My mood has improved a bit since last post. I've been trying heavy doses of vitamin D as recommended by @CyberDevil (and some podcasts I've listened to) to fight my trend toward Seasonal Affective Disorder. I think it's been helpful (even if psychosomatic). I'm happy that the days are getting longer again.

I big help/distraction has been 3D printing! @Mindchamber and I have been diving into it with varied results. Here's some stuff I've printed:

First calibration print... DOGGO!

Early Thor hammer progress:

Thor Hammer glued, primed, painted, and detailed!

A lighted luck cat!

A guitar pick for my daughter (with her initials embossed)! Notice the bevel on the edges... (I designed this one in Blender)

A case for a Raspberry Pi to monitor my 3D prints via webcam!

Of course, my long-term goal is to print stuff of my own design which has re-awakened some ANCIENT experience with 3D modeling from my college days... I'm a little rusty, but was surprised how quickly it all came back.

A chandelier for our dining room! This is going to be a significant project, but hopefully it'll turn out nicely. I'm enjoying using Blender for the modeling.

A Mandalorian helmet! (probably won't actually print this since it's become ultra cliche... but it was fun to experiment with)

Here's a technical drawing I did to wrap my mind around the shape of the Mandalorian's helmet (those detail-oriented will notice this early attempt is not "movie-accurate":

One of my sons panicked last minute about not having gotten gifts for anyone for Christmas, so he and I chose and printed some 3D models which ended up being received pretty well. Another Christmas saved! ;-P

Here's a timelapse video of setting up the printer in the garage:

The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda took our house by storm, so here's some art from the art portal I made:

Process video:

I also finally, completely, finished the looooong castle-bed project by adding a climbing wall to the end of the castle bed:

I got sicker than I've been, maybe ever, over Christmas break. I think I got a legit migraine which was pure torture for 4 days straight. I now have to recant all the judge-y thoughts I've had whenever I've heard other people complain about migraines... I hope I never get another one. It did serve to make me grateful for my regular health though... appreciating normalcy.

While I was in bed for all that time I read the book "The Road Less Traveled" which my mom always had on the shelf when I was growing up and was on my mother-in-law's shelf too (where I was convalescing).

The book's philosophy really fit well with my personal life philosophy. A lot of what's been resonating with me recently is the value of "willingness to prune" old/false/unhelpful beliefs and being OK with ambiguity rather than avoiding/fleeing discomfort. Discomfort (often) = growth (of course this all traces back to the book AntiFragile). I tend to rush resolution of uncomfortable situations which has sometimes not worked out to great effect. I'm trying to be more willing to "sit" in discomfort and ambiguous thought patterns.

Systems and ideologies that discourage questioning and regular idea pruning lead to "bubbles" of temporary stability which ultimately collapse in more-significantly-damaging falls at a later date. It's not just delaying a set amount of pain, but actually leads to a HARDER fall after the period of artificial stability.

So that's probably a good segue into what I've been reading:

• A Liberated Mind: A self-help/psychology book about a kind of therapy called A.C.T. (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) - I'm digging it a lot so far, it has many parallels with "The Road Less Traveled" but with a more research-based slant. More and more I'm becoming a fan of not trying to avoid discomfort or what I perceive as "negative" thoughts, but rather to examine them and understand them for what they have to teach me - after all, my mind is presenting them to me for SOME reason.

• The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements - This is a "classic" about the shared aspects of all mass movements and what goes into making a "fanatic." As I am re-evaluating my relationship with my faith, this has some interesting insights to offer about why I, and others, tend toward a certain point of view and belief system.

Books I've recently finished:

• Le Ton Beau De Marot - YES! I finally finished this one. SO good for anyone interested in poetry, linguistics, and the nature of reality.

• Infinite Powers - Very good book about the history and conceptual underpinnings of calculus. Nothing overly technical, but a fascinating look into a system that explains so much about the beauty surrounding us.

• He Restoreth My Soul - A good book for sexual addiction recovery. Has a heavy religious underpinning, but provides a lot of practical, on-the-nose advice as well.

• Harriet Tubman: The Road To Freedom - *YAWN* 🥱

• The Demon Haunted World - Big recommendation! This fit well with my "self-pruning" philosophy and also expanded upon it in clear, logical, ways.

• The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy - Long story, but the author of this book, Carol Lynn Pearson is a bit of a star in the Mormon/LDS community. She is an LGBTQ ally (having married a gay man and walked a painful path in the church as a result + written a book about her journey) and also a talented poet/writer/song-writer. She wrote the LDS children's song "I'll Walk With You" (one of my all-time favorites). This book is about the leftover stigma of polygamy in the Mormon church (which officially stopped the practice around the year 1890) but which still hangs on to some weird remnants of the practice in its culture (and doctrine). It was a fascinating perspective! My in-laws actually have a history with Carol Lynn - My mother-in-law and her brother were friends with Carol Lynn in college at BYU. My MIL's brother raised a family in the church, then came out as homosexual and was ostracized by my MIL. He ended up living, for a time, with Carol Lynn (who was, even at that early time an LGBTQ ally). Carol Lynn lives in Walnut Grove CA (about 30 mins from my house), so I've entertained the thought of contacting her to meet up for lunch sometime... wouldn't that be FASCINATING?! On the, now famous, MIL-convalescent-bookshelf, was an original signed-by-Carol-Lynn, copy of her first publication (a book of her religious poetry) from the early 70s. It felt like touching an important piece of general and family history to thumb through it.

• A Christmas Carol - This is a yearly tradition and I love it every time. Dickens was, *gasp*, an incredibly good writer!

• Foundation Series (Asimov): Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation - These were really fun to read. It really is the seedbed for so much modern sci-fi writing. Reading it now, rather than in the 50s when it was originally published, makes his ideas seem derivative... until you remind yourself that he was the INVENTOR!

• In Sacred Loneliness - This is a detailed historical account of all of Mormon/LDS church founder, Joseph Smith's, wives. Growing up, I was led to believe that JS only had one wife, and that polygamy was instituted after he died by Brigham Young (his successor). The LDS church made lots of materials, including full length movies, about the sacred relationship he and Emma (his first wife) had while white-washing the full story. It wasn't until I was around 30 years old that I found out that JS had (at least) 35 well-documented wives, ranging in age from 14 to 58 (many of whom married him secretly while still married to existing husbands, and also without Joseph's 1st wife's knowledge). Each chapter in this book is a biography of one of his wives from birth, to early church history and joining the new LDS/Mormon movement, to courting and marriage to JS, to becoming one of JS's widows (when he was killed), to their life after JS in the splintered church. Because of the Internet/Information age, and the ease of access of historical documents, the LDS church has had to come clean about its early history, so now it has articles about Joseph Smith's polygamy on its official website. This was, honestly, a tough read, not just because of the disappointing nature of the content, but because THERE WERE SO MANY wives! This is like 600 pages of biographies... Sharply highlighted is the fact that these were real women, with real lives, families, relationships, faith, beliefs, trusts, hopes, dreams, etc. When it's 30 + people I tend to gloss them over as an ambiguous group, but this book won't let you do that, it painfully walks you through each one as a REAL human being. It's a tough pill to swallow, especially because so much of it was secret and withheld from his wife (though he claimed God told him to marry all of the other women). I'm not perfect, but JS has often been presented to me as someone to revere and admire, someone of impeccable morality, and this book paints a more complex picture which, honestly, shakes a lot of my preconceived notions.

Upcoming queue of reading:

• Bad Blood - Bestseller non-fiction about some pretty shady stuff that happened in silicon valley around the tech industry.

• Cosmos - Another Carl Sagan classic. Beginning to love this guy.

• An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins - Non-fiction - Largely about reclaiming Mormon early history from the distortions its undergone through the years and painting a more-historically and contextually sensitive interpretation of early church history.

• No Man Knows My History - The title is an eerie quote from Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism/The LDS Church. This book is the earliest, and original, historical exploration of LDS history from a non-sympathetic point of view (written by the niece of the prophet at-the-time). Some of its evidence has come under scrutiny and doubt over the years, and current scholars don't like the antagonistic tone, but it is still one of the "must reads" for those exploring LDS church history.

So, yeah, if you can't tell, I'm going through a bit of a "skeptical" phase. Which might not turn out to be only a phase. It's hard because my wife and in-laws are still very much "true blue" believers in the LDS church and this kind of research and thinking causes significant tension, but I feel like I need to be intellectually honest with myself. I'm not actively trying to tear down other peoples' faith, I'm trying to be honest about things that I have placed on a "shelf" for a long time. I have hope that this "discomfort" can lead me, and others, to a place of growth, understanding, change, and improvement.

I say it every time, but please leave me a comment, I really enjoy hearing from you!