Transcript
Amanda (0:00)
I love to cook. I think the thing I love most about cooking is the instant gratification of it all. Like you have something right there that you get to eat and enjoy and you get to say, like, I finished it right, it's done, I did it. And there's also this like mad scientist energy of combining heat with sweet and fat and ending up hopefully with something awesome. And, and I like that it can be as creative as you want it to be. So almost every night I cook a full on dinner. And this work is motivated by a few things. Avoiding the packaging waste and the cost of takeout. The overall health implications of packaged and convenience food. The very needed break from desk work. Back before clothes horse cooking dinner was how I transitioned from my workday to relaxing until bedtime. And now usually I work, work, cook dinner and get back to work. But it's still, it's a nice break for my brain to do something different. And that said, cooking isn't relaxing per se. I mean, neither is gardening or having an aquarium or all these other things that people say are relaxing but really are just a time to do something different with our brains. And like these things, cooking is work. And sure, when it comes to cooking, the stakes are lower than most projects. There are still potential negative outcomes. For example, you could straight up set your hair on fire, which did happen to me a few years ago. And for those of you who play the Sims and you wonder why the Sims are always so terrible at dealing with kitchen fires, well, let me tell you from my firsthand experience that it turns out their reactions are kind of scarily accurate to what happened when Dustin and I were both in our tiny kitchen in Portland and my hair and dress were literally burning. There was a lot of flailing and screaming until I pushed Dustin out of the way and stuck my head under a running faucet. Fire is very scary. The thing about cooking, beyond the risk of burning up your hair, is that it's kind of a masterclass in multitasking. You're doing a lot of different things at one time and you're also managing a lot of information and you're also doing a lot of reacting, right? So it's just a lot is going on for your brain. I mean, when it's a full on holiday dinner party kind of situation, you know, you're managing different cooking times and prepping different items and trying to figure out what can fit in the oven when what needs to go on the stove, what needs to be refrigerated. And then you're also like setting the table and taking out the trash and managing the dirty dishes. It's super exhausting. But even just like a regular meal, there's a lot going on there. Like, one meal I make pretty regularly is this pad Thai recipe by the minimalist baker. I've been making it for years. I've made it so many times that, well, for one, I haven't memorized. But I also have my own customizations. Like, I air fry the tofu first. I add more spice and extra peanut butter along with, like, a ton of broccoli. I am that person who will look for a way to jam more broccoli into just about anything. So be warned if you ever eat at my house. But beyond the innovation of, like, tweaking recipes, there's a lot going on at the same time, right? The tofu's in the air fryer. I'm cooking rice noodles. I'm mixing up the sauce. I'm stir frying the vegetables. I'm also probably. Because this is how I roll, I'm probably loading the dishwasher at the same time, too, and wiping off the counters and cleaning out the fridge and doing any number of things. And I can all of these things at once because I know the recipe, and I'm used to juggling all of these moving parts at one time. Everything feels balanced and manageable to me, even though to an outsider, it might be like, oh, my God, how are you doing so many things at one time? If you know, you know. But you also know if you know that one added complication can make it all overwhelming and everything sort of falls apart. Like, let's say something does happen that makes it just a little bit more intense. Like, I spill the tea I'm drinking on the floor. Now everything is out of whack. I have to clean the floor. So I can't alternate between stirring the vegetables and monitoring the rice noodles. The vegetables might burn. The noodles might overcook. Everything could be ruined. Because if I don't have more rice noodles, well, then the whole meal is ruined, and then there's nothing to eat for dinner. And also, I've just wasted all of these ingredients. And these are the kinds of things that'll be going through my mind in a situation like this. Like, what am I gonna do? Everything is falling apart, and this sense of, like, panic and doom will set in and sort of anger at myself for spilling that tea, probably anger at Dustin for not coming downstairs to help me. And then it's just like, I can't function. Like, where do I even start, do I clean up the floor first? Do I check on the noodles first? Do I stir the vegetables first? I'm not even going to think about the tofu, because it seems safe over there in the air fryer. But if I really want to spiral, I could also wonder, hmm, did I set the time and temperature correctly? Should I be checking on that tofu? How do I work this into what I'm doing right now? Right? So here I am. I'm panicking. There's tea all over the floor. Things are potentially burning. Noodles are turning into mush. Tofu is turning into a brick. If I could just take 30 seconds to think it through, which does feel like a lot in the moment, my perspective can change, because suddenly I can see what I can do. I can see other potential outcomes. Like, for one, the noodles might not be overcooked. I could take a second to turn them off before I clean the floor. I could take the wok off the burner so the vegetables don't burn. And then I could clean the floor. If the rice noodles are already overcooked, I could make some rice, and we could just have a stir fry. If the vegetables are burned well, we still have tofu and sauce. So I have the start of a meal right there. And if the tofu is burned well, we can eat leftovers or quesadillas or any number of other things that could be thrown together pretty fast. And before I did that, I could clean up the floor. The point is, despite all of these questions, all these variables that I'm trying to juggle, all hope is not lost. I have the ability to change the trajectory of the situation and save dinner. But in order to do that, I need to have an accurate view of the current situation. You know, the status of the noodles, the vegetables, the tofu. And I also have to have clear ideas about what I can do to fix things. If everything truly has gone awry. I need to know what else I have in the pantry and in the refrigerator. I need to know how much time I have. I need to know if Dustin can come downstairs to help. Like, maybe he can mop the floor while I stir fry the vegetables. There. There are many solutions here, right? I also have to be engaged in wanting to improve the situation. I could be sitting there on the floor surrounded by spilled tea, and I could just say, fuck it, dinner's ruined. We go to bed hungry. I'm gonna mop this floor, and that's it. Or I could say, hey, we need to eat. Let's figure this Out. Both are a decision. I can be a dinner doomer or a dinner optimist. Well, my friends, this is not a podcast about cooking. And all of this cooking talk was really. It was really an elaborate metaphor to what we are experiencing right now in 2025. We are cooking that pad Thai, and we just spilled tea all floor. And, yeah, you know what? We did put the wrong timer on the air fryer. You know, let's just take it a step further. Somehow the power went out, too. So now the stove and the air fryer aren't working. I don't know. We are in extreme overload of bad. There's a lot of news to digest. The news cycle is crazy fast. Things can change within 12 hours. You know, example, all of the tariff stuff over the last week, it's really hard to suss out reality from fiction. And we don't know what we can do to help because there are too many things to worry about. And so it's hard to be okay right now, but it sure is easy to be overwhelmed, frightened, angry, trapped in a sense of powerlessness. And the pad Thai is burned to all hell. So this week, we're going to talk about how to be okay. How to manage the flow of accurate information into your life, how to take care of yourself, how to talk to people online, and how all of us can help out in a wide variety of ways. So, Julie, if you still listen to Clothesforce, you're probably going to want to skip this episode because we're barely going to talk about clothes. But for the rest of us, let's get down to some important business. Welcome to Clothes Horse, the podcast that really did briefly consider taking up some smoking cigarettes last week. That's just how stressed out I was. And then I was like, ew, I would smell so gross. Then I was like, oh, and people. People get into vaping now, right? They don't get into cigarettes. And then I was freaked out about all the plastic waste, and then I got kind of sad, decided maybe I wouldn't smoke anything. And so instead, I read a book. And you know what? It helped. It was a fiction book. It was fun. I had a great time. Anyway, I'm your host, Amanda, and this is episode 226. We're going to be talking about how to be okay whether you're facing fascism, climate change, plastic pollution, the fast fashion crisis, or all of these at once. In fact, how about just a show of hands for those of us who are dealing with all of this at one time? Can I raise two hands. It feels super extra right now. So before you listen to this episode, if you have not listened to the episode I put out a few weeks ago about Gymerism, I highly recommend it because I think these two nest together nicely. And we're going to have more conversations throughout this year about how we can be okay, how we can have impact, how we can stay motivated and optimistic and all of these other things. But I feel like these two are a great way to deal with what's happening right now in the world. So listen, you're not going to be shocked to hear that I am what they call a chronically online person, which means I spend a lot of time reading the Internet and specifically reading, like, I rarely watch videos. I just don't have patience for it unless I'm reading the captions and I have it on like two times speed. That's how I roll. Okay? I am resistant to TikTok addiction because of this. Like, it just doesn't do it for me. But man, I am reading a ton of news sites and blogs. I read a lot of subreddits, I follow various Facebook groups, and obviously I'm on the other social media platforms sharing information and talking to all of you. In fact, I'll just tell you, with so many people making the decision to leave the meta apps, you know, like Instagram, Facebook and Threads, I found the amount of labor I have to do every day to share information has doubled. Now, in addition to, you know, designing the posts, which usually takes a couple hours, along with writing the posts and then, you know, sharing them on Instagram, now I'm posting on TikTok and threads and Blue sky and Tumblr and now as of today, substack. Because honestly, so many people have reached out asking me to offer these options and I'm trying my hardest to do it. One thing I will tell you is that I'm basically, I'm not responding to DMs on Instagram or other platforms for the foreseeable future. I have been in this mode all year where I'm just like, there's not enough time in the day between my actual, like paying work and closed source stuff. And having to post on all these platforms really does add up. And last week I did something that, you know, I honestly would have anyone who's worked for me in the past do when they were struggling with their workload. I tracked how much time I was spending on different tasks every day to kind of see like, where's the time going and what can I cut out and I will tell you, on average, this is so depressing. Are you ready? I spend about two hours a day responding to DMs, and it's because for every, like, nice, easy, like, oh, here's this cute cat photo dm, I get, I get three more that are super complex and require, like me searching for information for people, finding episodes for them, you know, answering really complicated questions, and, you know, five minutes here, 10 minutes there, suddenly you're two hours deep, two hours gone for that day. And I just, I can't do that right now. This is, you know, this is why people have social media managers or assistants who handle that kind of stuff. And I'm just not there yet. So taking a break from that. Of course, anytime you have something important you want to tell me or ask me, you can absolutely email me. My email is in the show notes of every single episode. It is on my website, it is on my social media profiles. You can find me very easily via email. The other thing I'll tell you is that one of the most common messages I get is, have you ever done an episode about xyz? And anytime one of you reaches out to me to ask me that or asks me if I've ever done a post about it, what have you? Do you know how I find the answer? I Google it. Because we're like 220something episodes deep. I have been working on this for close to five years. My brain has been filled with so much information in those years, I cannot remember off the top of my head these episode numbers or when I posted that thing. And so I have to search for it and then send you the links. So one thing that I was doing to make my life easier is I started this is such nerd alert right here. I started optimizing the SEO for every episode and Instagram caption, etc. So that I could just easily search the Internet and find answers for people. Searching the Internet for my own work. I know this is the world we live in, okay? And then it occurred to me, like, wait, everyone else can just search too, right? So I'm telling you now, if you've ever been like, has closed source ever done this? Or what was that episode? Or I remember seeing this post, Just do an Internet search because you're probably going to find it. And I'll also just add here that while I generally have been trying to move away from Google because of all the AI and just my feelings about Google, I still use the full G suite of products to work every day. So it's Never going to be perfect. I will tell you that I did sort of an AB test using different search engines before I decided to tell you all about this SEO stuff. And I will say that if you're just looking for an episode, you can use just about any search engine. Just be sure to be like, why do clothes fit so badly clotheshorse podcast? Or why is she in bad Clothesh podcast or whatever. Always include clotheshorse podcast in your question. Just about any search engine is going to get you to the podcast episode. But if you are looking for social media posts for reasons that I do not know, Google will generally find those for you. Like they seem to have archived somehow all Instagram content and things like that. So always include closed source podcasts when you search. But in most situations you're going to be able to find what you're looking for. And if you still can't find it, of course email me because either I didn't cover it yet and it might be interesting or or something about that particular episode could use some more love with the SEO. Anyway, all of that to say is that like, oh my God, I am on so many social media platforms right now it feels like my brain is going to explode. And being on all of these different platforms makes it very easy to just doom scroll in even more places throughout the day. And if you're like, okay, but like, what is doom scrolling? Well, the good yet sad news is that doom scrolling is so prevalent that it has its own Wikipedia page where it is defined as the act of spending an excess amount of time reading large quantities of news, particularly negative news. Now, I will tell you, I never am like, you know what sounds like a really great time to me is to sit down and read things that make me so upset. And I'm sure you've never opened an app with the expressed desire to encounter large quantities of negative news. But the reality is that all algorithms tend to not favor good news, right? Like algorithms function via engagement. The more likes or comments and shares a piece of content gets, the more people get to see it. And guess what gets the most engagement? Upsetting content. Outrage posts. Bad news. Clickbait. Controversial takes. I don't think anyone has woken up one morning and said, you know what? I'm going to become a content creator and I'm only going to share the most upsetting shit possible. And you know what? I'll be famous overnight. It's going to be great. But what does happen is this sort of feedback loop. A creator posts something upsetting, sees the great engagement, the follower Count increasing. And of course they are motivated to post more of the same kind of thing. It's not necessarily done with ill intentions. It's human nature to be rewarded for something and then do that thing again and again and again. Right. And so of course we see a lot of upsetting things on social media. And to be clear, platforms like Instagram, Threads and TikTok are paying content creators to post high engagement content. Not people like me who are in that liminal space of wow, I spend a lot of time creating content and wow, this is my full time job. I'm talking about the big accounts out there. They are absolutely being paid. I see people on Threads talking all the time about how much they are being paid each month by threads. When TikTok was going down, I saw a lot of conversation about the same thing. People making like 15, 20, $30,000 a month from TikTok. Yeah, it feels weird to me. Like on one hand I'm happy that people can make a living doing what they like, but on the other hand, I see how people are incentivized to post unverified information, hot takes, incendiary shit, and so much more. When you know that people are actually being paid to share content that will upset people because it gets the most engagement. And once again, I don't think anybody's intentionally thinking that way, but that's what's happening. Well, you start to see how your feed can be a certain way. Right. Another example I will just share here that has nothing to do with good news or bad news, except for, you know, bad news for the planet is Stanley cups, you know, the reusable tumblers. And it seemed like out of nowhere, it was the hottest thing you could buy. Influencers were showing them nonstop. People were fighting one another at Target for limited edition ones. People were having entire walls in their house that were just different colors of Stanley cups. And it felt, I mean, I don't know about you, but it felt so random to me because I was like, these are reusable cups and they're like, not even that cute. And listen, one of my clients gave me an amazing Oala reusable drinking bottle for Christmas, which was great because I really needed one. My other one was leaking beyond control. And this thing is pretty sick, right? And this is not an ad, by the way, but like, keeps my drink really cold. It's huge. It feels really sturdy. Fine. So listen, I can get why someone would buy a Stanley cup because it's high quality and lasts a long time and you know, really insulates your drinks and all those things. And we all need to drink more water. So fine, Great. What was shocking to me is how absurdly trendy it became super fast. And then I learned something that was super interesting. Influencers and content creators who posted Stanley Cups and had like an affiliate code that they could share with their followers. They were getting 10% of every purchase that customers made. Now you're like, is 10% good or bad? I'll tell you, it is based on my research, extremely high. Most influencers, content creators, et cetera, are not getting paid that high of a percentage off of a purchase. And furthermore, Stanley Cups are not cheap, right? So it was really easy to make a lot of money by posting about Stanley Cups quite often, which is what Stanley wanted. And so it sort of created this narrative that influencers and other people who you respect love Stanley Cups. You should get one too. But the real thing happening behind the scenes was these people love Stanley Cups because they get 10% of everyone you purchase, right? And so right there, once again, that intersection of money and content creation meant that we were seeing a lot of posts about these cups, and before long, we're buying them too. And it's not dissimilar to you, seeing a lot of extremely outrageous, upsetting, negative content in your feed and maybe getting the feeling that, like, the world is collapsing around you. Right? What makes it more complicated is that we, as humans, like in our brains, we are programmed to like bad news. Believe it or not. Part of this is what is called negativity bias. Basically, negative things have a greater effect on our mental state, even when compared to good things of the same intensity. Like, maybe you get a promotion you've worked so hard for and you're so excited and you're so proud of yourself. But on the same day, someone on the Internet, like a total stranger, gets into a fight with you, even though the promotion that you worked so hard for, right, should be the headline news in your brain that day, you're going to spend a lot more time thinking about that Internet argument. From an evolutionary perspective. We want to know bad possible outcomes so we can avoid them. Early humans would want to know, for example, that a neighbor had been attacked by a tiger. Maybe it was a saber toothed tiger. I don't know. Pick your flavor. Maybe it's a lion. Anyway, they would want to know that. Not because they were, like, glad to see that their neighbor got attacked, but rather so that they could cook up their own plan to avoid that fate for themselves. In fact, early humans would actively seek out upsetting news so that they could protect themselves. And it makes sense, right? Well, today we're still seeking out bad news without knowing it. And that is why we engage with that kind of content more. And then the algorithm serves even more of it to us. Our unconscious desire for this is still based in that like evolutionary tendency to like survive via bad news. One thing is like fomo, that fear of missing out. We don't want to be the only person who doesn't know the bad stuff because then we are more vulnerable. It's also about control. We feel like we have more control over our lives if we know bad things. Gathering information makes us feel less powerless in situations that tend to make us feel, well, powerless. You know, climate change and fascism, the big things feel more manageable when we know a lot of bad news about it. It's kind of wild, right? The thing is, of course, man, human brains are so complicated and weird and we are all a bunch of weirdos. I just want to say, because we want to know bad news to kind of feel more in control of things, right? But also study after study has shown what we already know anecdotally as humans on the Internet, doom scrolling exacerbates anxiety, fear, sadness, and it even leads to destructive behaviors like substance abuse, shopping addiction, gambling, suicidal ideation, self harm and other so called coping mechanisms that are actually really bad for us. And beyond even that, doomscrolling eats up a lot of time. It's so easy to sit down for a few minutes on your phone and look up an hour later. So then we have even less time. And you know, in late stage capitalism times like right now, we already really struggle to balance getting everything done every day, right? Because we work so much. Well now you lost an hour from doom scrolling and now you don't have the time that you need to do other stuff, right? Chores, work, talk to friends, eat, sleep. And not having that time takes a major toll on our mental and physical health. And then this exacerbates our feeling of doom and powerlessness. Like if I'm stressing out because I'm out of clean socks because I didn't have time to do laundry, how can I be expected to solve the world's problems? It's sort of like the bad feelings of doom scrolling lead to more bad feelings because there's even more personal stuff to worry about. And then it's almost like we feel less in control of the situation despite our brains telling us that knowing all this bad news means we're in control of it. And so feeling even more out of control, more powerless, it makes us more depressed, anxious, all of the bad things, right? It seems like we need to control doom scrolling, right? Like it's kind of one of the first things we need to check off if we're going to be okay. Well, there are a lot of different things you can do. I mean, there are, for example, a variety of apps that will shut down your access to social media based on the limits you put in place. I'm going to share an article in the Show Notes that goes through all of those different ones. I'll tell you, I have tried some of these in the past and you know what it made me do? Well, I can't look at XYZ on my phone, so I guess I'll just go get my laptop or my iPad or ask Dustin to look it up or whatever. So apps may work for you, but you also have to have like serious discipline. You can also buy this device called the Brick that will allow you to put time limits on various apps and then cut you off when you hit those limits. I have a friend who has one of these and she loves it. So I'll share that link in the show notes for you. But once again, you have to have the self control to not then go get out your laptop. Right? You can also just say, hey, I'm setting an alarm for 15 minutes from now and then I'm going to go put the phone down when it goes off and that's going to be the end of it. And once again, you just need to trust yourself to stick to that. Other experts recommend picking a specific time each day when you do just get to sit down and scroll the Internet, maybe while you're eating lunch or when you get home from work. Once again, set aside a specific amount of time and stick to it. Also, experts recommend that you do not choose first thing in the morning when you first wake up or right before bed because doom scrolling during those time periods is actually super bad for your brain and its health. Even more important beyond like controlling the time here, right is thinking about controlling the input and output of our brains. Writer Caitlin Kunkel writes about this on her sub stack. It's called Input and output. I'll share the link to that in the Show Notes. Basically, you can't be creative or productive if you aren't actively adding new sources of inspiration and information and creativity into your brain. And I actually have always believed this super strongly. Like if you're a painter, yes, you need to look at other paintings, right? And you need to paint, but you also need to read books and spend time outside and see films and experience life in order to grow and create better and better work. Well. Really, the same goes for all of us, no matter what we do. Like, yeah, I read and think a lot about sustainability, but I'm also reading fiction books and listening to podcasts about history and going to museums and listening to epic playlists of music and talking to friends. It helps me find inspiration for everything else I do. I'm not suggesting that you meet some sort of like quota for inputting other stuff into your brain, but rather make it a point to read a book before bed rather than jumping into your phone, which is something I've been doing lately and it has really enhanced my quality of life. Spend Friday night watching a movie like Dustin has a Criterion Subscription, which has really upgraded our entertainment options here. And the kinds of movies that we're watching are not ones where I can also scroll my phone at the same time, which means I actually have like a more immersive and inspiring experience. Go check out a museum or learn about birds or try a new craft. Make a music mix for a friend. Play a board game. Do something that doesn't involve your phone or social media. Something that has nothing to do with the news. A friend was telling me that what she likes to do is when they watch a movie or a TV show like her and her partner, she does embroidery while they're watching it and it's just like nice to only have one screen to look at. It kind of keeps her more in the moment, but it also like keeps her hands busy which strangely keeps her focused. So these are all things that we can do to kind of keep ourselves out of our phones. Honestly, all of this is like very important. Self care. We'll come back to self care in a few minutes, but you know, we have to take care of ourselves if we're going to, you know, survive and make the world better. Right?