Category: musings

life-mods, musings1 Comment

Stop Misusing Your Imagination and Free Yourself

Jeff Ammons

Every once in a while someone hands me a phrase that changes my life. Sometimes it’s a new way of looking at things or a distilled concept wrapped up in a way that lets me carry it around and brandish it when needed. My dad recently gave me one of these which fits both of these categories and has changed my life. I was talking to him about my difficulties in opening conversations with women I find attractive but yet don’t know. (I’m guessing most of you guys out there have had this experience.) Suppose you’re at a party and … Continue reading Stop Misusing Your Imagination and Free Yourself

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Changing Things Up

Jeff Ammons

I’ve spent a lot of my life since graduating high school moving to different places. Here’s a quick rundown for reference: Graduate after spending the first 17 years of my life in Missoula Move to Thailand for a year Move back to Missoula for 4 months Move to Washington for school for 9 months Back to Missoula for 3 months Back to Washington for 6 months Germany for 5 months Back to Washington for 12 months Seattle for 3 months Back to Washington for last 9 months of school Off to Los Angeles for 2 1/2 years (one inter-city move … Continue reading Changing Things Up

biology, life-mods, musings, Uncategorized2 Comments

It Takes Two to Benefit Cortisol and Testosterone levels

Jeff Ammons

I’ve recently taken up learning tango dancing as a new hobby. I’ve been doing it for several months now and have to say that it’s quite enjoyable. I mentioned to someone in conversation how when I dance, I feel very elated afterwards, and they remarked that there’s probably quite the testosterone response from tangoing. Not being one to let a good opportunity for over-examination go to waste, I did a quite good search for articles on tango and hormone release. Turns out that one exists. Here’s a link to an abstract. The study tested levels of both salivary cortisol and … Continue reading It Takes Two to Benefit Cortisol and Testosterone levels

life-mods, musings, Uncategorized2 Comments

Life-Mod: Physical State-Anchoring

Jeff Ammons

I was recently watching a video on YouTube about how to spot a liar and toward the end of the movie, the guy mentioned something interesting. He has physical cues for himself which he uses to trigger certain states. Touching his pointer finger to his thumb recalls the state of meditation for him which helps him suppress micro-expressions when he’s negotiating. He also will raise his right big toe when he needs to remind himself to be patient with people that he doesn’t care for. Hearing this set me to wondering: could I train myself to recall or trigger certain … Continue reading Life-Mod: Physical State-Anchoring

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Locational Filtering

Jeff Ammons

If you wanted to find fish, where would you go? Certainly not the desert. Despite trying to avoid this for as long as possible, I’m going to devote a post (partially) to some of my thoughts on romantic relationships. Luckily this concept applies to more than just meeting women though. It just happened to occur to me while thinking about picking up women in a grocery store. To set the scene: I recently went grocery shopping at both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, and as I often do, I was checking out women in the store (in a non-creepy way … Continue reading Locational Filtering

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Happiness and Improvement

Jeff Ammons

As humans, we have a constant desire to improve our lots in life (well most of us do anyways). Improvement makes us happy, or perhaps it’s lack of improvement that makes us unhappy. Either way, it’s a good survival adaptation. It stands to reason that the humans with a stronger instinct to improve themselves and their surroundings would become those with better housing during a blizzard or more food during a period of drought. I think it likely that this sense has been bred into us by natural selection. It manifests itself in strange places though. Now that many of … Continue reading Happiness and Improvement

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Making something of infinity

Jeff Ammons

Let’s start off with some XKCD: I go through a mid-life crisis about every 2-3 months. I probably think too much about everything, but I can’t help it, so I might as well make the most of it. Actually my usual crisis is something along the lines of the comic above. Because we only get one path through life’s infinite possibilities, every second that passes narrows our field of possible outcomes, so I might as well make them count right? In this string of causality that is daily life, introspection into the routine is important. Maybe I’m already making good decisions, … Continue reading Making something of infinity

musings, Uncategorized2 Comments

Fooling Ourselves

Jeff Ammons

Recently, someone sent me an interesting article which discussed looking for love. The article was primarily about how to find people that you can connect with in a significant and intimate way. At the end of the article, it presents you with a short task which involves writing down all the traits which you would find desirable in someone whom you’re romantically involved with. It then has you pare down your list with a few different tactics. All seems pretty logical and reasonable right? Well around the same time as I read that article, I happened to also be reading … Continue reading Fooling Ourselves