The Menace Bulletin No. 1

Welcome to The Menace Bulletin! It’s where you’ll find a curated collection of little discoveries, interesting tidbits, and all sorts of odd curiosities.

First edition is on the house, but I’d probably reserve future ones for paid subscribers *finger heart*

THE GOODS

Cool people and things I stumbled upon.

Steal like an artist

Austin Kleon is one of my favourite artists and I’m happy to see that he has a new podcast guesting! He’s a treasure trove of knowledge about other artists and is just filled with creativity wisdom. I like how he can almost immediately pull up a quote relevant to the topic being discussed and cite his sources at the same time—his most popular book is Steal Like an Artist but he doesn’t neglect to credit the artists he’s “stealing” from. I appreciate that about him. Because what I can’t stand is when people bring up an insight or copy an idea but neglect or forget to mention where they got it from. It doesn’t give the opportunity for curious consumers to explore and dig deep into the source. Well, the worst thing is passing off an idea as their own and that’s just plain sleazy. Not cool.

Aside from Steal Like an Artist (a must-read for anyone who admires creativity and wants to live a creative life), he has other books like Show Your Work and Keep Going—I’ve yet to finish both of them. And now, he has an upcoming book too! It’s called Don’t Call it Art. The title immediately took me back to a post I made about 3 years ago when I decided to stop taking art and creativity too seriously. Anyway, I’ll definitely be looking forward to that new book.

Creative types

Talking about creativity, Ate Jami sent me this online quiz from Adobe to find out which creative type are you. It’s just a quick test and there’s a cool custom animation after choosing each answer.

While taking the quiz, I felt like my answers were too inward. It’s a bit tricky to explain but maybe you’ll get it once you take the quiz too. There are 8 creative types and my result was that I’m an:

There’s a short description of your creative type and I love that it’s free haha! Hindi katulad nung ibang personality tests na kelangan mong magbayad para makuha yung full report. It says that I am introspective and emotional (check), pragmatic (I would say that I agree) and that I have a “fascination with life’s mysteries” (YES). Pero dito ako super natuwa:

Though quiet and reflective,
you have a powerful voice and a gift
for giving expression to the indescribable.

You’re a natural writer and teacher,
with a depth of awareness that
cuts through the noise.

I hope it’s true 🤍

ODD BODIES

Health and fitness trends from the wellness gurus.

Berberine

I was listening to an episode of Wake Up with Jim & Saab about nutrition, and I was surprised that when Saab mentioned the word ‘berberine’, I had no idea what it was! Normally, I’m up to date with the latest health buzz, but it seems like my radar for these things has been weak lately. I guess that means I’m doing a pretty good job with my self-improvement cleanse.

So apparently, berberine:

• lowers inflammation
• supports gut health
• controls blood sugar
• lowers cholesterol

In short, all the things I need to fix my current health issues! Hindi ko pa tapos yung episode nag-order na ko agad online. Aside from my discovery of berberine, I should remind myself to listen to that episode again because I need to take some proper notes.

FitTok

It’s not the most ideal, but what I’ve noticed about myself is I have to be constantly exposed to content that reflects the kind of person I aspire to be—otherwise, I would easily get distracted or just forget everything I promised myself to do. And that’s why I subscribe to FitTok. It’s not an actual subscription, it just means that I keep liking and saving useful health and fitness content so my TikTok algorithm learns what I want to see more of.

Here are two things I’m experimenting with:

• Intuitive Eating
  
  I don’t have set meal times anymore. I simply just eat when I feel hungry. But it’s also important to discern if I’m really hungry or if I’m just bored so I don’t overeat. In combination with this, I will still take my last meal before 4 or 5PM. 

• Daily 8-10k Steps
  
  I really love walking now. This might sound like an accomplishment to some, but really what it is is disguised laziness. I would rather walk for two, even three hours, than do a 30-minute workout. It doesn’t even matter if it’s a low intensity workout, I just despise working out altogether. That doesn’t mean I’ll remove working out from my life because I do want to build some muscle, but whenever I do it, I do it with deep and intense hatred.
  
  Right now I have an excuse to not workout because I strained my obliques—even doing yoga is painful. So I just walk and complete my 8-10k steps every day. The only problem I find is, as someone who enjoys novelty, I hope I don’t get tired of the walking trails and the views around our neighbourhood.

BRAIN SNACKS

Interesting tidbits, fun facts, brain-gasms.

• For those people who rely on caffeine to function, they will be amazed and surprised to know that “all of the achievements of the Renaissance (da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Michaelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the invention of the printing press), they were all achieved without caffeine.” Hindi pa raw kasi nakakahayon ang kape at tsaa sa Europe that time. Ang admirable nung intensity ng focus and attention nila!

— Historian Answers Renaissance
Questions | WIRED

• Personality traits strongly linked with breast cancer:
  
  – emotional suppression
  – overly selfless
  – conflict avoidance
  – extreme self-reliance
  
  I have three people in my life who’ve had breast cancer and they all exhibit 3 or 4 of the traits above.

— The Myth of Normal by Dr. Gabor Maté

If you ever end up taking the creative type test, I’m curious to know which one you got! Until the next issue! 🤍