The start of 2017 has hit me with a couple of unpleasant, heath-related episodes. Nothing serious, but when I was proudest of my Saint Sylvester run on the evening of December 31st, a first for me in a growingly popular Spanish 'thing', my body reacted in protest, and all the frequent travelling, sudden weather changes and general over-stressing suddenly took their toll.
Finding the right balance between doing all the things I want to do, on the one hand, and taking care of myself at a very basic level, on the other, seems to be a growing concern as years go by. Some friends point to the wonders of disciplined meditation as the key to unlocking precisely that balance. I have never engaged in that exercise in any structured way, but is the time ripe for it?
To add to the general malaise, this report sort of put a nail in the coffin of democracy as we --or at least I-- have understood it in our times. I first read about it through my admired friend Arcadi Espada, and I mentally signed up to take the OCEAN test straight away. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I have a strong feeling that I will score high on OCN (Openness, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism), with lower relative scores on EA (Extroversion and Agreeableness). And then the whole 'taking care of oneself' theme came back to mind.
What if, just thinking out loud, it is precisely that personality profile what 'forces' me to live on the edge in terms of striking the right lifestyle balance, and, at the same time, makes me a middle-of-the-range target for manipulation when it comes to crystallising, one way or the other, my individual civic take on public choice matters? Is it one and the same problem, or are they at least deeply connected ones?
So my January resolution has gotten broader. Rather than go head in into this or that meditation practice, I am going to try to build a deeper understanding of how I characterise myself not in a purely introspective manner, but in one that keeps constant reference to the rest of the world. That should be a better recipe to keeping both physical and mental, individual and societal, risks in check. That is my current hypothesis, anyway.
PS: this is a good read on what we are up to at Iris AI.
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