Stale Tortillas
Where will they take us this time? Let's go on a journey together.
This week I bought a bag of tortilla chips. I know what you’re thinking, “here we go again 🙄”, but I insist we chat about this.
I buy Neal Brothers chips with flax seeds in them. I once took a cooking class over Zoom during the pandemic and the instructor said that this variation has more fibre in it which makes it a relatively healthy choice in the junk food spectrum.
So there was one set of chips lower down to the left, where I picked my bag up from, and I noticed there was another set of chips of the same variant to the upper right. I was close to checkout so I didn’t bother to check the expiry dates on my bag. But after leaving the store, I realized that there was a clue in there. The fact that the same chip was sitting in two locations is a massive red flag.
I have still not checked the dates at this point and I get in the car. I’m really hungry so I decide to do the thing where you dip into your stash on the way home. The car is running, the wheels are turning, and the bag is open.
On my first bite everything comes together like the end of The Usual Suspects from 1995. The bag that I bought was supposed to have a 50% off sticker on it because it is expiring on August 19th. Of course they are stale. And I paid full price.
If I was on foot I would’ve turned around and exchanged the chips. But I’m moving man. I’m navigating crowded streets in a motorized vehicle that kills humans and squirrels. Onward we go, we’ll figure this out later.
I hang onto the receipt with the intention of going back to exchange the chips within a day. I have to resist eating the chips because you can’t return a bag that’s half eaten and say they’re stale.
One day turns into two, two turns into three. Just like all grudges and vendettas in life, the receipt is taking up space on my counter. The uneaten chips are squatting on valuable real estate in my cupboard. Are we going in on this mission or not, Jack Reacher?
Four days later I submit. You won, health food store. You got away this time. But next time, I’m checking those dates like a cranky lawyer.
The moral of the story: The chips are stale. This is a given. Yet the longer you fixate on what’s wrong here, the more stale they will get.
If for only a moment you can tap into the miracle it is that you walk around buying whatever food you want, then at that exact point in the movie you will start living and stop grumbling.
When I’m upset or depressed, I like to rename the experience as low on gratitude.
Three Ideas from My Notebooks
There is no instruction manual in life. With Ikea furniture you get an instruction manual because that object is designed and manifested. Your life is the opposite though. The instruction manual is being written through experience.
Your biggest blocker is like a gym. It’s your responsibility to show up and work through the stiff muscles and the cardio that needs a bit of a jolt. Show up to your biggest challenges every day (“The obstacle is the way”1).
Innovation is emulation, but with your own signature on it. Uber emulated a taxi service with the signature of a GPS app.
A long archive of the ideas are located in The Ideas Index:
🎶 Music Recos: Polyphia + Pioneers of Classical Guitar 🎶
I have been playing nylon-stringed classical guitar since 2018, so I kept seeing the name and face of Tim Henson in my browsing over the past few years. Especially since he got a signature model Ibanez designed after him which is how guitarists are crowned these days as having “made it”.
I finally took some time to listen to his band and I was shocked at how meticulous these people are at crafting instrumental music that simply rips. I love this channelling of machismo flamenco into modern-day rock and glitch-hop.
Would it become my daily listening? No, but it’s always worth tuning into good music.
I recently uncovered some compilations that have a ton of early recordings of classical guitar. So I put these into its own playlist on Spotify.
Thanks for reading today, have a great week ahead 🧡🥯🧡
Elliott
This is the title of a book on Stoicism by Ryan Holiday but I don’t really jive with this particular author. A good alternative is this short book called The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness by Sharon Lebell