Lago

Experimenting with not using the word “I” and putting work into avoiding “me” or “my” while journaling (a few here and there is fine but really not too much), which is an inherently self-reflective exercise, feels like putting training weights on the brain. The hope that exists in performing such an exercise is the decentralization of the self in writing more generally, outside of just journaling, to avoid navel gazing and narcissistic tendency. This all comes with the benefit of journaling and writing itself, as well as the benefits that come to discipline while being beholden to an exercise of any sort. The first few posts on this blog do contain the aforementioned self-centering words.

Today, we are hopefully going to go to a lake in the province of Lecco to relax, since there are no obligations to work that make scheduling such a thing complicated. It’s 10 am and the rest of the house isn’t awake yet, thus the opportunity to use a morning to write a little bit presents itself. Aside from cooking pasta and different sauces for 6-8 hours a day 5 days a week, this mid august has been spent exploring an old but newly reinvigorated desire for competency in the sciences. So much of work in the natural resource management field is rife with physical and scientific concepts that are taken for granted as things that “just work that way” by people who practice in different parts of the industry. Rightfully so really, specialization and all that, but there must be somebody who understands the details underneath the broader processes who isn’t just some scientist and is infact a highly capable professional. Much of this personal motivation stems from the fact that two people who could be considered best friends of mine, who operate loosely within the same industry, are like this - people who seem to have incredibly secure understandings in what they do. Men of Rennaissance, wordcel-shape rotator hybrids. Remote sensing is one of the most interesting things in the world and it has much of the same (very basic, beginner) physical basis as astrophysics - most of the physics worth re-training to understand originally came from taking an astrophysics course at the U of A at the age of 19. Knowing what a steridian is doesn’t necessarily imply the peak of competency though, the knowledge just has to be solidified enough to be able to be called upon in a moment where one can demonstrate it usefully, so it’s important to cast a wide net, but a high-quality wide net. It is important that when you are at the fishing supply store, to identify the net that has the highest efficacy to size ratio possible for the amount of money, or natural affinity for a subject, that you have. Botany, especially regional botany, Insubrian botany, is something that is worth studying a lot, and the trip to the lake to today is an excellent opportunity to get some reps in with the new plant press, made from duct tape, ply wood, cardboard, news paper, and ratchet straps from the Brico Center in Affori.

Leaving for the lake now, will pick this back up after returning.

It is now 23:30 on the same day. We spent an excellent day in the sun, swimming in lake Como, and there was a lot of really sweet and recognizable plants all around the lake. Too tired to finish this or many any point, work tomorrow morning. Thunderstorms all week and next apparently. Forza Venezia