fffffinn

Hey! Just wanted to pop in to note that in my opinion, and based on my own experience it's beneficial to include mental health in the scope of "health". I think the difference between physical and mental health problems is just that the latter aren't so outright visible to the stranger's eye. Hope the meds work and they won't have negative side-effects!

Hello guys! It's been rough. I'm throwing in the towel for now. :/ Not for good, but for this challenge. This was a bad time for me to try and hang on to this. All in all it's been okay. The new medication has kicked in and the mood swings are in control. This reinforces the theory that my brain chemistry is bonkers. But me dealing with my life right now is what has been the main obstacle in keeping up with this. I appreciate you sticking with my effort and cheering me on. But for now this is too much to handle, even at small doses. I've got to rebuild my adult life from ground up starting with the basic stuff I never really got to grow into for various reasons. This will MOST PROBABLY be a huge topic on my next challenge. I'm sorry to say I haven't been keeping up with the topics I subscribed to. But to those worried, I'm doing fine. This divorce stuff is just... let's say "pretty effing metal" right now. I'll be back with Bruce on my side. No weight fluctuations so I've managed to keep the 69kg. This is something I'm rather proud of. My main goal is to take the June longboarding ride with pride in my pre-purchased tank top. I'm still going for that, so beware, flabbiness!

Hey thank you for being there all of you! OK - life's been really optimus firkin strange and new for me lately. I'm currently flapping like a fish out of water. Overall not too shabby at all regarding the magic, no-magic thing, neither -process, but just ran head first into me dealing with the ongoing divorce process right now. I hope I can pick up bits and pieces back soon - meanwhile, here's Bruce. Bruce was my pal during the first challenge. I got to checkmark every bodyweight circuit, every kilometer ran and every day calories tracked. He's still up there. On friday I did the alternative 100 pushups benchmark test. I got 19. Keep it up y'all!

For this, I tip my imaginary hat to you, sir. I myself have miles to go towards a constant state of undermining your lizard brain. (Remember the cigarettes?)

I just wanted to chime in and note that when I was actively working with my music, the recordings I did had to be taken in absolute privacy, with no one around. Which meant a bomb shelter a couple of hundred meters underground at midnight. I'm undecided as to whether that is good or bad, but the recordings turned out pretty awesome. So maybe all I want to say is that on a certain level I completely understand the need for privacy. Hope you get the gym situation under control. BTW Where ya at with the 100 pushups thing? I'm considering hopping in again.

Thank you Liberator&Silverwitch! I need this kind of support so it's good to know it's around! Today, I feel like I've lost the way with my challenge. Not in a desperate way, but just like noticing this. Maybe surprised is the word. I feel I got many good revelations in the start and knew my way around things and suddenly I find myself stumbling under a blanket of ignorance for the Nth day. So the "feeling lost" is tied with a feeling of awakening again. My BIG problem that I'm again trying to address with this challenge really might be that as Liberator mentioned, one can get addicted to the "magic" side of life. It's something i've been subconsciously puzzled with for most of my life. (Not alone with this, I'm sure). That addiction, and the gut feeling that it's not healthy and there must be an alternative is what drives me again and again into zen writings and meditation and mindfulness. The definition of happiness (or rather glorified; enlightenment) on those writings is partly opposite to the everyday definition of happiness. But I also somehow know the zen writings make a wholesome, solid point. And I know it's simple. It's a LOT like the things you both put forth in your posts. It's all tied together. Even with my cbt practice, the point has so far been on mindfulness and learning to notice the arising emotions and feelings that are sometimes tied to unhealthy responses, based on a somehow distorted view of self/world. Yours truly and the everyday seem to be like oil&water. I instinctively feel like I don't even really exist on days that are just days. For some days counting back, you know, the small days, I've let the everyday be handled by autopilot and find myself again and again circling around some ideas inside my head. Typically the magnetic ones are (for me) musical. I still have that music from a couple of posts back going in loop through my head. It's been so since the post. I'll go and play the music in my fleshy jukebox again and again for no apparent purpose except maybe to tattoo it into my brain for good. While all that needs to happen in the everyday will be run by autopilot. Cutting the loop, engaging controls is what makes the everyday frustrating. It's like giving up the magic. I can't be inside my head, where everything is controlled. I'll have to face the world in all its complexity instead of the simple, manageable but useless ideas I so seem to love. They're like cocaine for me. Actually, this is a good revelation again. Well, this went onto a proper ramble. TL;DR: Genuine thanks for the support. Still thinking about the core issues of magic and no-magic. Have been in slumber for a couple of days, feeling awakened.

Thanks! I actually had no idea there were home testing kits available. But of course it makes sense because there are many people that need to track their glucose for pressing health matters. Yesterday was a "small day". No huge losses, no huge victories. I'm starting to feel a bit frustrated about not moving anywhere. During the challenge, I've had a couple of moments feeling I have "enough mana" to start working towards the fitness goals. But I'm still getting overwhelmed by work and life in general. This is probably a reminder that whatever the first step getting back to track, it has to be small enough for me not to make backtracking. The frustration is strong. My short time in NF is similar to my heroic amoks during my life. I'll start out strong, bullheaded, and then fall, and not get back because getting back feels underwhelming compared to the success I KNOW I can have. Success I've enjoyed already. I think it was Waanie that spoke about knowing one's limits. I'm obviously not experienced with this. Or then I am taking the wrong attitude towards mine.

Oh man, I didn't even realize you had this to deal with. I'm sorry for your loss.

Haha - yeah, well, the catching up came with a catch, though. The day was pretty short. It's hard to believe I slept through THREE separate alarms. Yesterday didn't end up that well, but it wasn't a disaster either. Ended up getting a couple of pints after the late exit from work. Was fun, but I think that played a role with my sleeping woes. I actually slept past my therapist's session today. So that's not excellent. It's sorted out, though. No probs. I'm putting in more effort to fix this erratic sleeping pattern. -Health was at -1. Mood has been pretty damn well for a couple of days. Hearing was bad, and I suspect it's because my blood sugar must be wobbling out of balance for me sleeping too much. I've read up on this thing somewhere, and while I'm not a scientist of any kind, it seemed plausible, and I've noticed before that my hearing will start deteriorating if I don't eat regularly. -slept like a baby (m1) -did a good amount of work considering the hours. Not excellent, though. (nm1) -Set a couple of boundaries with my relatives. I'm bad at setting boundaries. It didn't seem as hard as it used to be. I'm not sure if it was the crazy sleeping, my new meds or just general progress in things mental. (nnm1) -picked up take-away food and enjoyed it (m2) -I'm going to bed early. Quaffed my meds and additional melatonin to make me fall asleep early enough. Here's hoping that it works.(nm2) Not a spectacular day. BUT my spreadsheet disagrees. It's interesting to note how the health level affects daily score. I like that it's kind of telling me that I'm not at my full potential and kind of forgives me not doing that well. There's still some work to be done in the fine-tuning department. All in all: interesting. Weird. OK.

Waiting for news. And RUNES of course. Hope everything's OK.

Hope everything's moving along snappily. Don't worry about adjusting the goals if you need. Hoping to hear back from your post-apocalyptic adventures.

Catching up on your progress(bars ), it seems you really murdered week 1! Good going! And big congratulations on the translation gig! EDIT: AND the get yar own boks -thing! Haha. This. One's. MINE!

Wow. Looking at your pace of bringing all the obstacles down, I'm going to assume your home planet is Krypton? No? Lovely photographs!

Strong week 1! Happy for you!

"The contradiciton is strong with this one." Haha, great that you got in a super workout!

I hope your health issues will be better soon! I admire your courage with the acupuncture thing. For me it really seems TOO counter-intuitive to stick needles in my body. Can't think of doing that. But happy it made you feel better!

SOOOOOoooo. Slept for 13 hours.

Tuesday -Health was -1 but has been creeping up during the day. Moodwise all right, hearing was bad but for now seems to be stabilizing to a slightly under zero level. -CRAZY sleeping catchup. Slept for 13 hours. I guess the 2 hour sleep of last night really affected this. I'm hoping to start fixing my sleep-pattern tonight. (m1) -Work has been OK, been clearing up lot of confusing issues, and have put in a reasonable amount of work. (nm1) -I started the "carry a notebook" habit again. This would help me get a grasp of weekly schedule and help with recollection. Been updating it good for now. (nm2) -Recollecting right now(nnm1) Not sure if I'll be able to put in some housework in tonight. My notebook says I should do vacuuming tonight. So far I'm at m:1 nm:2 nnm:1 So really little stuff. But considering I'm about six hours short of the duration of the day, I'll take it. I'm still at work, because the morning was totally a bust. I'm in a position where I can pretty much decide when I work. This is good and bad. I'm pushing for the full hours today. My future job situation is unclear for now. Might be that the temporary layoff won't hit me for now, but I think that'll clear up tomorrow. Which would be nice, because I'll have to do arrangements for the layoff if it happens. But I'm not worried so much for now. But the arrangements are on my #Should -list. Did a test-like weigh in today morning, as tuesdays are the day for me. It's still 69kg. Which means I've not dropped the ball entirely. I still think that the drop might just be muscle. Still sporting a spare tire -like mass around my belly. Not as big as it was when i started at 77kg, though, so WIN. Challenge-wise I'd like to start spicing things up a bit, and I started collecting some ideas in my notebook. I could maybe consider things from the #Should -list as enemies. A weekly planning session to plan my attack would be nice. I could put in some number of "no-magic" enemies that I have to slash down. "Magic" items could be powerups. I could have a set limit of powerups for the week. I can either grind the enemies down or use a skillful nnm-move to throw them down. Grinding requires powerups. Hmm. This could be interesting. But I'm not really satisfied with my ideas yet. I'm interested in bringing some of this stuff, when refined, into next challenges. The one thing that would help me immensely is to form a working relationship with everything labeled "chores". So this round will probably keep on existing in developer-mode for a while. Hoping to formulate those rules soon, but won't hurry too much just to put in SOMEthing. One problem that has come up is that I'm finding it hard to recollect ALL events of the day. It would probably be better if I had some sort of a checklist. Feel anxiety rising. Release.

Monday. Health a surprising 0. Hearing was OK! Mood was OK! -Slept for 2 hours last night. o__o (m1) -A no snooze wakeup at 5:45 (nm1) -Daycare trip and waking up my elder daughters at my former home. It always brings up emotions going there. There's fear, sadness and bitterness. It's a cocktail of emotions. (nnm1) -Off to work, a good few hours of solid achieving with some experimenting with frustration/anxiety as a source for doing. MUCH harder than anger. It has a self-centered nature, it clenches inwards. More experiments needed. (nm2) -Off to a client meeting, which went really well. I was myself instead of someone else. (nnm2). No fear. (?) Where is it(?) Did the meds take it away? -Straight back to my former home to pick up the eldest and to the daycare to pick up youngest. (This is my monday routine). I was feeling really tired and was in a bad mood. Considering, the trip went well. (nm3) -I picked up the ball when I got the dinner done (nm4) and we relaxed a little. -Much fun and hugs. (nnm3) -A beer (m2) whoops. -Picking up on the NF battlefront buddies. (nnm4) -A great listening session of some emotional music. Don't know why, just because I hear well enough, it just felt to set in the day. (m3) -recollected(nnm5) m:3 nm:3 nnm:5 A good day! Not much done, it seems, but balanced. " When Im floating in the water And your eyes are lilies all around When Im lying sweetly in my bed The sun plays crystal with my eyes Then I stop My body stops crying for home My limbs stop weeping for home When Im peeping in a parlour of trees And the leaves are winking all around Im home, my heart sobs in my veins But brains they play the softest games Fingers kiss the string Mouth taste the blade Of everglade " ​

Hi, an update again! I had the girls over to stay from friday to sunday evening (now), and I thought I'd better use my precious time with them doing something else than updating my challenge. ;-) I fiddled with my spreadsheet some, and it's coming around. I think this could be a template of sorts for future things coming my way. This challenge might be just to get this side of things working and hone the mental ninja skills. If I can master my mind, there's no stopping. The ultimate goal there would be to have the appropriate reaction towards everything. There's always room to improve there, and it's more like the big ball of life that gathers stuff as it rolls around, and I'll always have something to learn. Which is great! One caveat with this is that as the weekend proved, there's always times I won't have the daily recollection moment. Two approaches. 1) Make it dead simple to do so on busy days it's possible to do. 2) Make the sheet work without the daily recollection moment. Being the geek I am, I'm trying to do this with option 2. Friday and Saturday will have averaged values for magic, no-magic & both. I also put in a normalizing formula so that the daily score will be more or less between 0 and 1. So the optimal, ultimate week would be 7 points. This makes my challenge grading a bit easier for now. So I'm going to revise the first post to reflect this. After my recollection here, I think. But so, I think this calls for a weekly recap of how things went. Health: For fri and Sat I only input my health out of memory. Both were -1, as I struggled with my hearing. Mood was all right. Surprisingly so, even. And today's a -1 as well :/. No mood troubles, but I really think the new meds affect my hearing. It's among the listed side-effects of almost all these kind of drugs that they might worsen tinnitus. Dang. It's a shame because this seems to have an effect of some sorts. Maybe it's too early to tell. Not Health: () -Today was Fathers' day! Yay! We ate some treats for breakfast, and I got some nice handmade cards and presents from my daughters. (nnm1) -I made a conscious choice that because the weather totally sucked outside, today would be ALL about slacking and having fun indoors, and that's what we did. Right after breakfast we started up our computers and played Minecraft with me and the two eldest, while the youngest curiously watched us. (m1) The youngest seems so interested in the game that I'm almost worried that I might have to purchase another laptop into the family.. But so far the iPad has sufficed. ;-) -I made really easy, sure-to-be-everyones-favorite, basic dinner and we had it together with us all, chatting and joking about. (nnm2) -We tried to compose a sort of "play" video with an iPad app to send to my father, but it didn't work out. (nnm3) -Had a snack together, not very healthy one, but hey - it's not father's day everyday! (m2) -Some more Minecraft… (m3) -Played a board game with the youngest, and let her tell me what the rules were. It was a crazy game, and she was winning but got tired of the game before cashing in. Super fun with joking and accusing her of TOTALLY CHEATING IN ORDER TO WIN HIS DAD! Tickling and all that. Great fun!! (m4) -Another super easy meal, and listening to funny youtube songs like GIGAPUDDING. (m5) -The girls had some "disagreements" that ended up unfortunately, as a phone fell into the floor (a complete accident, though), and some pixels went black on the screen and some crying ensued. I had a great father moment in calming down all the girls who were in a very bad mood after all this. The rest of the day I spent trying to get everyone calmed down and tried to comfort their worries about how their mother would react and whether the phone could be replaced and all that. (nnm4) -A walk to their home, and everyone was a bit happier and more carefree. Talked the phone issue through with their mom, and it seemed that she didn't freak out that much.. Hopefully the phone can be replaced soon, or maybe switched around, I offered for her to have my phone (I have the same model as my daughter). -Some tidying around in the house. (nm1) -Some catching up with NF threads I follow (I lurk and have a guilty feeling not inputting, but I'll try and work on this..). (nnm5) -Spreadsheet fixing (nm2) -This recollection and writing (nnm6) This comes down to: m: 5 nm: 2 nnm: 6 eehh…Heh. Quite an imbalance on the magic and no-magic there. Not a great score, but all right. And here's what my spreadsheet looks so far. So I was right, the monday business was a fluke. My highest score was on the "perfect day" thursday(?). And the TOTAL score is above 7. Whoa. I might need to adjust the effort percent. I mean, granted, the health issues do make it harder to manage days through, but I don't want it to become some sort of cheating method. Or am I actually being too hard on myself and I should look at this so that "Hey, even with all this crazy mood / hearing thing going on, you're managing all this stuff". Maybe? There has been a lot of talk about me being too hard on myself. Well. Another week is upon us. I think the week should focus on experimenting with the combines. The weekend here with the girls kind of threw me off from the recollecting, so it'll be more accurate and easier for sure during the week. Hopefully I'll keep those negative combines coming. Some ideas for the week: -make a list of SHOULDs. The things that are nagging around and not getting done. Work down the list. Enjoy free anger/frustration/fear. MMMmmm. Free fear. -find out if fear does the same as frustration and anger Some ideas for the challenge: -apply the mental skills into getting back with physical goals -try and address the issue of having LOADS of emotion and no place to put the resulting energy into. Some of the harder parts of having three wonderful daughters is the odd cases of sibling-fights, which need a referee to work the situation out. These bring up a LOT (as in L.O.T.) of frustration and need sharp and focused attention. This is a combination that would require some more mastery. I'm not doing too shabby, but it's one area I'd need to improve. And the one area that generates so much emotion that it's hard to ride that. This is fun. Alas, I'm afraid I ramble and I must now do something else. ;-) Hope everyone has a good week 2!

Haha thanks, Marauder & originalpiratematerial. It sure feels so! I just have to pop in in the morning right now to note that I'm really excited right now. I think in a good way. There's a very rare set of unfortunate events that went down just now. 1)So yesterday I got the surprise meeting for this morning. Set that up (like a boss). 2)After I set up the meeting, my ex decided to tell me the daycare my youngest goes arranges a father's day breakfast this morning. Well. Dang. I really wanted to go, told that I can't because of the surprise meeting. 3)Started seroquel, went to bed really early because it made me quite tired and I don't want to miss the morning alarm. 4)Got up early, ready to hit the meeting. 5)Checked my work phone. -> At about eleven last night the client has put in a SMS to note that it's unsure whether all relevant parties will be around this morning so it's not necessary to attend the meeting. What. The. Profanity. Man? So I've actually missed my father's day breakfast because of a meeting that did not happen. ---> Cue anger. It's happening again. I can use the anger. And I AM using the anger right now. I can actually feel it livening up my body. It's surely some hormones that get pushed in my bloodstream to help me escape sabre-tooth tigers, but since none are around, I can use that cocktail for anything I choose! It's the first week and I'm already tired of using the word "epic". This is a wonderful thing. I've read countless of advice that has in it's core the notion that "bad things are just things, it's how you react to them that makes them bad". I've read this and thought I got it. And maybe I have, but have been lacking in technique. If I can keep this up, if I can face adversity like an aikido partner and use the AUTOMATIC energy that appears, without any effort, then… guys… I've found the holy grail. This would solve a craptonne of problems. Actually, it wouldn't just "solve" them. It would transform them into the fabric of life. This would make me seek challenging situations instead of escaping them. This is EXACTLY what I set out to seek for in this challenge. I'm really excited now! But I think Silverwitch brought up a very important point earlier when she noted that sometimes anger cannot be channeled or contained properly. My method so far has been to suck it up and let it burn&scar my innards. That's my go to method. So turning that source into expression of ANY kind (as long as I don't hurt anyone) is a win. I probably will need to practice my emotion-riding technique. I will also need to experiment if fear has similar qualities, because if I can surf that thing, I'm up for infinite energy. This is like going solar. And for once, I'm actually very happy I got into the unfortunate event -mess because it led me here! EDIT: And now I can feel my left ear opening again just like the last challenge. This. This is really something.

@Marauder - oh, too kind. Thank you. So. A better day. With great scores this time, folks. -Health level at -0.5. I did some corrections to couple of previous days, as they really were not zero days. I don't know why, but I 'overmarked' them. Maybe it's some sort of fear of the dark. -Didn't wake up at the first snooze. But early enough to have plenty of time for having a quick breakfast and some of los internetos buenos. So I'll mark my morning routine of (nm1), (m1) -Cigs around. (m2) -Early meeting with clients. Made my way through pretty good. Didn't lose my shit angsting about it and I think I presented my views adequately. (nnm1) -Back to work, a health value zero lunch (not horrible, not great), a quick office meeting and over to my shrink. -Session was OK. I mentioned earlier some of the issues we went through. We're been meeting once a week for a year (excluding couple of weeks here and there), and sometimes it astonishes me how I kind of keep rolling back into the same issues. Not the same way, but there are things that keep popping up. When people told me that it'll most probably be a long process, I didn't maybe think that it would mean that I can't learn stuff. I mean I consider myself a bright fellow. But it seems that intellect doesn't have THAT much to do with getting to know what makes you as a person tick. But I'm not disappointed by this, it's just something I understand better now. (nnm2) -Felt a bit exhausted. Wrote up that reply a couple of posts back and felt a bit confused about what to do in the office. Tried to make a list, was slow. Then I started going through the list thinking "Hey. At least I'm doing SOMEthing." The first item was emailing back to the client from morning meeting about price estimations for something I have absolutely NO idea how to estimate. My choices were: "Don't call back. I only said I'll TRY and get back.", "Start calling around about information, try to make the rough estimation", "ASK. FOR. HELP.". I have pretty hardcoded issues about choices two and especially three. One'd be my go to. But having seen what skillful action made to my energy levels the previous two days, I went for choice three. The issue resolved itself in a matter of minutes and I got to connect with my colleagues. So a big W00Ting success. (nnm3) -Felt pretty good. That was my "BAD ITEM". Item 2. A surprise meeting for tomorrow morning. Get details, arrange for client to know I'll be available. This would be bad if I was feeling anxious. I have a thing about contacting anyone. But as I felt pretty good, I arranged the meeting first by email, for which I didn't get a response, and then -GASP- By. Phone. Bingo. Item 2 cleared. "To see the pit and dive". Saw it. Dove*. (nnm4) -Felt really good. Items 3-5 sort of cleared themselves after that. I know I did them, but they were such a breeze. I got the whole list sorted out in record time. Then I grinded in some more hours in the project, and when I ran out of stuff to do, I delved into an extra project I have that involves coding, which I love, and which seems to make everyone in the office think I'm some kind of coding god. So the rest of the day went really well, work wise. Although because of the therapy session I didn't (again) make in the full hours. Bah. But I made everything I was supposed to do. And even got into it. So a combine! (nnm5) -Got home, ate and off to the sofa we went. An hour and a half later I got up and took out the pile of recyclable paper and cartons that have been haunting me. This was one of the "home" items I planned to do tonight. (nm2) -Then I folded my laundry off the drying rack and the laundry bag. This was the other "home" item I planned to do tonight. The home seems much cleaner now. Not in any means "clean" but cleanER. And to make the score even more respectable I did the laundry folding mindfully 'dancing' with my frustration. Yes. Laundry folding frustrates me. So I listened how it rose and pushed that energy into the folding. Again, listening for the rise and moving the frustration into doing. And it worked, guys. Now THAT is epic. Granted, I was not in a horrible mood, so it was maybe easier, but this still makes it to my book of epic things. (nnm6) -Then I wrote this. (nnm7) *-Bonus: learned the correct past tense form of "Dive". Yes. Dove. But dived is correct too. So today was a win day. It seems strange because I actually have the lingering lethargy of the below zero, but… I somehow cheated it. Two big revelations so far. 1) I'm able to control my mood and energy levels to an extent. 2) The feedback-loop-holding of emotions drains energy. That energy can be transformed workable. o________o If that ain't magical, I don't know what is. nnm(7) nm(2) m(2) ->near perfect

Well I brought all this stuff up with the therapist just now and 1) I'm starting seroquel 2)@marauder, ellis_e, you hit the nail on the head. We discussed about how certain thoughts or assessments are mood dependent. And tried to set up a plan to 'defuse' them when they appear. This might mean un-distorting the perspective regarding accomplishment as well. 3)I should try and experiment with my appropriate activity level regarding my mood. So I was onto something with my excel. @mr_willes: Thanks! I think I'm in the right camp as well @Gobnait: I recognize what she's talking about. I can relate. I've not been in the deep end for a while, though. *knocks on wood* And yeah, this challenge sure is... complex. But for now - as long as I keep honest and throw in the effort to learn about how this strange new animal called fffffinn goes about, I think I'm on the right track, though. The "quests" are pretty vague so far, but after the baseline week I think I'll have a more firm grasp on what to experiment with. Maybe wild quests appear.

@trawlerman - I'm just on menthol light. It's something that has stuck with me since I was a student. AND I totally think it's just a commodity right now. Not something I enthusiastically get into, it's totally autopilot. So there's a lot to think there too. I did the roll your own thing for a while - just before my six week break. It might've reduced the total amount smoked, because of the very things you said - the "ritual". But I don't know. I'm pretty confused again with this habit. Okay. today's going to be quick. -I'm reflecting and it's getting tedious. Nah. I'm not using that, it IS tedious right now. Just as the mood drop, it didn't mean that it's now downhill, this one time won't make reflecting tedious forever. But today it is. (nm1) -Cigs still on(m1) -My health's a pretty standard zero. Mood's hovering in zero, otherwise, can't complain too much. Not perfect but OK. -Woke up after missing my alarm. I just let it ring. Had a easy morning, didn't stress too much about getting to work on time. (m2). -Work was not fun, but I did it. NOT the full hours, though. So I'll count that as.. nothing? I think it would be appropriate. As I really didn't accomplish as I should. But it still sucked my effort. Hmmm. These are quite interesting thoughts this challenge raises. -Made a sincere compliment on my colleagues work. I admire this guy. Felt good. It's somewhat similar to the super-combine-win yesterday, where I think the key is SKILLFUL EXPRESSION of something. Like. Um. So. (nnm1) -Felt OK - saw my brother online on Facebook and chatted with him for a second. Was nice. I don't see him or make contact with him that often at all. (nnm2) -Chatted a while with my daughter on whatsapp, promised to pick up her computer mouse that stopped working to try and fix it. (nnm3) -Made a big set of this rice-ground beef-vegs -thing for today and for the rest of the week I guess. 'Twas OK. (nm2) -Walked over to my daughter's and picked up the mouse. Reminded her of the spanish studies. Complimented my second daughter on the perfect(!) score on her english test. It was a nice but super short visit. Still. I think that was the top moment of the day. (nnm4) -Picked up another nice beer to sip tonight. Tsk. Tsk. Just now I was wondering what's the driving force there. OK. I just want to wind down after a day. What's the winding down for? I feel kind of exhausted after the day, but I haven't really done that much. Is there an alternative way to wind down? A nice cup of tea? Anyways. -Found out how to disassemble a steel series kinzu v2 pro. Found out I know nothing about repairing mice. Have to get her another by the weekend. -Sipped the beer (m3) and stuck in the sofa-gravity-well with internet for a good two hours I think. (m4). -Got myself here. -nnm4 -nm2 -m4 So THIS is starting to be more of the situation I'm talking about. It's… not horrible, but it's not great either. It FEELS like being stuck in limbo. I had some good moments, but at the end of the day, I'm just not feeling it. I feel disappointed. Maybe in myself(?). Maybe it's the work part. Maybe that's what's grinding my gears. The best part is that why, WHY don't I know what the problem is? It's so weird. It's the beer? No. At least I think the beer is just a symptom. But it's also unskillful to repeatedly do this. But this. But that. Maybe it is that I really NEED and WANT to accomplish something every day. Today I didn't really accomplish much, as my not-magic seems low. If that's it, I could go and experiment on this. At least there's a hypothesis. I mean - my magic's high. It's still not making me feel good. I might be onto something. So. Nice and short. Doing as usual - and this, the dragon of usual things, is my enemy. I'm circling him now. Finding a way to ride him to battle.

AW YISSS! It wasn't a spectacular day in other ways, but this one thing made it count big time! -editing: And the really WEIRD part for me is that it helped with exhaustion and improved my mood. This is a big, big realization. I've thought about private journaling, but for now it just seems like an extension of my non-stop private journaling in my head. And as such, counter-productive. I've never kept a private journal so I can't actually say whether this is so. And I've lived a pretty private life. I'm not very open about things I do. Which leads into a non-productive feedback loop. There's no unfiltered new info coming into that. NF is a fine method of introducing some "noise" into that feedback loop. I incorporate the tinnitus into my geeky health modifier. So on bad days I get some mercy.