2026-02-11 19:31:00
You’ve probably noticed the vinyl, film and digital cameras, journaling, scrapbooking and even retro gaming resurgence. You might call that a “trend” but when you look at the way it lines up with history, it becomes far more than that. Humanity has been here before, after periods of chaos, upheavel and global trauma, people naturally retreat into slow, tactile, curated experiences that they themselves alone can control. Think of it as a modern day Renaissance.
Back then, people like Federico de Montefeltro or even Galileo kept notebooks full of sketches, observations and reflections; a mix of science, art, and personal notes. Just like in today’s world where people keep diaries, journals and notebooks for a myriad of different things. Its the same instinct: documenting life, reflecting, planning, and playing with visuals and our own words in a very tactile, hands-on way.
In the same vain, Renaissance folks loved collecting and creating visual records of people, landscapes, and objects and they often did so in really vibrant colours. Photography using a real film camera gives us that same deliberate image-making experience; you have to really think about the shot, wait for the film to be developed, and then handle real print and storage. The delay and tangibility mirrors old-school etchings and miniature paintings people would often do in their Studiolos.
In the Renaissance, people didn’t just listen to music they interacted with it; copying manuscripts, practicing instruments, and curating their personal collections of scores. Modern vinyl collecting is more or less the same, and it isn’t just about sound quality either, it’s about curating, handling, and appreciating a tangible medium of music, and ritualising the whole listening experience.
Artists and artisans in the Renaissance had workshops and studiolos where every tool and material was chosen and used with intention. Today, people doing book-binding, calligraphy, pottery, crochet or even model making are recreating that hands-on, full immersive studio experience; you physically touch your medium of choice, control it directly right in front of you, and produce something entirely unique that carries a piece of you.
People like Ulisse Aldrovandi collected specimens, documented flora and fauna, and kept meticulous notes in their studiolos. Modern analogue nature hobbies such as birding and insect collecting (including photography and sketches), or just taking handwritten field notes echo this desire to slow down, to observe carefully and with thought, and to curate a pool of knowledge physically that withstands the test of time and the internet.
In short, the “analogue renaissance” is humanity’s natural refex after years of abstraction. We crave slower, tactile, curated and intentional spaces that belong to us. It gives us control in an otherwise chaotic and unpredictable world; Just like people did in the past. Some of the tools might have changed, but the brain and heart are basically identical. This is a very human response to the world we live in.
2026-02-11 05:25:40
I had a busy day today and one of the things on my calendar was to go to the dentist.
I finally got the glue for my retainers taken off today.
And they showed me a scan of my teeth, before and after.
It was crazy seeing my before because I do not remember it being that bad.
It's wild how quickly you forget where you started once you're past it.
And I think that's true for everything.
I can barely recognize that version of myself before I became who I am now.
And that's the proof you're growing.
The fact that my "before" feels so foreign now means I’ve actually changed.
Most people don't stop to appreciate that.
They just keep moving, keep grinding, keep chasing the next thing.
But every now and then, I think it's worth looking back.
Seeing where you once were.
Not to get comfortable.
But to remind yourself that progress is real even when it doesn't feel like it.
2026-02-11 02:46:09
i am the oldest of the Gen-Z. I remember what it was like to use Facebook back in the day. I was too young for MySpace. I remember logging onto Facebook after a day of school to see which of my friends were online. What did they post? What game were they playing? Mobile apps weren't a thing.
Oh and I am old enough to remember I could actually run out of things to see on my feed. You could actually reach the end of your feed. Crazy right? You didn't have a sea of endless content waiting for you at all times.
Corporations hadn't taken over the feed, there were no influencers. No content creators. Maybe I am viewing it through the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia, there are certainly positives to what we have today but the negatives far outweigh them. People are so ready for a new kind of 'social media'. And players are starting to fill up that space. See PI.FYI for example. Even on BearBlog, we have a community here. I visit Bearblog far more frequently than I visit Instagram these days. (I get overstimulated easily and instagram/tiktok is the final boss of overstimulation.)
Most of us have lost confidence in these big tech companies, and there's very litle they can do to win it back. I guess this is my prediction for 2026 and beyond, more and more people are going to move to slower and more tight-knit social media spaces.
2026-02-11 01:38:00
this system seems to think that if it keeps creating new controversies, atrocities, and escalations, that i’ll forget about the old ones
???
you’re not going to convince me that raping children on epstein island is bad but killing them in gaza is ok
i’m not trying to have my every moral standard annihilated by career politicians and corporate media
???
if a politician rapes or kills children, that’s all i need to know about them
no way they can possibly represent me, or make laws for me to follow that aren’t a joke
???
i’m not impressed if a lawmaker criticizes ice but doesn't lift a finger to stop it
i don't think that democrats helping republicans to triple ice's funding is going to reduce ice violence even if a puerto rican plays at the super bowl
???
schumer, harris, newsom, jeffries, their whole corrupt party apparatus and media operatives want me to believe that certain genocides are ok
???
isn’t it funny how the government offers so many gory details of their past violence and sex crimes on epstein island
but no gory details on their current violence and sex crimes in palestine
???
i’m told it’s unrealistic to ask lawmakers and businesses to take actual action to stop genocide or ice
but it is realistic to give votes and money to lawmakers and businesses who support genocide and ice, and then expect them to turn around and change their minds once in power or wealth
???
it’s not like democrats and republicans don’t realize how hellishly far to the right they are of most americans on all the major existential issues facing humanity, whether it’s ice, policing, war, genocide, fossil fuels, healthcare, minimum wage, wall st, a.i.
it’s not like they’re about to figure it out, if only we would just go easy on them
???
human trafficking and genocide were basic to the country’s success and still are
money is king and life is disposable
meanwhile power wants you obsessed with a few paid actors playing “bad apples”
and totally ignorant of the depraved system they epitomize
???
power is not afraid of public anger as long as it’s disorganized or channeled into the super bowl and the public thinks that this will have any affect on policy
obviously power knows how to monetize anger and is doing so very profitably
???
this system can withstand tremendous amounts of hate
obsessing over every utterance of the attention whore in the white house did not make him less powerful
it gave him free publicity and got him elected
???
each new scandal is a test to see how much this system can get away with
this system is designed to handle tremendous waves of anger and hate, as long as they don’t disrupt the operation of the system
keep scrolling, keep arguing amongst ourselves, keep buying from corporations and voting for duopoly
meanwhile policies keep moving to the right year after year
???
one advantage of creating public anger, panic and confusion is it keeps the public perpetually glued to electronic screens, waiting in suspense for politicians and corporations to provide them with answers they never give
???
another advantage of creating public anger, panic and confusion is that it makes public violence more likely, which helps create a pretext for profitable arrests or murders
???
what power fears most is a public that’s savvy enough to see through their propaganda techniques, can remember things powerful people have done before the latest scandal, and can synthesize randomly shocking headlines into a logical narrative, and who takes matters into their own hands
!!!
2026-02-10 12:59:00
Hey, hi, hello.
Fun fact: One of this blog's readers shared February 3's post on her LinkedIn because she understands that when you're having one of those days, it's useful to read that about how other people kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
Moving on... do you remember when your teacher would show you a movie and it was the best day ever? And then later, remember when you realized it was likely because that teacher was hungover or otherwise ill-prepared to teach? Anyway, for reasons related to family and emotional fatigue I'm going to do something like that today but instead of dusting off an old VHS copy of Three Amigos I'm going to link you to a YouTube video I keep coming back to: Anthony Gramuglia's Elon Musk Doesn't Understand Cyberpunk.
Enjoy! I'm going to bed.
🌲 gonna zzzzzzz
🌼 go zzzzzzzzzzz
🌱 touch zzzzz
🌳 grass zzzzzz
🌷 zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Be good to yzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
==If you enjoyed this post, click the little up arrow chevron thinger below the tags to help it rank in Bear's Discovery feed and maybe consider sharing it with a friend or on your socials.==
2026-02-10 11:31:04
I'm 30 years old and am finally ready to get back into the dating pool. Or so I thought. A brief backstory: I dated my high school boyfriend on-and-off long-distance until I was 26 (don't worry, I know). At 28, I paused most things in my life to go to therapy and get healthy. Right before I turned 30, I finished my second master's degree (last spring).
I took several months to figure out who I was outside of school, what my hobbies are, what my nervous system feels like without the stress of graduate school and homework.
Last month, and thanks to encouragement from a friend, I got back on the dating apps. I finally felt ready. In the first week, I met a really nice guy who had a ton of green flags. But there just wasn't a spark. And I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed to have to respond to his texts and make plans to go out with him. It felt like a chore.
I cut things off with him within 3 weeks before things went any further, because I could tell he was really into me, and I just didn't feel the same way.
The whole experience was overall positive--it was nice to be treated well by a man for the first time ever. But it made me realize that early dating is a ton of work. Swiping through 20 terrible profiles and 5 decent profiles that just aren't for you, only to find 1 profile that you somewhat vibe with, is such a massive time sink. And I try not to be on my phone a lot but when you just start talking to someone, there's a lot of texting and phone calls. And then there's all the second-guessing during initial dates: is this guy not a good conversationalist or he is just nervous? Or does he really like the same thing that I like or is he just trying to be agreeable?
It's a lot of work. I've spent the majority of my adult life single (on-and-off long-distance doesn't really count for much). And I've built a life that I'm really fulfilled by: I love my career, I have two amazing friend groups (one back home that I talk to every day through Discord, and one in-person group in my city). My parents live close by, I have a cute house, the sweetest dog, incredibly fulfilling hobbies that get me out in nature and into the community.
I'm not giving up on dating, but I might give up on online dating. It just feels a little forced. I'd rather meet someone organically while volunteering or something. Someone who's interested in the same thing as me, hence why we're both doing the same thing at the same time. And I know the pool will decrease and it might take me longer to find my someone. But I don't need to find my someone, and I don't need to find them right this second. I want to find a life partner that I can share my life with, but I've built a life that's fulfilling. If someone doesn't add to that, then they take away from it. And that's no fun.
I don't know if this stream of consciousness has made any sense. I'm caught between being in a modern world where the sentiment of "you don't need no man!" gets thrown around like a motivational quote, which can be empowering to women. But at the same time, we are social creatures and lifelong romantic love sounds really nice. I guess I'm just trying to find the balance, the in-between. Being open to dating and putting myself out there, without settling for less.