Author: Travis Packer
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Record of the Year, 2023
2023 was the year where I felt like we didn’t live in a post-pandemic society, but a post-apocalyptic one. It’s just an apocalypse more like The Leftovers than Station Eleven or The Last of Us. The bad part of this mild apocalypse is that it didn’t really fix anything, it just made everything slightly worse.…
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Weekly Reflections #18
In which we try to be here, now. This week a memory flooded back into my consciousness. It was the end of the summer in either 2005 or 2006, I cannot be sure, and I had just finished a summer working for the Appalachia Service Project (ASP). Most of the staff, about 125 of us,…
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Recommended: The Bear
I promise not to work “yes, Chef” into my daily vernacular. This is my favorite season of television in a while, at least since Station Eleven and maybe I like it more than that. What works here? (SPOILERS ABOUND) Episode Ranking
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Weekly Reflections #17
In which we melt into anarchy. Reading: Finished The Dispossessed yesterday. I don’t know. It was totally fine. One of those polemics cleverly disguised as a novel. There were moments, but only moments, of real characters and plot, and a lot of characters serving as mouthpieces for what felt like a college seminar’s philosophical debate.…
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Weekly Reflections #16
In which we do things for a second time. A few thoughts on finishing my second playthrough of Elden Ring, which I think is now my favorite videogame of all time: Reading: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin Watching: We just finished season 1 of Silo. The finale was superb. I don’t usually dig post-apocalyptic…
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The Inner Game
I finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey this morning, which is one of those books where if you get into the arena of mental models, performance, and general satisfaction, tends to get referenced quite a bit. So after it sat on my shelf for a year or two, I finally…
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Weekly Reflections #15
In which we contemplate a life offline. We lost internet for about 24 hours this week (it rained basically nonstop for about 4 days, a tree fell and snapped the overhead line that runs to our house). This got me thinking about the ridiculous amount of things we rely on the internet for–to the point…
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Weekly Reflections #13
In which we press on without sleep. Most of the time, in our relationship, my wife and I are able to navigate our natural circadian rhythms, that she rises 1-2 hours earlier than I’d like and I go to sleep 1-2 hours later than she’d like. And sometimes, that doesn’t quite work, for whatever reason.…
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Weekly Reflections #12
In which we attempt a comeback. “Indigo De Souza” by davidjlee is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Writing about why I haven’t been writing isn’t interesting for anyone. So let’s not. A quick thought that’s been on my mind for the last couple of days re: receiving feedback. I’ve ascribed for a while to the Conscious Leadership Group’s…
The Minimum Blues 