Write.as in the sky with new posts

A whirlwind of a weekend, as they often are.

Of course, that amounts to snooze-losing in read.write.as – at least until diving in and taking the gold in catching up.

<lights dim and flicker>

Software is never done and there are things always you see and ask why is a thing the way it is. Always room for changes and creation of new paradigms for management and use of the important or not so important data you have. I have found for me, a single layer of presentation is the best. If a thing is in three places or more, I may not find it in the second or third and its hidden away in the first. With all the stuff in a single basket I am able to drill down and reach the final thing which is the use. The four things lead to use.

Possibly at the very top of the most important software realm thingies I've learned is proficiency in the combination of text files, Unix text-processing line commands, and one or more simple scripting languages (I favor Lua). That lets me store things in the simplest possible way, with endless formatting possibilities, and no what I want to call “fearful dependencies”, i.e. any of that software wherewithal changing in fundamental ways such that I have to respond with refactoring.

This week's not been awesome. I'm not sure where I'm headed, and I don't know what I want.

<listening>

I do feel a lot of sadness not being with my ex-girlfriend. I don't know if this break-up-slash-pause is a good thing or not. The positive is that it's a change for me, and I needed a change. It's a trigger that is going to have an impact. But it's really difficult. And I hate it. But I guess it's part of life. Hey, so I tried meditation but I'm bad at keeping up at it. I'm much better at drinking a glass or two. Sometimes I'm unsure how much of a friend I am with my own mind. You know that feeling when it's 2am and you want to sleep and all of a sudden you start thinking about something you really don't want to think about? Well that happens a lot. Why though?

Late breaking theory:

Thoughts themselves have zero mass, and thus zero momentum – hence their flightiness in the absence of anything else “taking and running with them”.

Emotions, well, they're tapped directly into the energy/mass of bodily function. So once they get going, they don't just stop to be replaced by another (although they can be if a sufficiently energetic/massive shock comes along). And that “don't just stop” momentum can feel/seem a sort of “near term bodily memory” in a self-perpetuation sense.

I think your phrase “really don't want” represents a fear-based emotion with energy/momentum to retain its overall bodily state, which in turn predisposes mind (being an emergent property of body) to thoughts that may have been innocently present when said emotion reached its self-perpetuating energy/momentum level.

So the “really don't want” emotion(s) are at the root of the self-perpetuation, i.e. “can't get it out of mind”.

So – assuming this rather unprofessional theory has sufficient merit to it – I suspect the only solution is to find a way to replace that emotion with either another, or none at all.

But, again, it has a sort of momentum, so we're talking energy expenditure to supplant it.

So I'm cleaning. Both physically and mentally. Put things in boxes. Throw things away. Wash some stuff. There's a sense of progression. I wouldn't say I like it but hey, it keeps me busy. I'm also enjoying more and more reading articles from strangers on this platform. I love to connect and see what others are experiencing. I don't need images or movies. Simple text works better for me. It doesn't need to be fancy as long as it's honest.

Honest? OH NOES!!! ;–)

But, yeah, mmm, text – sweet text.

Today I've gotten myself back to programming. Python, to be precise. I'm starting a side project of a writing service heavily inspired by write.as, since I like it a lot. I'm curious about the engagement aspect, and want to see what we can built that makes it simple for people to engage and know they've been mentioned. But I want to stay true simplicity. But I'm mainly doing it for fun!

Coolness.

That was a lengthy update!

It's about time! ;–)

I'm usually happy to save money, but September 14 was a bit of a sad day for me, as it signified the end of my subscription to The Economist. A few months ago, I'd decided I needed to keep up with what's going on in the world. I'd already taken a chance on The Washington Post during a particular promotion, but the publication has always felt biased on one end of the political spectrum. And the same felt true of The New York Times, so I wasn't sure of where else to go.

Yes. The phrase “all the bias that's unfit to print as though unbiased” comes to mind.

A couple months ago, I made the decision to consciously unplug. I started by deleting my mainstream social media accounts—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—and disabled most notifications on my phone. I worked on clearing a path to reading and writing on a regular basis. I eventually got into bullet journaling. These small changes gradually helped me to reach my goal. And so here I am now, enlightened and wiser and better than everyone else. Err, I mean, better than I was before.

Love it!

And so I now find myself not wanting to keep up with the news.

The fact it's called “news” instead of something more honest like “opinions from necessarily limited mind contexts” indicates more than a little dishonest pretense.

For me, unplugging is about enabling me to focus on the things that truly matter. And for the most part, the happenings of the world don't matter all that much. Some would point a finger at me and say I can have such an attitude due to certain social statuses and identities. Perhaps others don't have the luxury of dismissiveness. I ultimately can't pretend to understand the challenges of another, but I'm also not going to pretend I need to stay wired to every worldly event or that every such event affects my day-to-day. My doing so would be disingenuous and would enable my own anxiety and mental unrest.

Yes. The absence of what might be called “sympathetic mindbrations” is second in bliss only to ignorance.

(NOTE: the last word of that sentence was not use as a synonym of 'stupidity', but simply to indicate IGNORE-ance, i.e. a state of ignoring.)

It took me over 30 years to realize that I needed to stop looking outwardly so much. The true progress has come from looking inwardly.

I suspect several spiritual traditions would agree.

Want to/need to do it. I don't have thick enough skin to live in the USA anymore.

Canada is nice

Canada is safe

The U.S. is mean

The U.S. is not safe

Not wanting to seem too much an empathy void, here, but AFAIK nothing at the level/size of a country absolutely either is or isn't some specific narrow attribute. Heck, not even individuals are all good or bad. So how could neighborhoods.. then towns/cities.. then states/provinces.. then countries bed?

In other words, prepare to be eventually disappointed in ways regardless where you go – hence the superiority of developing the skin you referred to (which, of course, is actually an attitude – aka collection of related thoughts).

Browsing is part of the enjoyment. But I find it ironic that I do more of the opposite here – Bix read the article and I grabbed a quotation of the article from him. No need to browse. Then again, I was browsing his blog and happened across the post. And I know not how he came across the article in question – perhaps in a similar way as I did or perhaps not (unless if you care to explain Bix).

I just... well, I guess I mostly don't care about the who/where/when/how – never mind how the “who” part so quickly degenerates into a sort of ongoing blind faith idolatry anyway, thus giving an author ongoing creds their actual current work(s) might not deserve simply because, because.. well, because “XXX” said it. And that attention sapping deprives one of others' gems (for there being only so much time in the day).

Far more important (to me) than that all that potentially more intellectually nutritious meta skin, phrases/sentences strike then light a fire under me – preferably consume me.

This brings up an interesting point – “browse” is not a catch-all term. There are many different types of browsing one can do. The person who asks for the librarian to retrieve a book for her could have browsed an online newsletter and came across the book. Is that the same kind of browsing as combing the fiction shelves?

How can we better attune ourselves to the different forms of browsing? How can knowing these inform how we operate on the web and outside of it?

Reaching a bit in the direction of a casino as an analogy, I want to say the “browsing devices” are to slot machines what true, old-school browsing is to the craps table. Can one win/lose at each? Yes. But whereas a slot machine is essentially an all-focus-consuming screen for experiencing a finite set of audio/visual events, the craps table is writhing sea of activity – bets coming in from all around the table in ways both independent and motivated by others (“Oh.. I should be a 'yo' too...”), activity/interaction that isn't specifically betting related, people walking by, the beverage servers, the rotation of the dealers, etc., etc.