Another Day
08 Nov 2014Another day.
Okay. Now what?
Now I am facing a blank page. And I don’t know exactly what I want to write.
I was asleep here on the couch for the last four hours. The radio was on in the background, playing famous songs from musicals. My Fair Lady, Camelot, Romeo & Juliet.
I was just dreaming with these songs in the background, too. And it felt like being back on the Mega Road Trip with Florian and Noah. We were traveling and had just ended up in a rustic bar, like the one in Gardiner, Montana, and everyone was singing together. This was a strange phenomenon: the way this music brought me back there. It was sort of surreal, like magic.
And then in the dream it all felt so natural. Normal. I couldn’t explain why it was going on, why I was hearing what I was hearing. I didn’t have any recognition that this music was coming from the real radio, only 10ft away…
Now that I consider it, that is one distinct thing while sleeping: an ability to recognize things.
Everything just seems to “make sense” during dreams. No questions or explanation necessary. And now I recall when Goenka suggests that a “recognizing” function is one of four parts of the mind. So is it possible that this part could be taking a rest while asleep? Why not? That seems to match my experience.
I have been thinking a lot lately that I wish I was writing more. Really beating myself up more for not publishing more.
I wish I had a better way to figure out how to get my opinion onto the page like that. The technical challenge isn’t tough. That’s not the problem. I suppose the problem is not knowing what to say. To know when to say it. Not knowing how much to say.
Giving myself permission to put my opinions out there? Maybe. It’s an uncomfortable problem. Right now I am barely publishing anything.
As an experiment, I could try the opposite extreme: posting a lot. Lots and lots. As much as possible: Why not? It’s not like anyone is telling me that I am posting too much right now. I guess I’d like to try that experiment.
And then thinking back over all of the vast amounts of my writing I have stored in one place or another. It would be cool to go through that some time and share it with others. But that could also be such a massive exercise. I don’t know if it makes sense to try to get that up there.
Anyway. This should be alright for now.
And I would also like to continue working on the layout and design of the blog a bit.
heh.
Always finding new things to distract myself. When I know that my most important priority right now is getting the HR pre-course work done.
And instead I find myself:
- making new Letsfix extensions, landing pages, or what have you
- thinking about working deeper with Beeminder, or working on things like Folderminder
- trying to contribute to Squirt.io
- trying to read more books, like Sacred Economics or its antithesis, Atlas Shrugged
- watching these 10 hours of JS lectures by Douglas Crockford
- reading the LessWrong major sequences
- wanting to go visit old friends in Austin
What do I have to complain about? Life is wonderful. I have my health, relative material comfort, supportive friends and lots of working projects that interest me. And a healthy family. I feel like I have all the tools to be happy: gratitude, exercise, and meditation. And yet sometimes something just doesn’t feel right… Oh well.
And now I am running out of things to say. I took a little break there for a minute. Even though that’s not in the spirit of these writings, for which it’s better if I just keep on going without pausing.
So what else?
I published some other project pages recently too: this instant staring contest app idea, and Metta Date – to help you find meditation partners nearby to go meditate right now.
They are just simple landing pages for the ideas. But it feels nice to make something. Even though I haven’t gone to the next stage to make any working demos. Even making a landing page for the idea, something that can be shared with others, feels cool in itself. Of course, I’d like to continue moving forward. It’s nice to be able to follow up and work on that. A form of creative expression.
I imagine a future when I feel much more comfortable technically, and I’m able to make simple little demos quickly and easily. That sure would be cool. And I can just try out some ideas quickly. Just make a little prototype.
That’s part of what attracts me to Hack Reactor. That it offers the tools to follow up with these ideas. Specific knowledge of the practical requirements for some of these technical projects. Working deeper with things like Node, Phonegap, PaaS’s, etc.
Anyway. I think I will stop writing now. It was nice to get this one out.