One frustration with severe anxiety is that at some point, you realize you can no longer “trust your gut” on a lot of issues. I remember getting on a plane for the first time since COVID and being ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED I was going to die on the first leg of the flight, just falling out […]
Anxiety Doesn’t Know the Difference Between Difficulty and Dying Read More »
Found this old essay from February of 2022. This was previously locked to Patreon subscibers, but when I unearthed it I realized it captured a turning point in my life that felt deeply relevant to the current time period, too. This was about the time I quit drinking and started changing a number of inputs
The Last Few Years Broke Our Sense of Time. Here’s How I Started Rebuilding It. Read More »
I recently watched a documentary about that reaffirmed many changes I made last few years to my mental outlook (I read a LOT of brain books the last few years). Brains are hallucination engines. If the story is the world is shit, everything is fucked, our brains reframes every interaction. It sucks up all the
“We’re Fucked” Feels Like a Profound Insight. It’s Actually a Trap. Read More »
CONTENT CAUTION: Contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 5 and discusses childhood emotional and physical abuse. When I was a child, I lived with a monster. He slept in the big room at the back of my grandmother’s house during the day and only came out at night. Unless you woke him up. Unless
We Are the Stranger Things Read More »
This update went out in my most recent newsletter. If you’d like to get updates like this, sign up for The Hurley Cut: Story & Power. Somewhere between 2011 and 2020, I lost my way. I’ve been trying to untangle exactly what happened: mistakes made, near-misses, lucky breaks lost, poor choices. I was building a
I Broke Apart. I Came Back Better. Read More »
Once you start reading Stranger Things as one big allegory for child abuse, the whole thing hits real different. I have my snark about the slog of the editing and endless two-up talking scenes, but as a single piece of work, looking back on the whole thing, it’s a really ambitious show. With that kind
Imperfect Ambition Over Grinding Perfection Read More »
This year I saw stark difference between Idea People vs Doer People. The Idea people were generally used to being managers. They would talk and talk about what SHOULD be done, but when asked the plan for DOING it w/resource constraints, would hem and haw and throw up hands and say it was impossible. Then
Idea People vs Doer People Read More »
I’ve been on the struggle bus with female MC in this new book. I keep trying to make her less monstrous than other Hurley heroines, and is it any wonder that’s been a struggle? ? At this point in my life, I really need to stop fighting my urge to “differentiate” and just go full
On Pulling Your Creative Punches Read More »
Finished up this delightful book nook build that spouse got me for Xmas. It was soothing blend of Lego building and puzzle making that I found extremely satisfying, promoting extreme focus and deep work that magically settled anxiety. Now I understand the “old people working on puzzles” stereotype. Scrolling and screens have hijacked an enormous
Breaking Out of the Screaming Social Prison Read More »
This how they did in my day job team in Jan. The roundup here is a good compilation of the impacts on the people at ground zero in the LLM wars. The job kept the team intact long enough to train bots, then fired 75% of them. If you wonder why I have clear eyed
When We Lost the AI Wars Read More »