denkthoughts

🗽 Statue of Litter-bee

matt@denkthoughts.com — Thu, 14 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

First of all, if you've never seen this "It's the Statue of Litter-bee" video, it's been stuck in my head for about 5 years and it's all I can think about any time the Statue of Liberty comes up.

Anyway, the Statue of Liberty is pretty cool. It's inspiring when someone (in this case, Bartholdi) has a massive, seemingly impossible goal, and then bends the world around them in order to make it happen.

I've been sick and low-energy lately, so I don't have much more to say, but I also wanted to share some moody photos from today. I have a fun digital camera (Sony RX100 VII) that I haven't been using enough, but I recently started constraining myself to square black-and-white photos which is a lot more exciting to me for some reason. Images below are compressed, click to view in full resolution.

✍️ Why I write

matt@denkthoughts.com — Tue, 05 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The title of this post is a rip-off from an essay written by George Orwell, published in 1946. If you only have time to read one thing today, you should absolutely read that piece over mine.

I can't fully relate to Orwell, who knew from a young age that he wanted to make a living as a writer. I've only recently started dabbling, and for pleasure instead of pay. But that pleasure is something twisted; a compulsion. Orwell described it like this:

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand.

I'm not writing a book, just some silly little blog posts. But I've been thinking about this demon lately, trying to wrap my head around it and understand where it came from. Here's what I've been able to glean so far.

Writing is medication

I tend to think a lot. Sometimes too much. All kinds of facts and opinions and tidbits and judgments and questions and thoughts and observations swirling around in the toilet bowl of my brain.

Writing is focused thinking. It channels my ruminations, giving them a concrete outlet. Pondering something for days or weeks doesn't always lend itself to any kind of closure or conclusion, but drafting, organizing, writing, editing, and rewriting leads to a blissful offloading. It's freeing.

I also get into a tunnel-vision flow state when I'm writing (or reading or coding, for that matter). I think over time I've slowly gravitated towards activities that entirely consume my focus, because they're peaceful breaks from overthinking and anxiety.

Writing is limitless

I believe writing is the least limiting way of communicating. Think about how many constraints there are when trying to communicate ideas in other ways. In a face-to-face conversation, for example, you might choose the wrong word, get interrupted, unintentionally add filler words, regret saying something one way and wish you had phrased it differently, or lose your train of thought. Don't get me wrong - all of those things are beautifully human, and I'm not trying to be a robot arguing that writing is always the best. I'm just drawn to the vivid, crystal clear transfer of thoughts that writing so readily enables.

Written words can be so powerful. The ability to choose them carefully and intentionally craft them to serve a purpose is hypnotizing. There's so much control compared to other mediums. Is it any wonder that media almost always progresses from written script to visual adaptation? Writing has a hold on me because it has no limits (except, I suppose, the limits of the writer).

I had to do it, IYKYK

Writing is contributing

As simple as it sounds, contributing something to the world feels good. It feels important, even on a small scale. In today's attention economy, we're constantly inundated with things that other people have put into the world. A lot of it is slop. I'm fighting back by sharing pieces of myself. I believe in an internet where real people share real things with real intention and real care. Maybe part of me writes to prove that The Algorithm ™️ doesn't control everything online.

As Orwell points out, there's surely some percentage of egoism in my motivations. It's fun when someone reads something I've written! I enjoy hearing readers' reactions! It makes me feel good!

A text I received after my last post that made me very happy ☺️

Regardless of the exact reasons, I'm learning that the demon is relentless. Truthfully, even if no one ever read this post, I would still write it. I have to write it. I can't not write it. Nor can I fully explain why that is.

I don't know for sure how long this compulsion will last. Maybe forever, maybe not. But for now, the demon wins.

👥 Interactions with strangers

matt@denkthoughts.com — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Since moving to Brooklyn, I've been spending a lot more time outside walking around. Which makes perfect sense - we sold our cars, and we take Kodak on several walks per day now that he doesn't have a yard to run around in. Living somewhere walkable and spending more time outside means that naturally, I cross paths with many different people every day.

Some beautiful ivy spotted on a recent walk

I've had 3 different interactions over the past 3 days that I can't stop thinking about. Maybe the universe is trying to teach me something, or maybe I can't help trying to find meaningful lessons in trivial everyday life, but here they are:

Slow down

Today we had absolutely perfect weather, and a dog named River taught me to slow down and enjoy it.

While I was walking Kodak around the block this morning, I saw another guy walking his dog farther down the street. That dog (River, as I found out later) was sniffing around in a little soil area underneath a tree. Apparently River found the perfect spot, because he decided to sit down right there, facing the sun with a big, content, cheesy smile on his face.

I noticed the owner try unsuccessfully to get River to keep it moving, and then give up. When I got close enough, I mentioned "That might be the happiest dog I've ever seen." The owner responded with something like "Yeah, he loves the sun and just wants to sit outside and bask in it all day!"

We chatted a bit more, but as I rushed back home to get to work, I couldn't get that happy dog face out of my head. No stress, not in a hurry, not a care in the world, just sitting there in the dirt enjoying some sunshine. I think River has life all figured out.

What's the best that could happen?

The other day I walked by a lady who looked like she might be going through a rough time. She was sitting outside on the sidewalk barefoot, wearing stained clothes and staring off into space with a pretty grim expression.

Kodak, very excited to find someone at his level, started pulling towards her to say hi as we got closer. I didn't want to intrude on this person's moment, but when she looked up and saw Kodak, she started BEAMING. "Oh my goodness, hi baby! You look like you want some pets! Look at those beautiful eyes! And that fur! You're so perfect!" Kodak, of course, was very pleased with all of these compliments.

We exchanged some pleasantries, and as we walked away (Kodak with some newly found pep in his step) this lady said "Have the most amazing day!" with so much cheer in her voice, I was reeling for the rest of the walk. How could my initial snap judgment be so wrong? How many of these soul-healing interactions am I missing out on every day? It's easy to think in terms of worst-case scenarios, so this was a happy reminder that sometimes, life hits you with a best-case scenario.

Connection is everything

Yesterday I walked by someone who set their phone up on a ledge to record an outfit-of-the-day video. They walked away from their phone a bit, and then turned around and started skipping back towards it, cheering and laughing and seemingly having a wonderful time.

I felt a little bit awkward, so I didn't react or say anything or do anything at all. I just pretended not to notice and kept on walking.

This non-interaction kept gnawing at me all day. Why am I so hesitant to connect with strangers in real life? We all crave connection. Why is it easy to leave a comment on social media, but hard to make a comment in real life? I could have easily thrown out a compliment, made this person's day, and left us both smiling and in a better mood because of it. This was an eye-opener for me, and helped me realize that I'm often walking around looking for ways to reject any type of connection, rather than being open to it.

Sometimes strangers are strange, but sometimes they're strangely lovely. So go chit-chat with a stranger! Why not? Have a novel experience. Make a funny memory. Collect a weird story.

Or don't, it's up to you. But I'm gonna make a conscious effort to be more available to all these strangers that I keep bumping into.

Kodak enjoying some spring flowers and sunshine

😌 I solved anxiety

matt@denkthoughts.com — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

I've always been an anxious overthinker. But not over the past few weeks! I'm cured! All it took was finally thinking my way out of it 😉

Anxiety isn't real

This is a bold claim, so bear with me here for a second - anxiety isn't real. Before you call me a ding-dong and tell me to shut up, I know that anxiety exists and has real impact. But what I mean is that recently, I've finally recognized that anxiety doesn't exist in the real, physical world around me. Put another way, anxiety only exists in my head, and doesn't affect the world around me in any way.

Okay, so anxiety isn't physically tangible. How does that change anything?

Efficient. Intentional. Practical. These are a few adjectives someone might use to describe me (Alexa would probably add weird, stinky, and dorky to that list). I'm typically the one on the team who's asking the dumb questions. What are we hoping to get out of this meeting? What problem are we currently trying to solve? What benefits do we get by going with this approach? Etc.

We can apply that same line of thinking to anxiety: what is my brain hoping to achieve with this anxiety? What problem is this anxiety currently solving? What benefits do I get by feeling this anxiety?

Most of the time (at least in my experience), anxiety is simply useless and impractical. Sure it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, but most of us aren't being chased by predators these days. If I'm anxious about something happening tomorrow, it's probably not life-or-death. That thing will still happen tomorrow regardless of how I feel; the only difference is whether I spent 24 hours feeling worried or not.

Letting go

For whatever reason, viewing anxiety as a silly, wasteful, pointless thing has changed something in my brain. Whatever constitutes me isn't anxious, my brain just creates anxiety because it used to be valuable for survival. But now for most of my everyday life it's not needed.

What a freeing thought!

Over the past few weeks, I've been catching myself feeling anxious, recognizing how unproductive it is, and then simply choosing to stop. And somehow it's been working! I certainly wouldn't give myself a 100% success rate, but it's made a meaningful difference. Anxiety doesn't solve my problems, so why bother with it?

Atlas and Kodak not feeling any anxiety 🙂

Caveats

I'm not claiming to have solved anxiety for everyone in every situation. Some of you reading this may think my epiphany as described here is a bit too robotic or simplistic. I recognize that there are many types of anxiety, and some anxiety is even beneficial and serves a valid purpose.

I think the general takeaway should be this: when you feel anxious, consider why, and whether it's serving you at all. If not, try throwing it away! You might be surprised at your ability to (sometimes) just flip a switch and let go. Managing my mental health is still an active project that will never be "finished", but I'm excited about this new perspective that's helping me spend more time feeling relaxed and free.

😎 Site and life updates

matt@denkthoughts.com — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

New year new site

I did a big site refresh!

I was feeling uninspired by my previous site and needed to simplify. I found myself writing drafts of posts, but never getting them across the finish line because I couldn't find the right photos to include.

My new site is a lot simpler and focused more on the actual content. Posts don't require photos anymore, like my previous site did, but I'll still add some when I feel like it.

I also used to feel weird about publishing posts because I didn't know how to distribute them. Now I have a mailing list, so I'll be able to send out an email blast whenever I write something new. Overall my focus with the refresh was reducing the friction to post, so no more excuses.

The big move

Another big update... we live in Brooklyn, NY now! Moving was crazy and the weather has been wild but overall we're so lucky and excited to be here. Send me your favorite NY recommendations! Or come visit us!

🙃 The Ex-Mormon Dilemma

matt@denkthoughts.com — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This is a tricky blog post to write.

I spent most of my life as an extremely devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka Mormon. I want to make it clear up front that even though I no longer believe in that religion, my current views aren't black and white. The farther removed I am from things, the more I find I really dislike a lot of things about the Mormon church. That being said, I also can't deny that I had countless positive, foundational, wonderful experiences growing up amongst a tight-knit, loving community.

I was also lucky (straight white male privilege!) to have a fantastic college experience at BYU. I met lifelong friends, enjoyed perks as a scholarship athlete, got a graduate degree, found great career opportunities through BYU connections, and ultimately owe a lot of my career success so far to BYU.

So what's the dilemma?

Credentials

First, let me try to paint a clear picture so we can all be on the same page. Here's my Mormon timeline:

Raised by parents who were both part of LDS families
Baptized at 8
Every leadership position growing up (Deacons' Quorum President, Teachers' Quorum President, Priests' Quorum First Assistant)
Attended seminary at 6am every morning before high school (was also Seminary Class President)
Eagle Scout at 16
Freshman year at BYU
2-year mission in New Zealand (Zone Leader in MTC, senior companion in NZ after 6 weeks instead of finishing the 12 week training program, combo District Leader + training new missionary after that, then Zone Leader for 18 months or so)
Finished undergrad and Master's at BYU, including getting married in the Temple at 23 to someone from a big Mormon family

One common thread throughout this entire experience is an emphasis on missionary work. A huge part of the LDS faith is sharing your beliefs with others. Helping someone join the church by getting baptized is a massively celebrated win. I wrote my testimony inside copies of the Book of Mormon and gave them to neighborhood friends. I participated in social media blasts, sharing "I'm a Mormon" materials all over Facebook, trying to be a good example to all my "non-member" friends. I even had one of my best friends over for missionary lessons when we were 17 and 16.

In short: I lived and breathed Mormonism, and tried to share my beliefs with as many people as possible.

The dilemma

I won't go into all the details here, but I went through a long and painful faith journey starting in 2021 that led to a big shift in my beliefs. Naturally, what's the first instinct for someone who spent a lifetime sharing their beliefs with others? Share my new beliefs with others! But it's not that simple.

In the LDS worldview, actively trying to convert someone to Mormonism is heroic. Serving a mission is a selfless act with the goal of saving souls and giving people true happiness. If that's your worldview, imagine how you might feel about someone actively trying to UNconvert you or your loved ones from Mormonism. It's abominable, dark, unthinkable behavior. Only horrible people would do such a horrible thing.

So the dilemma is this:

I was taught to be a missionary and share my beliefs
My life is full of Mormons who I love
Mormons continue to share their beliefs with me, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident
Even when I have something relevant to add to a conversation, I can't share it without offending someone or straining a relationship
My best option is to bite my tongue and remain silent

🎉 32-year-old thoughts

matt@denkthoughts.com — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Friends swimming in Lake Norman, shot on my KODAK Ektar H35N

Today is my 32nd birthday! A lot of people complain about getting older, but this year I feel great. Every year I get more comfortable in my own skin, and honestly life has never been better 🙂

One of the fun things about writing is going back and reading something a past version of yourself wrote. For that reason, I wanted to do a quick snapshot of my state of mind today before I head out for a delicious birthday dinner with loved ones.

Here are some things that feel important to me right now, in no particular order:

Exercise has to be the #1 return-on-investment for time spent. Seriously such a small amount of time and energy for such drastic benefits across the board. So cool
Reading is probably very close behind - I should figure out a way to make a living off of reading lol
I'm finally learning that no one cares, which is very freeing
I used to try so hard to be everything, now I'm realizing I can just be me - some people will love me, some people won't, and that's totally fine
There's no such thing as a universal "ideal life" - I get to craft my own!
Why did I ignore cardio and stretching for so long?
Video games are getting less fun
Being outside is getting more fun
I hate social media
Having fun shouldn't be the #1 priority all the time
Getting sick is the absolute worst, we should all be washing our hands way more often
Delayed gratification is almost always better than instant gratification (film photos!!)

I saw this quote today that resonated a lot. It's attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, I did some quick research and honestly this quote is probably more of a paraphrase than a direct quote but I still love it.

I once told my wife I was going out to buy an envelope: “Oh,” she said, “well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?” And so I pretended not to hear her. And went out to get an envelope because I have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is – we’re here on Earth to fart around.

Here's to another year of farting around.

Me farting around on a boat

Me farting around at a campfire with Alexa (and a cool mustache)

Me farting around in the dark

🧠 My thoughts on mental health

matt@denkthoughts.com — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Oh no I accidentally went over a year without writing a blog post hahaha oops.

Let's talk about mental health. I can't speak for everyone, but here are some thoughts / observations I've been mulling over lately:

I want to feel happy, relaxed, and fulfilled (AKA my personal definition of positive mental health)
Different activities in my life contribute either positively or negatively to my overall mental health
I frequently choose activities that negatively impact my mental health over activities that positively impact my mental health

Why would I choose to self-sabotage like that? What's the root of this weird contradiction, and how can I avoid it going forward?

Activity --> mental health impact

First, I want to break down how I view certain activities in my life, and how I feel they contribute to my long-term mental health. Please note this is a personal list based on my own lived experience - if you disagree with any of these, or have a different experience, that's totally okay.

Activity	Impact on mental health
Cleaning / tidying	Positive
Cooking	Positive
Exercising	Positive
Hiking	Positive
Journaling (blogging included)	Positive
Learning guitar	Neutral
Meditating	Positive
Playing board games / doing puzzles	Positive
Playing competitive video games	Negative
Playing relaxing video games	Positive
Reading fiction	Positive
Reading non-fiction	Positive
Reading the news	Negative
Scrolling social media	Negative
Spending time with friends	Positive
Stretching	Positive
Taking dog for walk	Positive
Watching documentaries	Positive
Watching TV / movies	Neutral
Working on house projects	Positive

Pretty big list! The first thing you might notice is there are many more Positive activities than Negative or Neutral ones. Shouldn't my mental health be consistently great then?

Brain stuff

I'm not an expert scientist, so this section might seem a bit fluffy. However, viewing my life within the context of this "framework" sure explains a lot, so I think there's still some merit here. For this next step, we need to take a look at all of the same activities, but contextualized in terms of how my simple monkey brain views them. I'm using the term "dopamine hit" as a way to categorize the immediate gratification / reward that my brain feels, which might not be totally scientifically accurate. I'm using a scale of 1-5 to roughly rank activities on a scale of Effort vs Immediate Reward.

Activity	Impact on mental health	Effort	Dopamine hit
Cleaning / tidying	Positive	4	2
Cooking	Positive	4	2
Exercising	Positive	2	2
Hiking	Positive	3	2
Journaling (blogging included)	Positive	3	1
Learning guitar	Neutral	4	2
Meditating	Positive	3	1
Playing board games / doing puzzles	Positive	3	3
Playing competitive video games	Negative	1	5
Playing relaxing video games	Positive	1	4
Reading fiction	Positive	2	4
Reading non-fiction	Positive	3	3
Reading the news	Negative	2	5
Scrolling social media	Negative	1	5
Spending time with friends	Positive	2	5
Stretching	Positive	3	2
Taking dog for walk	Positive	3	1
Watching documentaries	Positive	3	3
Watching TV / movies	Neutral	1	4
Working on house projects	Positive	5	1

In my view, it's all about misaligned incentives. OF COURSE I'm going to choose the activities that are optimized based on lowest effort for highest reward. Why wouldn't I? It makes perfect sense that my brain would seek those activities out, regardless of longer term effects.

Let's look at the exact same table, but sorted by Effort vs Dopamine ratio:

Activity	Impact on mental health	Effort	Dopamine hit
Playing competitive video games	Negative	1	5
Scrolling social media	Negative	1	5
Playing relaxing video games	Positive	1	4
Watching TV / movies	Neutral	1	4
Reading the news	Negative	2	5
Spending time with friends	Positive	2	5
Reading fiction	Positive	2	4
Exercising	Positive	2	2
Playing board games / doing puzzles	Positive	3	3
Reading non-fiction	Positive	3	3
Watching documentaries	Positive	3	3
Hiking	Positive	3	2
Stretching	Positive	3	2
Journaling (blogging included)	Positive	3	1
Meditating	Positive	3	1
Taking dog for walk	Positive	3	1
Cleaning / tidying	Positive	4	2
Cooking	Positive	4	2
Learning guitar	Neutral	4	2
Working on house projects	Positive	5	1

It's actually not surprising how closely this lines up with how I end up spending my time. It's a tough pill to swallow though, because even the activities towards the bottom of the table that are high effort and low reward are valuable, worthwhile, and important. How can I balance the conflicting portions of my brain - instant gratification vs. long-term mental health and fulfillment?

Availability

I believe my brain subconsciously constructs its own ranked table of available activities at any given time, and pushes me towards the easiest available reward. How can I move towards more positive mental health without rewiring my brain?

Lately, I've been experimenting with restricting availability, and it feels really promising. The idea is basically choosing certain days of the week where certain activities are entirely off-limits. This effectively changes which activities are rows in my table. Even though the activities' efforts and rewards haven't changed at all, I find my monkey brain simply choosing whichever rows show up closer to the top.

For example, imagine you decided that on Wednesdays, friends and screens are completely unavailable, because you want to be unreachable while spending time with family. Your available activities for the day might look like this:

Activity	Impact on mental health	Effort	Dopamine hit
Reading fiction	Positive	2	4
Exercising	Positive	2	2
Playing board games / doing puzzles	Positive	3	3
Reading non-fiction	Positive	3	3
Hiking	Positive	3	2
Stretching	Positive	3	2
Journaling (blogging included)	Positive	3	1
Meditating	Positive	3	1
Taking dog for walk	Positive	3	1
Cleaning / tidying	Positive	4	2
Cooking	Positive	4	2
Learning guitar	Neutral	4	2
Working on house projects	Positive	5	1

Ultimately, it just becomes so much easier to do a 3/2 activity when there aren't any 1/5 activities available as options.

Trying out this concept has felt great for a few reasons:

It doesn't completely remove activities from life permanently (after all, there are some great reasons to use screens)
I've started to feel bored again (I think being bored sometimes is essential for positive mental health)
I feel more in control of my life, since I'm able to be more intentional with my choices without my brain defaulting to "standard" activities
I feel that I'm building a richer life with more variety

Final thoughts

This brain dump is an attempt for me to clarify my thoughts about my own mental health. I'm sure the ideas here won't work for everyone, but I'm feeling excited and motivated to keep pondering on this topic. I think as a next step, I'll keep tweaking my schedule of available activities and finding the balance that feels right.

I want to make it clear that I don't view any of the activities listed above as inherently "good" or "bad". Life is all about trade-offs. Viewing the information like this helps me to understand what trade-offs I'm subconsciously making, which ultimately can help me be more intentional about the type of life I want to live. I will say it's pretty frustrating that certain aspects of society are specifically geared toward spiking the reward centers of our brains, making it easier to become addicted and harder to make intentional choices.

Anyway, rant over. If anyone has thoughts about this topic, I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading.

😩 There's too much to do...

matt@denkthoughts.com — Sat, 11 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Oops. It's May and my last blog post was in January. One of my resolutions for the year was to publish a blog post every month... failed that one pretty quick 😅

I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm juggling a million things at once. Here's what I mean:

Everything currently on my plate (or things I either want to or need to do)

Go to DMV
Read
Meditate
Write a blog post (lol here we are finally!)
Keep up with news / social media (already gave up on this one)
Lift weights
Run
Journal
Keep in touch with family / friends
Hang out with friends
Play video games alone
Play video games with friends
Sell or get rid of a bunch of stuff that we don't need
Do yard work (edge, mow, pick up walnuts, pick up sticks, pick up dog poop, pull weeds)
Plan a plethora of potential house projects
Work at my actual job, and do it well
Feed, walk, and play with Kodak
Plan and go on date nights
Replace some light bulbs
Buy a new smoke detector
Roll over multiple 401ks
Keep up with groceries and cooking
Keep the house somewhat clean
Replace air filter
Plan upcoming vacations
Get enough sleep
Stretch and wind down before bed to improve sleep quality
Keep up with new music
Keep up with new movies
Keep up with shows that everyone's talking about

I'm sure I could add some more stuff, but you get the point. I bet the list is even longer for all of the parents out there 👀

Checking in - are you doing okay?

What about you? Do you feel like there's too much to do and you're dropping the ball sometimes? Or do you feel like your plate is a little too empty and you have the capacity to take on more? How are you managing your busy life and schedule?

These are legitimate questions I have! If you're reading this, I would genuinely love to hear from you about this topic.

Maybe there are some secrets and life hacks I'm missing out on. Maybe the answer is slowing down and expecting less. Maybe the answer is getting less sleep. Maybe the answer is asking for more help. Maybe the answer is saying no more. Maybe there is no answer, and we all have to be okay with letting things slip through the cracks. Either way, please forgive me for not keeping up with my blog so far - there's just a lot to do, and not enough time in the day to do it all 😅

What's been helping lately

The default for my brain is to keep my entire to-do list swirling around in my head constantly. I've been working on this, and so far have found a couple things that are helping:

Meditating in the morning
Journaling at night

Meditation

I'm a beginner in this area, but I've been using the Headspace app and enjoying it so far. I've found that meditating helps me clear my head and empty out some of the unneeded thoughts that are in the back of my mind. I'll typically wake up, hit the gym, and then multitask a bit by meditating while I'm getting ready for the day. So far I think it's helping me be a bit more present and not worry about things that I won't have the bandwidth to address that day.

Journaling

Sometimes it's hard to fall asleep because of all the thoughts I have in my head. Something that's been helping me is to physically write everything down to get it out of my head and put it somewhere else. I recently bought a Kindle Scribe that I leave at my bedside table. Every night I get in bed and hand-write whatever's on my mind. It's mostly word-vomit and not very structured, but by writing down whatever comes to mind, it helps my brain let go and wind down.

Final thoughts

I want to make it clear that this post isn't a cry for help. Even though my life has ups and downs, overall it's great and fulfilling. That's what's crazy though - I have a ton of relative advantages compared to so many people, and I still get overwhelmed and feel like I'm dropping the ball in so many aspects of life. Modern society is full of incredible comforts and conveniences, but sometimes I wonder if we're all paying for that with anxiety and packed schedules. Now, please excuse me while I go tackle the next thing on my never-ending list 🙂

😤 Life lessons from diving

matt@denkthoughts.com — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

My diving career

I tried different sports growing up (tee-ball, basketball, soccer, even cheerleading), but none of them really clicked. Then in 5th grade, all of us students got sent home with flyers about the local springboard diving team. My dad saw the flyer in my backpack, and since I liked jumping on the trampoline so much, convinced me to give it a shot. While I didn't know it at the time, that was the beginning of my ~15 year journey in the sport!

Newspaper article in the Indy Star from 2006

Here's a rough timeline:

2003: started diving
2006: placed 7th at nationals for 1-meter springboard
2010: took a break because I was burned out
2011: joined BYU team
2012-2014: lived abroad, no diving
2015-2018: continued competing for BYU
2018-2019: assistant coach for BYU team after finishing eligibility

While diving definitely had its ups and downs (pun intended), I love it as a sport and it holds a special place in my heart. I think without diving in my life, a lot of my core personality traits these days would be pretty different.

A fun collage my teammate's Dad made back in the day

The biggest lesson I learned

Anyone who dedicates a significant amount of time to any sport (or hobby, or craft) will learn a ton along the way. I owe a lot to diving, as it taught me a lot about myself and what I'm capable of. It also taught me how to manage my emotions, exercise, stretch, lift weights with proper form, push myself, compete, crave criticism and improvement, be confident, be resilient after failure, and so much more.

With the benefit of a few years removed from the sport, as I reflect on it now, I think one particular lesson stands out the most. Diving, probably more than most other sports, forces you to continuously do things you don't want to do 💀. And not only that, you have to do those things well, with maximum effort.

I have some (not so) fond memories of being 21, staying out late on a Friday night with friends, and then having to go to a 7am platform practice. The water's freezing, I'm exhausted, but I have to be there. And I have to do platform, which I hate. And I have to learn a new hard platform dive. Fun, right? Even though I'm being dramatic and painting a bleak picture, I'm really glad I had to do that every weekend for years, because it taught me self-control.

So what's the lesson? I think it can be summarized in 2 parts:

1. Do things you don't want to do
2. Do those things well, with maximum effort

I think a lot of people understand the idea of self-control/discipline and are pretty good at point #1. However, let's be honest - it's really easy to half-ass something you don't want to do. In diving, you learn pretty quickly that it's a terrible idea to half-ass anything. If a diver gets up on the 3m springboard or the 10m platform and gives anything less than 100% effort, they're pretty much guaranteed to walk away with some gnarly bruises.

My highest scoring dive in a competition - 5154b on 3m

Applying that lesson elsewhere

Now that I'm a dover (get it?), I'm focused on trying to find success in other areas of my life. I think internalizing the concept of doing things I don't want to do (with maximum effort) has helped me stand out and progress in some of these other areas, especially my career.

I think for the most part, people thrive when they're doing work they're excited and passionate about. High quality outcomes follow naturally, because the work itself is rewarding and engaging. But what about when the work is boring, monotonous, invisible, or simply not fun? In my opinion, anyone who can figure out how to absolutely nail that type of work will succeed in whatever they decide to do.

In diving, each dive is scored by the judges on a 0-10 scale. What if our bosses or peers consistently scored our work with the same scale? Striving for perfect 10s on both the "fun work" and the "shitty work" is probably the most important general life advice I could offer to someone.

Conclusion

As I read some of this back, it feels weird that I'm trying to offer life advice. I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most successful person in the world by many metrics. I think it's important to distinguish inputs vs outputs in this case. We don't always have 100% control over outputs in life, but we do have 100% control over many inputs, especially effort. I hope everyone's main takeaway from this post is to try. We all have to do things we don't want to do - how much effort and care are you willing to invest into those things?

P.S. you're welcome for not including more Speedo pics, I found plenty 😅

📝 My thoughts on blogging

matt@denkthoughts.com — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

A new blog? Is it the early 2000s again?

Call me crazy, but I think blogging, or longer-form written content in general, is underrated these days. In a world filled with instant gratification and obnoxious visuals, it's easy to overlook plain text.

In this post (my first real one!) I hope to convince you to read more long-form content, or maybe even start writing your own!

Why I want to blog

I have a weird internal urge to create. Probably most of you reading this can relate, but I find that when I consume too much for too long, I feel unfulfilled and empty. Sometimes for me, the only way to fix that is by being creative or productive.

That's the main reason why I built this blog from scratch. I found myself between jobs, with a lot of free time, and surprisingly found that playing video games all day gets old after a while (I can't believe I just said that). Now that my blog site is built, I hope that writing blog posts can be a creative outlet for me when I feel the need to create rather than consume.

Something else that makes me want to start blogging is the concept of "learning in public". If you've ever taught something to someone else, you've probably realized that teaching is often the most effective way of learning. As I sit down to organize my thoughts or write a post about a subject, I'm confident that it will force me to learn more overall.

Why I built my blog from scratch

There are a ton of free blogging platforms available out there. Why'd I build my own? Because writing code and building things is fun 🤓

I had heard a lot of good things about the new-ish Astro web framework and wanted to give it a shot. Spoiler alert: it's pretty cool, and I would use it again for static, content-driven sites (even though I ran into some bugs along the way). I'm also enjoying the recent trend of people pushing for using the platform more. Maybe one day I'll write a blog post going more in depth on what my code looks like and how I went about building and designing my blog.

Lastly, I can be a bit of a control freak and wanted to completely own my site. This will allow me to keep it minimal, fast, and bloat-free. Plus, I think building a blog is basically a rite of passage for all software engineers, so this was long overdue 😅

Blogging vs. social media

Instead of blogging, another option would be to become more active on social media sites. Lots of people, especially in the tech community, post frequently on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and/or YouTube. I thought about it, but ultimately decided that blogging fits my lifestyle and personality more. I'm not interested in "gaming the algorithm" and trying to come up with content to grow my following or get better conversion metrics. I want to write for me.

This means writing posts when I want to, about what I want to. It's much more flexible and stress-free. And even if no one ever reads my blog, at least I'm scratching my itch to create.

Conclusion

Not everything in life needs to be instant. Longer form media is a net positive in the world. Even if you don't read my blog going forward, I would encourage you to try creating more than you consume. I think it's also worth consuming more long-form content (especially books), but that can be a topic for another day 😇