1: relative ages
2: twitter impulse
3: waking earlier but lingering in bed
4: underestimating the seemingly trivial, daily blogging and fat guys in remedial training.
One.
I just got on the bus and the first thing I noticed was an NSF in uniform, and the firsr thoughts that flashed through my mind was something along the lines of “heh, look at this kid”.
I did my national service between 2010 and 2012. I had repeated a year in JC so I was a year older than my JC peers- of which there were few in the storeman region. My CQ was a JC kid a year younger than me. When I recoursed BMT, 3/4 of my bunkmates were younger than me. A few were older. It was a unique and interesting experience. One of them had been in jail for drugs. My sargeants during my recourse were almost all younger than me. Same for my peers in signals. Throughout NS I encountered some really simple-minded fellas and a few remarkable, admirable ones. My heart is a little heavy thinking about it. Those were a lot of experiences in 2 years… it feels like I kind of buried them in a limbo of drudgery and repetitiveness. I really do feel a need to write some sort of memoir… I definitely learned a lot about people in NS. Despite being extroverted, I was a loner in JC. I think i don’t like relationships that require synchronous presence. They drain me. I’m best as an asynchronous, penpal type friend. Seek my personal companionship and I will disappoint you.
Something to work on.
Anyway all I wanted to say was- it’s funny to juxtapose the “kid NSF” idea against how much more mature secondary school and JC kids looked when I was in primary school. NSFs looked mature when I was in JC. But really, everybody is lost ans confused to some degree, just figuring it out along the way. There’s something to that. A theme or motif worth exploring in fiction, I think. I’ll leave it at that.
Two.
I found myself thinking about witty tweets earlier. It’s just a thought that enters my head, almost fully formed. A running commentary on the state-of-affairs. This was going on during #ndrsg too. I think improv comedians and people like Russell Brand have this thing running in overdrive in their heads 24/7- it’s practically a membrane between their inner worlds and external reality, a lens.
I found myself thinking about one of Graham’s essays- it’s very important to “control” what you think about in the shower, or when you’re daydreaming. You can’t directly intervene, of course, but your thoughts are largely determined by set and setting, context and circumstance. I think that’s part of the hidden cost of Facebook, if you’re an attention-seeking narcissist like myself. You spend a lot of your background processing resources thinking about the next status update you’re going to write. You might not realize that you’re thinking it, but it’s at the cost of what you could’ve been subconsciously working on instead.
My challenge is to get my subconscious thinking about better problems. But the subconscious follows the path of least resistance. This is why meditation is so important, because it allows you to zoom out of the map and see what the better paths are, not the easiest ones. The things truly worth doing are never easy, but the subconscious is always looking for easy- ay, there’s the rub.
It’s also necessary to get subconscious resources away from silly things like processing unknown clutter- so it’s important to tidy shit up and get niggling tasks out of the way so your mind can focus on the important things. I think. That’s my hypothesis and I’m sort-of testing it. This is boring to repeat. The point I wanted to make is that for me, things like Facebook and Reddit are almost parasitic. Different people might respond differently but for me Facebook was an addiction. It was simpler than real life. I was able to get Facebook likes more easily than to do whatever work I needed to be doing. Maybe I’ll do a Poached article about this.
Wow I’m only 2 points in and I’m almost at work. This is always a humbling lesson in how easy it is to underestimate the time costs of any given project. Overestimate self, underestimate complexity and unexpected side-tracks.
Three:
I woke up early today but I lingered in bed and “went back to sleep” twice. It’s a silly habit that I’d really like to hack, but I’m not sure how much of a priority that should be. I read somewhere that you can actually practice it- lie down, set a really soft alarm, get up when you hear it. Get into the habit of getting up. I like the idea of it but I’m not sure if I’m going to do it particularly soon. I should, though, it would be good for me. Maybe I should start using my gtasks again. I dont know. Don’t wanna think too much about it at the moment. Focus my thoughts on work.
Four:
When I had to go for remedial training (irresponsibly forgot about my IPPT, kept putting it off, missed my reminders because
I changed my phone number…), I was startled by how unfit the older guys were. I mean you see unfit guys all the time here and there, but it’s really something to see when you gather a whole bunch of them in a single space. It vaguely reminded me of the obese batch on tekong- there’s something about seeing a large group of large young men that really hits you. I specifically remember thinking that for some of these guys, NS might actually be lifesaving. They mighr literally die without it. But back fo RT- you see guys who you can tell were once fit. I’m reminded of my secondary school maths teacher showing us his NS photos- young, slim, fit! But life gets in the way. Clearly the world after NS and University can wear you down into a flubby blob if you’re not paying attention. I re-realize the power of peer pressure- one of my colleagues goes for a run every week, another plays soccer, another goes wakeboarding. There’s a girl in the adjacent office who’s in the national basketball team. I can so imagine how easy it would be for an entire group of working adults to end up drinking, smoking and eating unhealthily day in day out, killing themselves.
I guess the point of that is I really need to set aside time for exercise, for dates with the wife, for conversations with friends. Some say that life’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans. One shouldn’t spend much time planning, I think, but plans should be made, because otherwise nothing outside one’s immediate locus of convenience will take place- and life begins at the end of your comfort zone.