It’s funny to me that I spent some time writing half-vomits that I didn’t publish, and then suddenly I wrote a triple vomit in a single continuous session. I’m proud of the fact that it felt like that vomit was rather coherent despite its length- it was rather systematic. I think that’s evidence of an expansion of my abilities.
I’m still enjoying Facebook’s On This Day. Today I encountered an old incident 6 years ago where I responded to a friend’s comment in a very catty, butthurt way. It’s startling to witness. Those words were precisely mine, and I do remember them coming together in my mind. But the intent, the context, all of that is so different from what my life is now. I was definitely insecure at the time- I was frustrated and upset with myself for doing poorly in school. I messaged my friend earlier to apologize- I really don’t want to be that person any more, to anybody, ever. I know that that’s a hard standard to live up to and that I’m definitely going to fall short of it over and over again, but I think it’s definitely worth aspiring to. Life is too short to harbor such resentment and anger. It shouldn’t be spent selfishly. That’s a very small, miserable life.
So what’s next? What lies ahead?
I want to do more. I want to be more. I want to serve better.
I want to empower more people in a much more personal way. I foresee becoming a mentor figure to young writers, which is a prospect I find very exciting. I’d like to give back to others what I have received. [1] Often I have to be careful to make sure that I’m actually doing something that is globally optimal for myself and in line with my vision and goals, rather than wasting my time engaging randomly with random people who aren’t particular invested. [2]
But yeah, I’m going to be hiring a bunch of writers and I’m going to be coaching and mentoring them along the way, and I really look forward to that.
What else? Well, for me to do a good job at that I need to get better at managing my time, which means I need to get better at working with my calendar and my todo lists. I need to remind myself of what I want, which is to “spread the light of consciousness” so that can have very high-functioning individuals to share my existence with, and we can do cool things together that we can enjoy and be proud of. Again, all of this is still knowingly against the backdrop of an ultimately meaningless universe– all of this is still ultimately play.
Wow, also, I’m incredibly frustrated with things that don’t make sense. Things that aren’t well designed, that aren’t intuitive, that get in the way. I want to come up with things that fix things. I actually think the way we often teach guitar is somehow pretty stupid. I’m not a guitar master or a music theory master, in fact I’m quite a noob on both counts.
It’s interesting how there are some things that I used to do that I no longer really care for, and some things that I’ve always wanted to do that I still want to do. I used to want to get good at poker, thinking that it would impress my friends and that it would also teach me a lot about life. I guess as I’ve grown out of that situation, I can get my life lessons from the work I do, from my word vomits, and from other things that I find more intrinsically pleasurable. I find myself increasingly drawn to music again, and I want to master the fretboard of the guitar. It feels like a solvable problem, lots of professional musicians have a very thorough understanding of the fretboard. I feel like that will bring me endless pleasure for the rest of my life. So that’s something I’d like to do. I’d also like to do an SGtropes project, which I think I’ll do on visakanv.com/sg.
Today wasn’t my most productive day, and I’m not entirely sure why. I slept pretty well. I ate pretty well. I shouldn’t have been as tired and sleepy as I was. But I also suppose that I’ve had far less productive days in the past, more frequently, and I was just more tolerant of them then than I am now. I guess I just need to remind myself of what I want, and learn to focus, and when I’m in a lousy mood, I need to walk away and refresh myself.
_____
[1] This is a recurring theme for me for some reason, and it’s been something that deserves some examination. Why do I constantly feel some sort of urge to engage with people? It can be manifest in both productive and unproductive ways. and it seems probable to me that the fundamental drive might be something very innate about how I operate. I’m just this endless firehose that constantly wants to engage with people all the time. That’s part of why I’m doing these word vomits- to challenge myself to say everything that I can possibly say (within a large context) and then extract out whatever is really, truly valuable.
[2] I’ve gotten to a point where I can get SOME utility from almost any interaction- but it’s clear that some things are dramatically more effective and influential than others. And the challenging thing is that the most effective things are uncomfortable, while the less effective or barely effective things tend to be really fun and easy to do. So I can’t use fun, pleasure or comfort as heuristics in the short term, because they lead to suboptimal outcomes (which are far more miserable and uncomfortable than the struggle of becoming stronger). So the challenge is to develop a sort of dashboard or heuristic for navigating this counter-intuitive landscape. To get comfortable with being uncomfortable in the right ways for the right reasons.