Honestly, I wanted āTime is patientā to be my last post for a while. Because it so perfectly captured what I wanted to spend my time on. To live presently, and to not be in constant thought, focus, and anxiety.
Writing every day has many benefits, but it has also produced some strange effects. One is, I express myself so vividly here, that I do not feel the need to express myself any further, in real life. It sort of gives me my social fix. I was already reserved before this; now, it's intensified. Besides, I usually like talking to people as a way of deceitfully working out my own problems,ā¦
What I like most about vacations is the difficulty with which I come to a decision in going, and the ease at which I feel when I return. Even bad trips invigorate me in some way. Itās escaping your circumstances just a little bit; separating you from them, and seeing yourself behave in a different habitat. Itās almost shocking what part of my mood is directly tied to the routine Iāve managed to sink into.
Sinking into is another phrase for complacency, and I think of all the horrible acts we helplessly inflict on ourselves, complacency is the real silent killer. Sitting on the couch is atā¦
One year is really long.
Ten is an era.
A hundred is a lifetime.
A thousand is a millennia.
Ten thousand is incomprehensible.
A hundred thousand yearsāunimaginably vast.
Yet two million years.
Two million years is the amount of time, give or take, that nature has been thoroughly employed with this side project.
The human species is a project that seems fresh, new, and cutting-edge. Yet it has been a work in progress for countless millions of years, if not billions.
We like to fancy ourselves the apex of nature's technical ability. We are the latest. We believe we are indispensable.ā¦
I'm taking a spontaneous, much-needed road trip to some remote cabin in Wisconsin with the wife and dog. The indoor atmosphere here has grown noxious from my ceaseless huffing and puffing. I should leave a window open to air the place out.
I'm leaving..right now actually. Coming back Sunday.
Vacations are a great way to test the resolve of your daily routines.
This winter's been long. It's gotten me trapped indoors. My dog and I yearn for freedom. Change is afoot. I just..need to..snap from..this haze..
Because title, here's a dump of some unexpounded thoughts:
Every day, we choose when to resign.
Life is impossible to fill. Itās just too big.
āIt has solved a lot of problems, but it's also created a whole new set of problemsā is probably the best deal youāll get in life.
Growth doesnāt operate on the same timescale as consciousness
You canāt skip quality. Nothing is more effective than confidence in your own product.
The natural course of aā¦
As predicted, the big project is complete, and now Iām impatiently trying to figure out whatās next. Do I code more? Do I do more marketing, whatever that is? Do I live off daily maintenance chores? These things should be easy. Why is this stuff not easy? Ahhhh. It should just be automatic. I figure at every "next" point my compass will automatically recalibrate. Instead, it seems to shatter completely, forcing me to assemble a new one from some unknown materials.
Itās frustrating how non-responsive life can be at times. By this point I am probably irreversibly trained to respond to positiveā¦
Iāve moved on to the third of the Dan Brown reading series, and at this point have grown just a little bit tired of the same plot-and-twist. But, his writing is instructional, so I'm attempting to stick it out. This book is Inferno, andāit may just be meābut it lacks the same profundity of topic as the others (The Da Vinci Code and Origin). I did however encounter one subtle passage that caught me meandering:
Vayentha swallowed hard, scarcely daring to imagine the possibility. Has Langdon eluded BrĆ¼der as well? It seemed unthinkable; the chances of escape had been near zero. Then again,ā¦
There is one recurring aspect of my life that always shackles me. My dependence on external activity. Notifications.
Notifications of themselves carry no meaning and have no inherent value. I had been in one very particular setting so uncontrollably enamored by the interfacial beauty of a notification, that I glorified and fell weak at all the powers it had on me. Is it the font color? The way it says that word? No, itās the dopameaning weāve ascribed to that particular shape on a screen.
I donāt have to go into detail about which nature of notifications have me personally enslaved. Itāsā¦
In the definitions of freedom weāve been exploring in the last few posts, we happened on the most suitable as the lack of dependence on arbitrary powers. And I had figured, since I donāt have a boss, that Iām pretty free, and should feel pretty good all the time.
But, I donāt always feel good. Sometimes, I feel as bad as I ever felt at a job. Of course, theyāre different strands of pain. But pain nonetheless. And I think if we were to explore more deeply the definition of freedom weāve been entertaining, we would ultimately arrive at the conclusion that it is impossible to free. You couldā¦
I wrote yesterday how the definition of freedom can be stated as āthe lack of dependence on an arbitrary power,ā and that freedom is the sum of your āmicrolibertiesā as permeated across the subtleties of your life. Personally, Iāve never been able to handle lack of freedom well, in any situation. No one likes being told what to do. We want to do what we want to do. Freedom is the space to pursue that.
I will say that in the course of my life, government hasnāt been a large impediment to my freedom. College and employment, on the other hand. Really, permission-based environments, no matterā¦
I happened on a video lecture on the genealogy of liberty, posing the question: In most precise terms, what is the definition of freedom? Language is quite literally the architect of our reality, and a clear definition of freedom is of grave significance.
The lecturer had presented various historical definitions of freedom, beginning with freedom as the power to pursue an option and the lack of external interference in doing so. This worked well enough for some time, until it became important to define āinterference." Interference was then defined to be any of physical force, a bending ofā¦
I wrote an article with a headline I won't apologize for on Medium some time ago about my experience with React Native. Since then, I still get the occasional comment or message asking the same question:
Do you have any tutorials you recommend?
This is a bizarre phenomenon that seems to emerge with large numbers, and I donāt quite get it. Find any article or tweet praising a framework, and you will invariably see comments of the same nature. Can you help me get started?
Better yet, when I said to one person that I donāt know of any resources other than the main website off the top of myā¦
I screwed up today. At 3:45am, I surprised myself awake. I was then faced with an important decision: check phone, or donāt check phone.
The rules are simple: if I check my phone, Iāll be riled up by some alert, and wonāt be able to fall back asleep.
If I donāt check my phone, Iāll be antsy.
This isnāt a common occurrence. Itās only because I finally launched the big update. Lots of moving parts, and from the time I fell asleep, tectonic shifts may have occurred.
So I checked it.
And Iāve been awake ever since.
I skipped morning coffee, thinking I might be able to take an early nap andā¦
It goes without saying, but itās always easy to forget:
Be explicit. But be especially explicit with your intentions.
Several years ago, I underwent a metarough transition from a worldview of āthings will align by themselvesā to āonly yourself can possibly care enough to justify your alignment.ā
Itās awkwardly phrased, but it wasnāt until I began being what you might even call meticulously explicit that I began seeing growth or results that I was contented with.
At any given point, one must be able to distill what they desire so precisely, that the resulting analysis is mistaken for a PhDā¦