a performance which is almost unparalleled before or since in the Western zeitgeist.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remember the <em>Dear Men, What Is Preventing You From Looking Like This?</em> meme from a few years back? Forget all about those shirtless hairless male torsos with washboard abs. Here\u2019s <em>my</em> contribution to that conversation:</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://jaredwhite.com/articles/dreamy-aragorn.png\" alt=\"Viggo Mortensen looking particularly haunting as a scruffy yet dazzling Aragorn\" /></p>\n<p><em>Dreamy.</em></p>\n\n\n\n <br /><p>\n \n <a href=\"https://jaredwhite.com/tag/gender\">#gender</a>\n \n </p>",
"text": "The first installment in my new series on the lifelong struggle with Performative Masculinity and the storied images of manhood in pop culture past and present.\n\nHey, so remember that brief window in time years ago when the term metrosexual was all the rage in news media as a way of describing straight men who express an interest in fashion and personal grooming the way some gay men do? As a humorous riff off of the word, I wrote in my diary in 2022 that I was Aragornsexual.\n\nAnd although it\u2019s a silly joke, I haven\u2019t been able to stop thinking about it since.\n\n(Note: credit for the painting above goes to Portland artist Dakota Randall \u2014 you will definitely want to view the full image here!)\n\n\n\nWhen I was young, it was rare for me to see anyone on the silver screen who looked how I felt about myself.\n\nI watched captains and kings, cowboys and explorers, men among gods and gods among men. I watched superheroes such as Batman (the original 1989 version of course) and hackers-turned-kung-fu-masters such as Neo. I watched new dads, cool dads, moron dads (I really don\u2019t understand why every 90s comedy features a father figure who is a complete idiot. Is this what led to the backlash which produced the manosphere? \ud83d\ude02). I watched teen boys in school, which was always an interesting window into an alien planet because I was homeschooled and never went to public school. I can tell you this much: in every clich\u00e9d scene where the nerd was getting beat up by the jocks, I was the nerd.\n\nAs I was saying, it was a real challenge for me to find any role models I felt I could emulate convincingly. And then came The Lord of the Rings.\n\nIt Was the Hair (But, Like, More Than That)\n\nBut really, it was the hair. \ud83d\ude06\n\nMost of my life I\u2019ve worn my hair long. I hate how I feel when my hair is short. The longest I ever went with a traditionally short \u201cguy\u201d haircut was throughout the early days of my marriage. I won\u2019t stand here and tell you that growing my hair back out was a prelude to our divorce; let\u2019s just say it was a bellweather of many deeper issues.\n\nBut I\u2019m getting ahead of myself. Like the rest of America in 2001, I watched Fellowship of the Rings and I was spellbound. Truth be told, I wasn\u2019t the world\u2019s biggest fantasy buff\u2014that would be my dad. He had a massive collection of Tolkein, yes, but also many of the later authors following in Tolkein\u2019s footsteps. And he himself was an aspiring fantasy author. I wish I could point you to some of his published works, but, alas, he never published anything. (We\u2019ll set aside that source of father-son conflict for another time\u2026)\n\nRegardless, in my teens and twenties I\u2019d gotten hooked on YA fantasy like The Earthsea Cycle and The Chronicles of Prydain. Oddly enough, Tolkien wasn\u2019t never a go-to author for me. I think I enjoyed the genre he spawned without ever falling too deep down that particular rabbit hole. I certainly understand and respect the level of reverence other people have for LOTR. To them, it is basically The Bible.\n\nAt any rate, seeing the way Peter Jackson and his incredible cast & crew brought the world of Middle Earth to life on screen, now that was truly something. Being a huge fan of the art style of Alan Lee, I was pleased to find his design sensibilities were a major source of inspiration for the look of the films.\n\nBut enough jibber-jabber about Middle Earth. I want to talk to you about Aragorn. Here was a man I could get behind.\n\nAs stated so well on Polygon:\n\n\n \u201cI think it relates to how he tends to embody a kind of perfect (to me) masculinity,\u201d wrote Polygon contributor Chris Eddleman. \u201cHe is both rugged and gentle, humble and capable, affectionate but fierce in the face of adversity.\u201d\n\n \u201cHe has all the \u2018traditional\u2019 masculine attributes like strength, protectiveness, bravery but he\u2019s not a bully,\u201d said Kiki Intarasuwan across multiple tweets and DMs. \u201cHe\u2019s also kind, compassionate, not afraid to show his emotions and he respects women\u2019s choices. When I think of Aragorn, I think of the scene where he consoles Boromir as he dies and then kissing him on the forehead. That and the battle of Helm\u2019s Deep were really turning points for him because he initially wasn\u2019t ambitious and didn\u2019t want to be king. But his compassion and vulnerability make him a good leader and he naturally stepped up in that role.\u201d\n\n\nListen, I love me a good 80s or 90s action movie, but while I might enjoy Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones or even Arnold Schwarzenegger as, er, Ahnold in whatever he\u2019s up to, I never emotionally resonated on a personal level with any of those dudes. I simply was unable to point to a gruff, stoic, sweat-slicked muscle man and say yep, I could be him! I\u2019ll save the day, win the girl, and slyly wink at the camera as we ride off into the sunset. Fun? Yes. Inspirational? Not exactly.\n\nThen along comes Aragorn, a wildly different character. I\u2019d never seen anyone like him. Right from the start, he gets played almost in what you might say is a feminine way. There\u2019s the way he moves through his environment in a \u201cflowy\u201d manner. He\u2019s soft-spoken, almost a whisper at times. Even though he\u2019s a hell of a fighter, he\u2019s tender-hearted. You can tell he\u2019s reluctant to hurt anyone, even though he\u2019s prepared to die in service of protecting the vulnerable in his care.\n\nAnd then there\u2019s the look of Aragorn. The long hair. The tender eyes. The patchy facial hair. OK, let\u2019s go there. This is an essay about Performative Masculinity after all. \ud83d\ude05\n\nI\u2019ve always had a difficult relationship with my facial hair.\n\nI\u2019ve perpetually struggled with growing a thick, full beard. There are parts of my face where hardly any hair grows at all. At the same time, I hate the way I look without any facial hair at all. I naturally have a very round \u201cbaby face\u201d and am hardly what you might call square-jawed. Without the extra length I get from a beard\u2014even if it\u2019s a goatee\u2014I don\u2019t feel very \u201cmanly\u201d.\n\nSo I\u2019ve goofed around with a variety of subtle adjustments to where and how I grow my facial hair over the years, hoping to avoid tipping anyone off that I just can\u2019t grow a very thick mustache or beard even if I wanted to.\n\nAnd it certainly didn\u2019t help that virtually all the traditional masculine heartthrobs of classic Hollywood were clean shaven. Did I look like Cary Grant? Or Gary Cooper? Or Jimmy Stewart? Obviously not! In fact, guess who often did show up with a goatee or even longer hair? The Bad Guy.\n\nThis is a trend that often shows up even in many modern(ish) movies. Think about it\u2026when a dude suddenly shows up with shoulder-length hair and a goatee, is he the Good Guy, or the Bad Guy? I think you already know the answer.\n\n(Not to beat this particular horse to death, but compare the Bad-Guy-Turned-Good look of Tony Stark aka Iron Man to Goody-Two-Shoes Steve Rogers aka Captain America. Who sports the oddly-trimmed goatee and the scragglier hair? Bingo.)\n\nThen there\u2019s Aragorn. He\u2019s a bit of a mess. He looks like he tries to keep his facial hair well-trimmed but, y\u2019know, he\u2019s living the hard life as Strider on the road, so it\u2019s sort of coming in patchy. He\u2019s also more of a mature man by the time we meet him, so you\u2019re starting to see some gray flecks appear. Gray! (As someone who is in their early 40s and has obviously graying hair, I continue to relate!)\n\nAnd because it\u2019s fantasy, Aragorn can get away with wearing an outfit which naturally features lots of flowy elements; subtle artistic touches like broaches and necklaces and such. No button-down shirts, stiff trousers, or bowties in sight.\n\nBe still my beating heart! \ud83d\ude0d\n\nReluctance to Wield Power\n\nTopping it all off, Aragon exhibits a quality we rarely see in action heroes. He\u2019s rightly scared of his own foibles and inadequacies as he sees them. He\u2019s afraid of who he might become if he were to embrace his perceived destiny as King of Gondor. He\u2019s all too aware of the history of Men (and his own bloodline) and how easily they might become corrupted by the allure of power as offered by Sauron.\n\nHear what I\u2019m not saying: I\u2019m not saying that Aragorn is \u201cinsecure\u201d in his abilities. He\u2019s actually very confident that he knows how to fight, and he\u2019s secure in his physical strength and prowess. In this respect, his character arc is quite different than many of the coming-of-age superhero stories we so often come across. Aragorn\u2019s story isn\u2019t the story of some snot-nosed kid who suddenly gets powers and then is either afraid of them or excited to have them but regardless gets to the point where they\u2019re ready to give up\u2014the bad guys are just too powerful, and the good guy isn\u2019t good enough or powerful enough to beat them\u2014and they need some sign to convince them they can win the day. No, Aragon\u2019s story isn\u2019t anything like that. He\u2019s already a battle-hardened warrior by the time we first meet him!\n\nAragorn\u2019s story isn\u2019t \u201cwith great power comes great responsibility.\u201d Rather, it\u2019s \u201cwith great power comes great evil.\u201d Aragorn isn\u2019t afraid of losing. He\u2019s afraid of who he\u2019ll become when he\u2019s winning.\n\nAnd that\u2019s what makes him such a fascinating character. It\u2019s also what makes his character arc stand apart from a couple of other heroic and/or tragic figures in LOTR: Boromir and Faramir.\n\nFaramir\u2019s trauma is that he\u2019ll never live up to the expectations placed on him and his brother by their father. Faramir is a much more reluctant warrior than Aragorn even, because you get the impression if it were up to him, he wouldn\u2019t be a warrior at all. Boromir, on the other hand, is a bit of an obvious picture of performative masculinity, even \u201ctoxic masculinity\u201d. Deep down, Boromir is insecure and is desperate to please his father by being the strong man, the big man, the powerful winning man. He\u2019s going to swoop in and save the day by any means necessary\u2014pesky scruples be damned. And yet\u2026he\u2019s really not a bad dude at heart. It\u2019s just that his heart is not in the right place. That\u2019s what makes him such a tragic figure: you know he could rise to the occasion, and yet\u2026he doesn\u2019t.\n\nFaramir, meanwhile, is forced by terrible circumstance to become the leader his brother never could. While it\u2019s true he\u2019ll never be seen as a great warrior and an epic commander of men like Aragorn, nevertheless he\u2019ll do his part. He\u2019s a good man, trying to find an honorable path through evil days.\n\nI\u2019m sure entire books could be written about the similarities and differences between Aragon, Boromir, and Faramir: all three warriors, but all three starting and ending their tales in radically different places.\n\nThere are so many moments throughout the LOTR films that I just love about Aragorn, but my favorite moment and a pivotal scene in the plot is when Elrond, Lord of Rivendell, comes to present And\u00faril to Aragorn. If you\u2019ll permit me, I\u2019ll include a portion of the screenplay because it gives me chills, every single time:\n\n\n ELROND: The man who can wield the power of this sword can summon to him an army more deadly than any that walks this earth. Put aside the Ranger. Become who you were born to be. Take the Dimholt Road. \u00d3nen i-Estel Edain (I gave Hope to the D\u00fanedain)\n\n ARAGORN: \u00da-chebin estel anim. (I have kept no hope for myself.)\n\n\nChills.\n\nIn this moment, Elrond commissions Aragorn in his true purpose. He implores Aragorn to go on this dangerous mission with uncertain ends because it is the only hope left for victory. Aragorn can\u2019t merely stay on the sidelines of history any longer (fighting yes, but fighting as a Ranger). Aragorn has to step into his own shoes. He has to start fighting as a King, leading an army no one else can lead\u2014not only to win the world war against Sauron, but to save the life of the Elven maiden whom he loves.\n\nI\u2019m not crying, you\u2019re crying! \ud83d\ude2d\n\nGender Neutrality and Aged Wisdom\n\nViggo Mortensen\u2019s career-defining, strangely gender-neutral portrayal of a compassionate, wise, and reluctant King of Men almost didn\u2019t happen. Originally the production hired Irish actor Stuart Townsend to play the role of Aragorn. As compared to Mortensen, Townsend is certainly younger and more dashing. It\u2019s easy to imagine him playing a devil-may-care, on-the-nose action hero with boyish charm and a woo-the-ladies attitude.\n\nAccounts differ as to why Townsend was let go at the last minute, but it seems Peter Jackson and co. realized they needed an older actor to play Aragorn. And, well, the shake-up was quite rocky and uncertain:\n\n\n Production on The Fellowship of the Ring was forced to start without its Aragorn as Peter Jackson scrambled to find a replacement for Townsend. Eventually, he paid a call to Viggo Mortensen, a then-little-known actor who had auditioned for the role during the casting process, and officially offered him the role. However, there was a catch: if Mortensen wanted the role, he needed to get on a plane and fly to New Zealand the next day. With such little time to think about the decision, Viggo Mortensen nearly turned Peter Jackson down. The actor was reportedly concerned about the little time to learn all the necessary skills and lines, as well as replacing Townsend, feeling awkward about taking the role from someone else.\n\n While Mortensen had reservations about accepting the role, his son was far more certain. Henry Mortensen was a massive fan of the Lord of the Rings novels and enthusiastically informed his father of just how monumental the role of Aragorn truly was. With the endorsement of his son, Mortensen accepted Jackson\u2019s offer and flew to New Zealand the next day.\n\n\nAww, isn\u2019t that adorable? A principal reason we have the iconic and genre-expansive portrayal of Aragorn today is thanks to Viggo Mortensen listening to his son. True masculinity in action.\n\nThere\u2019s just so much about the way Viggo Mortensen embodied this role. When you consider the sorts of tropes we regularly come across in popular media, there\u2019s the picture of the hippie artistic type, flowers in their hair and peace and love, man in their heart. Or maybe you get the nerdy book type, solving problems using more brain than brawn and always rolling their eyes at the jocks surrounding them. And then there\u2019s the he-man type, a big lug who blunders his way into doing the right thing after much bluff & brouhaha.\n\nMortensen seems to draw from an entirely different well. Perhaps he was inspired by the knights of old and their stories of chivalry. Perhaps he was inspired by religious figures. Perhaps he relied on his creative instincts which came from a childhood spent in many places & pursuits outside of the United States and its cultural rat race. However this came together, Viggo Mortensen gave us an Aragorn and a performance which is almost unparalleled before or since in the Western zeitgeist.\n\n\n\nRemember the Dear Men, What Is Preventing You From Looking Like This? meme from a few years back? Forget all about those shirtless hairless male torsos with washboard abs. Here\u2019s my contribution to that conversation:\n\n\nDreamy.\n\n\n\n \n\n \n #gender"
},
"name": "Dear Men, What is Preventing You from Looking Like\u2026Aragorn?",
"post-type": "article",
"_id": "46802911",
"_source": "2783"
}
🗓️ The Level Up
{
"type": "event",
"name": "\ud83d\uddd3\ufe0f The Level Up",
"published": "2025-12-13T22:30:00-0400",
"start": "2025-12-13T22:30:00-0400",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/2025/12/13/the-level-up/",
"featured": "https://res.cloudinary.com/schmarty/image/fetch/w_960,c_fill/https://media.martymcgui.re/ab/5d/97/71/6c25e2c42ccba31a79d63e4aaf5190b0a320eb7d2fdca8c18435b8b3.jpg",
"category": [
"improv",
"show"
],
"location": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Magnet Theater",
"url": "https://magnettheater.com/"
},
"content": {
"text": "The Level Up is an indie improv showcase. Join us as we watch amazing New York indie improv talents gain XP on the Magnet stage, unlock new achievements, and reach new milestones. Or do comedy.\n\nCome support Michael as he dons his hosting-duties cap for three exciting indie teams!\nI\u2019ll be playing in with Michael and the rest of the Level Up!\nLooking forward to it! And to seeing you there!! (Yes, you. Come on out!!!)\nSaturday December 13th, 2025 @ 10:30pm\n\nMagnet Theater\n\n254 West 29th St (btwn 7th and 8th Ave.)\n\nNew York City, NY 10001\n\nTickets $10: https://magnettheater.com/show/tickets/60125",
"html": "<blockquote>\n<p>The Level Up is an indie improv showcase. Join us as we watch amazing New York indie improv talents gain XP on the Magnet stage, unlock new achievements, and reach new milestones. Or do comedy.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Come support Michael as he dons his hosting-duties cap for three exciting indie teams!</p>\n<p>I\u2019ll be playing in with Michael and the rest of the Level Up!</p>\n<p>Looking forward to it! And to seeing you there!! (Yes, you. Come on out!!!)</p>\n<p>Saturday December 13th, 2025 @ 10:30pm<br />\nMagnet Theater<br />\n254 West 29th St (btwn 7th and 8th Ave.)<br />\nNew York City, NY 10001<br />\nTickets $10: <a href=\"https://magnettheater.com/show/tickets/60125\">https://magnettheater.com/show/tickets/60125</a></p>"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Marty McGuire",
"url": "https://martymcgui.re/",
"photo": "https://martymcgui.re/images/logo.jpg"
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"post-type": "event",
"_id": "46784895",
"_source": "175"
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and *this* is why I added a plug strip along the half wall! Each device's cord is a straight shot to the wall, no messy cords crossing over each other!
{
"type": "entry",
"published": "2025-12-13T13:23:27-08:00",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/2025/12/13/10/",
"category": [
"triplex",
"365"
],
"photo": [
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],
"content": {
"text": "and *this* is why I added a plug strip along the half wall! Each device's cord is a straight shot to the wall, no messy cords crossing over each other!"
},
"author": {
"type": "card",
"name": "Aaron Parecki",
"url": "https://aaronparecki.com/",
"photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/aaronparecki.com/41061f9de825966faa22e9c42830e1d4a614a321213b4575b9488aa93f89817a.jpg"
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"_id": "46776648",
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