Wellp, its almost that part of the year where I go into reflexive reflective mode.
May 19 would be my kid's 9th birthday should he still be around.
Aug 27 would be my other kid's 4th birthday should she still be around.
Their birthdays are exactly one hundred days apart.
What are the odds?
Dear CJ,
If all you have is a text editor, everything looks like a blog post.
When one sees a text editor, see a best friend who has duct tape over their mouth, and a twinkle in their eye.
So up until a few months ago, bugs didn't bother me.
I was the type of kid who'd get sick pleasure from jamming a bunch of squirming things in my mouth, psychofreaking all the other girls in 3rd grade.
During my last psilocybin trip, however...
Is it you, or me, but, who here thinks that Distracted Musings and Dino should totally get together and mastermind?
I’m surprisingly exhausted these days. Things at work are getting pretty busy and it seems like I don’t have time to just organize my work. Think about my work. Do a brainstorm. Take notes.
It’s all so rushed!
Maybe it’s me. I’m not giving myself enough breathing time.
Somedays I notice that I haven’t drank enough water. Or that I didn’t get up to use the washroom so many times. Am I being trapped into the busyness trend? I don’t want to become a workaholic!
I set up a recurring event in my Calendar at 4:30pm to remind me to: Wrap up work. But I’ve been so busy and overwhelmed lately that I don’t stop at 4:30pm to reflect on my day. I just go on and when I see it it’s past 5pm and almost everybody left the office.
I will remember to practice more mindfulness tomorrow. The mystery is: how to be mindful when I am stretched thin?
I’ll try.
He said that I was a working dad, but yet I was still finding time to play some video games.
I guess I never really thought about it before. How am I actually finding extra time to play video games? I can give you one tip. I have no social media apps on my phone, except for the LinkedIn app which I hardly check. I’m not looking for new work anyway.
I have messaging apps like FB Messenger, which is how I chat with my friends, but I do not have Facebook or Twitter on my phone. My Facebook account has been deactivated for probably half a year now. I also recently deactivated my Twitter account, though I was never really active on it.
The only social media app that I cannot let go is Instagram. But even that is limited only to weekends. I install it on weekends so I can browse my curated feed and maybe post something, but on Sunday night or Monday morning, it gets deleted off my phone.
It is simply amazing how much extra time I found I had, once I stopped wasting all of it browsing never ending newsfeeds.
Snicker snicker snicker.
It's like one responded to the other.
Without even knowing it.
Ever imagine that?
One person on the train texting a friend for some help
While another person on the train is texting another friend offering wisdom on the same help?
That's this.
It's cool to just witness it.
I'm sharing it so you can witness the miracle, too. Hehe.
Also, note to Distracted:
Get a Fitbit. It reminds you to get up at :50 of every hour, AND gives you a little CHEERLEADING PUMP when you do. You use this time to get up, pee, fix tea, go check on things, and then get back refreshed. Tellin' ya. Lifesaver. Sure Apple Watches are cool, but this particular bit, I tell ya. Leave it on for days and let it work for you. Apples you charge all the time and are distraction monsters. Good to have dead simple tools sometimes.
All right. Back to my coloring book.
Another day in, Paradise
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Sencha on desk: check. 03:03 wake up: check. Airplane phone: check. 3-flange earbuds blotting the outside world: check. Lofi hiphop study music on: not check. Not today, satan. Thicc to-done list: check.
I'd say we're clear for liftoff.
Can't do without some creative morning loafing, though.
Dear Antipattern.
I so love what you said here, and I often find myself musing and gacking on the same subject ad infinitum. (A very ecopunk Portland Oregon hobby, I'd say.)
We are counting on entrepreneurs to solve the massive set of problems that humanity is facing now, and in the future.
It is a pretty sad state of affairs when even if you as an employee are looking to be employed in a company lead by the new entrepreneurs. They are very hard to find.
Where are the new entrepreneurs?
And, like Leia mourned in a galaxy far far away, “they are our only hope”. Humanity's only hope.
HOWEVER
Hello, wow. Good to see you today, write.as.
Good to see you today, too, Ian. What a great read that was.
And CJ, what a wonderful thinking point, as opposed to a talking point. Or an interlocution point. Though I don't know if a lot of people know what “interlocution” is. It sounds vaguely like some sort of eyeball torture.
But maybe... you know how some people really get off on toil and torture? Maybe the made-up-definition of eyeball torture/interlocution is fit. We toil over the things we love to read, giving our eyeballs the gift of eyestrain and long term blue light wavelength damage. Enough that I like to wear those Karl Lagerfeld-like plastic shades most people's grandparents have to wear outside in the sun, else their eyeballs are scorched to dust inside their skull. This is way past macular degeneration.
We are macular degenerates!
Us rebels!
Eyeball torture!
Interlocution!
...
And so, digital penpals we are.
The write.as gods have bestowed us a diamond.
Feast: Licking.
Thank you, write.as gods.
Particularly you, Eris.
Well, actually Aneris in this case, since it's so delightfully “in order” here.
Sorry, Eris. When a building blows up and kills all the parents, but releases all the babies to kind loving homes, I'll thank you.
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The most terrible bouts of writer's block.
Must be edged by the most terrible streaks of reader's receptiveness
To plunge the clogged mindstreams.
To CURE the maladies which gobstop you in your typing tracks.
To unfreeze these fingers,
You spend your reader's receptiveness
on a cleansing mixed diet of trash tabloidial tablets AND Scientific American, European, and even Afrikaan.
Balance for the unbalanced
Being the fulcrum at which the unwashed masses and the ivory tower can connect, and daresay, even relate.
So that's the goal of this military exercise of the mind.
To brute force yourself
To digest the feast of another writer's mind
So you, too, can release the contents of your textual soul.
Easy as that.
— .:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:. published not proofread. #NeverLookBackspace! Words, Ideas, Magic copyrighted by Zem at BeTheFuture. this is confidential communication. Protected by US and International law.
I spent the better part of a screen addicted hour reading this AskReddit thread about teachers' worst “apple doesn't fall far from the tree” stories.
I'm doing this at about 3am, while my 14 year old is playing a-god-knows-how long screen-addicted streak on Fortnite, casually blasting online friends with scathing obscenities and taunts.
It's a formula that makes for a fairly bad mood.
And it's like. When does one of these shitty parents notice when they're doing something wrong, if they ever do?
How do they ever get help?