Jimmy Chattin

More Than Ouch: Managing Pain

Let me write about pain, namely its management. ~~Two~~ Three months in, at least a few more to go, I approach this subject as a case study, as a patient. This is not medical advice, but the experience of pain.

From the Doc

The staff in the hospitals various offer two solutions to pain:

Take pharmaceutical aids, and
Find physical and/or occupational therapy.

While I am sure the Hippocratic Oath is strong in the practitioners, pain at home is a whole different ballgame than the drugged and supervised boredom of the hospital.

Of course take your meds – Stoicism here is not in enduring the pain, but staying disciplined in your pain management schedule and overall recovery. Yet as you too might discover is that constant work may be inconvenient and the pills are delayed or overwhelmed.

For when the typical advice fails, we look elsewhere:

Second Opinion

My virtual mentor Doctor Andrew Huberman delivered a podcast just in time for my case. Talking with Dr. Sean Mackey, they covered a fantastic range of pain management strategies and tactics I combined with some self-discovery made on the first hospital visit:

Smile
- While it may be more of a grimace, smiles release endorphins and ease pain.
Touch / See / Remember Loved Ones
- More feel-good brain chemicals in this. For me, it was images of an amazing cat, text check-ins, and visits with friends. I will visit any friend local-hospital bound daily from here out.
Distraction
- Netflix, podcasts, leg jiggles – do not let the mind dwell on and amplify the pain. This also applies to causing pain elsewhere on the body to redirect focus.
Walk
- Be ambulatory. Take light exercise as permitted. This improves pain tolerance.
“Hurt, Not Harm”
- Repeat as a mantra. Nothing is as bad or swell as perceived. This too shall pass. I vouch for this method since I chanted to great benefit while pacing a few hours one night.
Plain Food
- You might hate it, but I swear you will despise the pain more. A few areas: lower your sodium intake, avoid lactose and other inflammators, and for the love of sanity, do not take supplements that aggravate the condition (e.g. creatine drawing water into my wounded area).
Interruption
- Get in front of the nerve signal: tapping and rubbing between the pain point and the brain overrides worse sensations.

Off to a great start. TMI: After so far three each of hospitalizations, surgeries, and months, I have developed and adopted far more to save my very soul from the sensations this body has wrought:

Selfcare of Pain

Morphine
- Always say “yes” when on offer.
Schedule
- Stick to the taking-of-pain-management timeline no matter external factors.
Cell Phone Charger
- Do not leave home without it, even to the ER. I assume you have a cell – its educational, connection, and entertainment potential is without par for making time fly (or slightly more bearable). Bonus points for earbuds to not be an ass to others in the vicinity when sound plays.
Advocacy
- You are you own best cheerleader – act like it. Educate yourself, understand all the what, why, how, when, and who. Know or it is a “no” – do not tolerate non-emergency surprises and get comfortable telling strangers to back-the-f-off while they explain themselves. Be kind yet firm, ready to engage in your own care, and despise incompetence or a flippancy towards responsibility.
Towel
- I never had to bite a towel for pain before. Glad it was there. When you wake without medication and an exposed… medical situation, you will be glad for a towel too.
Drain It
- As able, raise, remove blood, and secure the area for immobility. Starve the nerves of reason and means to fire.
Secure Space
- Save the need to decide while making a tough life easier by making a space your own. For me, that has been a pillow fort offering comfort, stability, options to configure and reposition, and a divorce of ill from the places I hope to enjoy post recovery.
$$$
- Apply for your disability and any financial support services applicable. Better: live a life of financial studiousness before harm; “in peace, prepare for war.” Money may not take away the physical pain but it will make other life pains so much easier or unnecessary.
Sleep
- Do it. Even if conscious, stay still unless feeding, keeping hygiene, or exercising.
Don’t Look
- Surgery, wounds, injection sites… Let the work be done by professionals without you rubbernecking at it too.

–

Pain really f-king sucks. And its management can really suck too – the #1 duty in such a situation is to stabilize and minimize the need for such care.

Needless, heedless suffering would seem to be the primordial evil. With these tools, I hope you do not suffer as much and for as long.

Cheers to our recoveries ~

April Update

Two months.

Starting February 1st, I have been through some medical procedures to get the use of my right arm / hand back.

As I type, I go under the knife again just before this post publishes. Might get the hand back, might get new pains, will get new scars, will endure.

Not to the point of maintaining goals yet – too much unknown ahead. What might be on the horizon:

Return to work!
Work lets me go for taking so much leave 😬
Regain some use of the hand / pain getting under control!
See the eclipse!
Go to a concert (standing in the back, of course)!
Work out!
Use financial advisor services to assist me on a milestone!
Write some blogs!

For that last, they will be brief, and I will start with every other week – I only have the one hand and so much focus before rest calls me. Perhaps speech-to-text is the answer?

Anyway, thanks for sticking with! Looking forward to sharing more with you and to my own recovery. Cheers to all that ~

Dollars & DNA: The Great Relationship Pivots

Humans are social animals. We make and need relationships. This is fact.

Yet what do those relationships revolve around? Ultimately, why is there an “us” at all?

From anthropology to the personal memoirs of the famous, from news headlines to crimes of passion, there seems to be but two pivots: Dollars and DNA.

Dollars

Not restricted to greenbacks, this topic instead refers to property, to capacity, to resource.

How do people survive in nature (urban or outback) to participate in relationships? Resources – food, water, shelter, et. al.

How do people show they are worthy of investing in a relationships? Resources – fine clothes, flashy wares, higher qualities all around, excess.

How do people keep the relationships they have alive? Resources – sharing, fortifications against the environment, individual specialization for the collective benefit, abundance enough to be able to afford time bonding.

DNA

Not going into the details here – suffice to say no-one and nothing is alive today without the required drive to immortalize DNA being at the root nature of our ancestors.

Relationships bring people together. When people are together, DNA, aka genes, – from gut biomes to sickness to other things less general-audience-appropriate – gets exchanged.

Whether enjoying another person’s time, attention, looks, or potential, the brain chemicals that foster relationships only exist to assist in the binding of new gene sequences.

Children

In the classic structure of male-female relationships, the male tends to be on the hook for not just enough resources for self, but enough to share; the female, the potential for both parties to immortalize their DNA in the form of children.

But humans cannot raise (and in many cases, deliver) a child on their own. Human babes are helpless for an inordinate amount of time, requiring dedicated caretaking by one parent. So like birds incubating eggs, at least one other in a relationship must provide their excess resources to the parent caring for the child(ren).

While different sexes each are gauged on different merits of what they bring to the table*, biology and anthropology prove consistent: Relationships develop from the demonstration of having either the resources or the potential gene-propagating-capacity to produce children and support those children into self-sufficiency.

* All sexes can provide resources in modern economies, while all sexes can also leverage modern technology to propagate their DNA. A partner or partner capable of assisting with resources or DNA is not required, though is no easy path.

–

Life and luxury equate when it comes to developing relationships. Time and genes attract goods and services, and vice versa. From that attraction comes relationship-building. From swell relationships comes time together or high levels of feel-good emotion. From exposure or passion comes the ever-increasing chance of, well, children, the timeless binding of the dollars and the DNA around which all relationships pivot.

This line of thinking struck me other other day – so it goes concerning insight and muses. Like most ideas, I tried to find a way for relationships to form other than the resources dollars represent and gene-potential, but I am at a loss 🤷‍♂️

If you have ideas or insights, let me know so as to update this post! In the meantime, let not these baser points lessen the joy you find in others and yourself – those feelings and experiences are real, so revel. Cheers to you and yours!

Second Verse, Same as the First

Had a major unexpected upset at the start of February. It has prevented new content over the last few weeks.

It is preventing new content for a few weeks more!

Right now resting and figuring out ways to write while recovering from the ailment. That ailment being a temporary loss of the use of a limb!

Stay healthy yourself, draw your companions close, and do your needful really, really soon. Cheers to seeing you again in April!

Well That’s Not Going to Work

KISS: Even as last week’s post hit, goals for the month have drastically changed. Further, I will not be posting more in the month of February. Deets on all this after I know what they are too.

Aim to be back in March! Happy Valentine’s Day, folks – stay warm. Cheers ~

January February Goal Post

Typing does not do January justice. I took great pictures of my headshot, of the inner ticking of the rest of me. I rode physical and emotional rollercoasters. I know more that I ever have before – it is a sobriety that, well, demands sobriety as I figure out where this know-how goes.

So hey, we are going to keep this quick – so much more to do! Come along for the bullet points:

January Goal Review

Citizenship
- Won! I take good profile pics. Now a state citizen!
Health Decisions
- Won! More on this in a second –
Six Flags & Adventures
- Failed. Six Flags, yes, but a loss of a lot of the calendar. Not counting this one despite the fun.
(Private) Restart
- Won! Did the week, discovered some things have changed (for the worse?), but learned my principles around this activity could be flexed. Good thing, since there is no time to wait!
Bonus: Death Walk
- Won! Get acquainted with my own mortality again. I am a bit listless as I write – death walks always have set me right, and it has been a minute since the last! Let me see if a weekend can be made free for dedicated recovery…
Bonus Bonus: Become Educated on Dx
- Won! That #2 health decisions goal above? Ya, I spent a few dozen hours reading medical reports from the US and Europe, watched procedure videos, looked up statistics, and… too much more. Counting as a bonus.

February Goal Proposal

Estate Planner
- Been a few years since updating my last will and testament – let’s fix that!
- Bonus: Letters Round 2
  - A death walk once included writing letters to be delivered after things are done; time I reviewed new letters these years since.
Birthday! And Other Feelful Things
- Bday celebration (of course – might include a silent disco!) and enjoying things that make me really, really feel every Sunday night. A date with myself to enjoy some nostalgia.
- Bonus: Solo RPG #2
  - Last year I played a roleplaying game on my own using BITS and discovering solo play methods. It was a lot of fun. As RPG content continues to be the most evergreen info on this site and I liked it so much, I will shoehorn this in as a bonus.
(Private) Restart #2
- When I was in kindergarten or first grade, one of the two things I wanted to be when I grew up would be a scientist. Glad I am living up to that – doing a personal study on the same rails at January’s goal.
- Bonus: Private
  - Private extra bit for #3. Will be honest if we hit or not!

–

125% – getting stuff done!

IDK if I will hold myself to “hey, aim for 100% but usually get ~75%” – time is seemingly increasing short, so do do do, go go go.

Let us see if the same work ethic may be applied to February. This bday will be important for a few reasons. I have an inkling I’m going to need to change the goals at the start or midway through, thus only 3 with bonuses – so it goes.

Anyway, cheer me on! Stay warm. Remember to start treating your Valentine as your Valentine today, not only February 14th 😁 Cheers to a month of joys ~

Shield Your Eyes From the Shine

Valentines in 19 days.

If you are companioned, I know you have scheduled something special. I know you are showing up every day as if it is V Day and and their birthday all in one.

I know you have standards, I know you have your eyes open. I know you would not settle, but suffice. I know you know your other is a human, and that humans are… works in process.

What do you see? Is your companion shining? Something radiant? Downright blinding? Do they show no wear, no rust, no batter, no rot? What are they polishing? Have they buffed for you at all?

If a person is a WIP, where is the work? There must be a chink or crack – why have they not shared this with you? Why are they not freely and eagerly showing you progress? Or potential pits that may trip you both?

I know you are no fool. I know it takes time to learn the ins and outs of another – in fact, forever as they grow. I know you want to know who your companion is. I know you want to feel secure, having seen all sides of your topic of adoration, having seen the strength and skill of your partner crafting themselves into something better.

I know you are unlikely in need of this reminder as we approach a holiday of romance and commitment. I know some might have a gleam in their eye – remember to shield the glare but a moment to give your partner the respect of inspection, that there exists a real vigor in place of any painted mannequin or mask. I know you will show the shadow of your own mask too and give your companion the security they are to give you.

Valentines is in 19 days. Give your idol 19 minutes of thought and close conversation – I know that is not too much to ask. It is OK to blink to see what is real.

Cheers to days and weeks and years of plenty ~

* Inspired by a conversation that if a too-good-too-be-true knight in shinging armor never doffs their presentation for you, what proof is there that not a doll or corpse or three-raccoons sit inside?

All the Details on Dating I Have

As a numbers guy, I am a Maximizer who adores applying quantities for the qualities that make others and myself feel the best.

When I came across a bunch of heuristics that psychologists and front-line academics in the field of relationship science use, I rejoiced! In a few simple steps, a formula emerged to determine not only the most healthy of general relationships, but the strongest that have happened that future relationships can live up to.

The benefit for you comes in a copy of the Google Sheet algorithm! Packed with the learnings from 2023 and beyond, it will help you understand where your best relationships have been, where your current relationships are, and what to build towards for the future.

The Best Relationships Google Sheet (File -> Make a Copy)

I urge you to make a copy, do some reflection, and check the boxes that apply to you. It ought correlate with the best relationships you have had (high scores, green!) and ID the ‘meh’ interactions we all have some of in life (low scores, red!).

This also keeps us honest: the heat of honeymoon-butterfly-feelings, ignoring elephants in the room, sticking to higher standards and ideals, being realistic of what kind of person we can expect to find in the world given our experiences – all comes to light with authentic expectations and authentic fact-finding.

How has the alg affected me? I have improved the average of relationships by 11 basis points. I read even more literature on how to better the alg and my personal criteria. I show up intentionally from the very first impression. I do not do things when they jeopardize long-term goals or are otherwise dishonest to my life-long self. I have a better resistance to FOMO. I know better what I want and how to ask the questions that may answer those expectations.

(Just to name a few – expect this to benefit you too!)

–

Thanks for visiting, folks! Valentines Day is coming up – how is your current relationship or relationship set doing? Are you being true to your life-long self? The sheet above will help you double check your gut-check 🙂

Always looking for feedback – if you have sets of criteria (4-7 ish) that have come from elites in the realm of psychology, pass them along! It will make my life more assured and improve the lives of many others when I update them on Google. Plan is to add Esther Perel and the Gottman’s at some point.

Side note: Feeling lonely this cuffing season? Take heart – the shared sheet ought give you hope that quality people do exist in the world. Whether they are a romantic option or not at this place and time is a matter of iteration – get your ‘reps’ in by meeting folks and learning as much as you can about them and yourself along the way ❤

Look forward to happier living, folks. Cheers to identifying your best relationships ~

Every Tool in the Kit: Decide Like You Mean It

I am a Maximizer – give me all the data so I can make informed choices.

100% certainty is never a realistic option, so while I do not settle, I must aim to suffice.

The process of finding out what is sufficient is sometimes easy – like glancing at a nutrition label – and other times an insufficient system can make for the hardest decision of one’s career.

You have seen other posts on how to decide and this time I want to give you my full toolset (as of now) plus a real-life decision I needed to make. That decision:

To move to a rural location that would benefit me financially and my working team (RURAL), or stay in an expensive land of opportunity I just moved to not 6 months before (CITY)?

Distilled from my journal with only the barest of obfuscation of location and specific details, this is your guide to decide:

Before It All: Remember Yourself

Prime yourself with the principles you live by, the few hills you will die (kill?) for. Some of mine:

Don’t be greedy.
Be more selfish.
No.
This too shall pass.
Ends make the means.
Wait for no one.
Suffering Is.
Be no bigger advocate for another as they are for themselves.
Life is short and then we die.

These I aim to always keep in mind, so were not applied directly to the RURAL-CITY decision.

Run the Numbers

Money is important to me – it is the best means to many ends. Any sober, reasoning person will agree that money plays a star role in life.

Monthly expense and income numbers let me understand what I can expect where I am. Using a Cost of Living (CoL) calculator like NerdWallet or Numbeo, I can get the difference of how much it typically costs to live where I am vs where I might go. Cost of Living affects expenses.

Googling an income tax calculator will tell you the effective tax rate. Effective income tax affects take-home income.

Take-home minus expenses is the profit you keep for choosing to live in a certain place, have a certain lifestyle, and work doing a certain thing for a certain company.

More profit is objectively a better. Point earned for wherever, whatever increases profit.

Take-home Income – Expenses = Profit

Note: Annual or Monthly, it does not matter so long as the time used is consistent.

CITY has a tax of 32.54% (includes federal and state). CoL: +49% (1.49) national average
RURAL is taxed at 25.36%. CoL: -9% (.91)
I have current spending as C-Expenses in the CITY.

Gross Income * .6746 – C-Expenses = e.g. ~$1000 CITY
Gross Income * .7464 – (C-Expenses * 91 / 149) = e.g. ~$1700 RURAL

RURAL is extra profitable, nearly doubly so. Even assuming one-time moving costs, that money is made up very quickly. GO!
A good place to be in. (Result numbers for example only – math not double-checked, like should that 1700 be 3955? 🤷‍♂️)

Why does profit matter? In one way, it does not: lifestyle ought not inflate with additional profit – that should be funneled back into the business of a lifetime, not a lifestyle. That lifetime, those future “yous” for the next 10, 30, 60, 100 years, will suffer less for the profit kept now – that makes chasing profit a very good thing to do.

Full Body “YES”

Head: Money is good. I would be a big fish in a little pond. Growing location. GO!

Heart: I like my place and my friends and all I have going for me. STAY!

Gut: I do not want little towns – grew up enough with those. Move again, start again? STAY!

Groin: Adventure! New starts! Better commitments! GO!

STAY seems to be the word of the day – my body holds out on taking the RURAL decision.

Occam’s Simple Decision

Staying is a simple decision. Yet…

Going fulfills overarching goals, clears my way. Financial Independence makes all else easier or unnecessary.

Right now, STAY is the simpler, yet an eye to the future means to GO.

(This is similar to “what makes all else simpler or unnecessary,” a tool lifted from Tim Ferriss that analyzes if a more complex/difficult short-term decision bags a net simpler life. Most Qs here are heavily influenced by if not a direct clone of Tim’s toolkit.)

Leads to More Opportunity / Options / Life?

CITY is full of opportunity. People, networks.

CITY gives the options now, but RURAL has lots of options later.

CITY is exciting and a fuller life.

STAY – it opens doors and enables me to rally with the best.

As a virtual mentor puts it, get to a city to rally with the best.

Imagine Making the Decision; How Do You Feel Now?

Go RURAL?

I would feel like I was betraying some folks – arrangements left, distance decaying what I have built in the CITY. More money makes lines go up – a swell thing. It removes direct oversight in the CITY, granting flexibility or reprieve. A resigned feel lies with me – leaving does not feel relieving.

Do it if wanting a restart and / or needing less stress and / or losing my network.

Stay CITY?

I am letting a few people in the business down. I look forward to getting to build my established social life. I enjoy the water, but hold anxiety for what is next. The stress…

Do it if stress is managed (water plays as big part) and / or network continues to grow.

Pro-Con List

(An item cannot just be the lack of being on the other list, i.e. a positive on the GO list is not a negative on the STAY list.)

Go Pro	Go Con
Big fish	Small town
Pay	Leaves network
Years off of retirement	Leaves friends
Less stress	[Poor] airports
Commitment psychology
Importance to the team
Better office
Fewer social disturbances

RURAL

Stay Pro	Stay Con
Develop network	Eventually move out / away from water
Water	Commute
Simple choice
Chemistry / vibe
Concerts / culture
Medical resources

CITY

STAY! But barely, leaving me with more questions on the decision than I feel answers.

Ask Why / What-For x5

Asking the Qs of each answer previous:

Why go RURAL? What for?

Asked by the team for its positive impact.
To gain money and prestige.
To be independent and secure.
To work on my things without the anxiety of falling behind.
To regain the sense of control and chill felt in childhood.

Why stay in the CITY? What for?

Simple decision left up to me.
Delayed answering of ‘where to live,’ ‘what to do,’ ‘who to meet.’
I like comfort and staying delays or negates hard conversations and choices.
I like knowing outcomes, answers.
Knowing is power and I am a coward to be powerless (or, irrational?).

Oof – getting deep. I like neither answer, yet I dislike CITY’s answer less.

What Do Your Virtual Mentors Say?

(What I know of these folks, advising in their voice.)

Tim Ferriss: GO – what is the worst case? The best?

Aaron Marino: GO – make an impact and do not let others hold you back.

Scott Galloway: STAY – get to a city (or stay in one!) and get rich slowly.

Andrew Huberman: STAY – you seem not very convicted to GO.

No help here either – I ought have asked more folks!

Fear Setting, Fear Achieving

For each decision option, explore the best realistic case, the all-too-real worst case, and what could be done to cap the downsides:

GO, the Best: Money rolling in. Many new connections with me, the big-city intellectual. Financial gains and I make off like a bandit.

GO, the Worst: RURAL sucks. Small town sucks. I make no friends of my colleagues. There is little to do in yucky weather. I have lost the network formed in CITY for little gain. (And I add, what of any need for medical care? Does not look as swell.)

GO, Cap: Travel. Maintain long-distance networks. Start activities with colleagues. Be the social butterfly. Get on Meetup et. al again. Take up projects and get back into solo activities (e.g. games).

STAY, the Best: Grow long-term network. Form friendships and a community. Get to know the CITY and experience culture in all new ways. Experiment with the beach, dance, entertainment, and other forms of life. Finances pop without RURAL and I continue on the path of FI.

STAY, the Worst: I must move off the beach to both a lower quality and higher cost of residence. I wreck my network. Finances tumble and I am stuck. I cannot keep up with demands and scrutiny as they are. My team and the company moves on without me.

STAY, Cap: Ask for network growth. Keep scrutinizing values and time and effort. Get assurances for housing. Optimize the work. (And I add, I can always choose to move later!)

–

In the end, I have decided to stay in the CITY, with a quarterly review of the opportunity value of staying or going. For such a large life change, deliberation is required!

This toolkit has come a long way since 2021 – I look to grow it, improve it, apply it always.

What are your heuristics and go-to methods for making decisions? What did you think of this “how the sausage is made” look at my journal and more?

Tell me what’s up in the comments and cheers to your new year here ~

Food: Valued for Its Fuel, Form, Faith, and Fellowship

Who doesn’t think of food?

No one, that’s who. Nothing alive stays alive if it lacks the concern for its sustenance.

Humans are weird, though. We have an excess of food in this most bountiful time in history, enough to waste and spend lives towards merely the experience of it. We like to put meaning into things too. We are social creatures that seek bonding even while feeding.

This got me on the meta-thinking of what is food to us? Come with me as I drive recklessly (using a lot of car metaphors) to explore the four values of food.

Fuel

Like a high performance car, the human bio-machine runs better on energy derived from higher quality fuel.

But the car won’t run and the body does not care for the quality if there is a lack of a sufficient quantity.

No living thing exists without seeking a bare minimum of fuel. People – surrounded by a glut of pure energy, but most of low quality – at this time have the opportunity and sometimes the drive to optimize the fuel we consume.

Form

The look and feel and vibe of a car speaks to the overall experience of interacting with the vehicle. Humans do this with a bunch of stuff – art, sports, clothes, food.

Plating, presentation, smell, texture, temperature, taste, and even the history of the dish feeds into the form people seek. Ultimately pure pleasure, the form of food – like cars – make it pleasing to witness and partake in.

Faith

Like a car brand, faith that a certain food or method of making food or eating food is valuable to billions across the planet.

Sometimes faith pairs with the value of fuel – this particular eat may not save a soul, but it could save and enlighten the body, fulfill the morals of the mind or all humankind.

So like the faith a particular car or fuel is right (at least right for the person considering it), opinions on food become a matter of faith to most who seek to study themselves or the matter of food.

Fellowship

Lastly, cars bring people together. Whether merely being a car owner (a virtual necessity in most of the United States) or being really into cars (whatever flavor that takes), cars bond people in fellowship for a shared element of being alive.

A similar kinship exists for food. We all need to eat. The communal meal (communion) is common in every human culture in every point of history, along with multiple non-human species.

Food provides an excuse to socialize with little fear of rejection (unless someone is ready to die on a different hill / value). Working while eating is often considered rude, so bringing focus to companions is encouraged. The resources to make food are often concentrated (ingredients, storage, tools, place kept clean specifically to dine), forcing people together (if not just for the warmth of the hearth!). Food is pleasurable, thus aiding the benefits of bonding in the Mere Exposure Effect.

Just as when someone does not drive, has not driven, and does not own a car, society asks, “what is the matter with you?” The same goes for food and eating together – to ask to eat together is a bid of fellowship that ought not lightly be discarded.

–

Fuel, Form, Faith, and Fellowship.

I tried really hard to find more – being stuck on Fuel, Form, and Fellowship, the intimacy of Faith was the only one that arose after weeks. That said, if you understand what values a person holds about food, you will know how to meet them on that level. (Think of it as similar to languages of affection – touch, time, words, service, and gifts.)

What do you value food as? I am a stalwart Fuel and becoming also a Fellowship kind-of-guy, with Form being my biggest “meh.”

Let me know! Cheers to all the food shared between you and yours ~