What has worked and what hasn't

2020-04-07 @Lifestyle

Between the stoic teaching and other habits, I encounter successes and failures. In spirit of accountability (and learning), let’s reflect on these.

When immersed in an extremely engaging activity such as programming a script or writing, if sedentary, I often neglect to pause and stand for too long a period.

Mitigating strategies:

  1. A standing mode that I switch to back and forth. Recommended for anyone. Find a surface of sufficient elevation (perhaps with aid of a book or two) to align your keyboard roughly parallel with your elbows.
  2. If writing analog, I’ve come to leverage a clipboard with the freedom to roam at will.
  3. If one day I grow sufficiently apt with something like the Penti keyboard, the (digital) roaming setup will know no bounds.

The 16-18 hour daily intermittent fast has become the normal way of life, requiring no effort. But here lie the difficulties:

  1. If approaching the anticipated feeding window and I suddenly face unforeseeable delaying factors, irritability lurks around the corner. With conditions planned for in advance, I’ve fasted for nearly 24 hours without great struggle. In that anticipatory factor lies the weakness.

  2. Breaking the fast with a majestically large, plentiful meal is bound to end in disaster. Rather, I’ve grown accustomed to commence with a smaller, break-fast type meal, then wait an hour at the absolute least or until I regain appetite, whichever comes later. I’m still working to attain a balance.

My morning meditations, while consistent, have fallen sabotage to certain noise; not the kind that I willingly brush aside to regain meta-neutrality. It’s the noise in the form of ideas about tools or projects I work on. I then become anxious to document these thoughts. And therewith proceeds the entire session.

I often forget to power on my pesky mobile device well into the day. There’s nothing in it that I care for. While not a strict success or failure, I will gladly take this extreme to the opposite.

I tend (or strive) to view many factors with cold indifference:

  1. The cold
  2. Hunger
  3. Bodily calamities beyond the directly performance inhibiting.
  4. Isolation, solitude.
  5. The past
  6. The future
  7. The eventual Death, however soon or late she happens to make an appearance.
  8. Losing a fortune due to factors I don’t control.
  9. The question of accomplishments or roadmap checkmarks. I don’t care for such stuff. I’m more concerned with the vector of movement rather than the absolute position or the historical data.

In midst of Corona, my life has hardly changed. Actually, it may have slightly improved:

  1. I’ve been in touch with more people by email.
  2. The virtual Toastmasters meetups have become more exciting with an increasing pool of guests.
  3. Having to prepare all meals indoors, I’ve become a slightly better chef.

Nothing beyond has changed:

  1. I’ve exhibited hermitic tendencies for too long. Isolation is not a novelty.
  2. I perform strictly calisthenic exercise, this habit immutable to most circumstances.
  3. I conduct all work from home.

I suppose travel restrictions limit the adventure-oriented season. For the present, I’m not too concerned. It gives me the opportunity to focus on the pursuit of some goals. Try to always identify opportunity in seemingly troubling times.

I recognize the existence of a virus. I accept whatever restrictive measures the circumstances impose upon me.

I extend empathy to whoever I know to become stricken in consequence (or for any other of the millions of causes individuals fall ill.)

But it doesn’t otherwise interest me. I don’t care to ponder or discuss it.

Now here’s the failure. A greater portion of individuals with whom I come to exchange dialogue, demonstrate active concern. Their apprehension towards the matter tends to consume a fair amount of conversational space, as if that in itself had any bearing on physical reality.

This manifests draining energy. That energy sweeps over me like a dust cloud.

Then I become irritable, liable to succumb to remonstration, defending my indifference, appealing to stoic and inner guiding principles. I would rather remain in cold, distanced silence. But I lose emotional control.

Questions, comments? Connect.