2024-08-16
exercises, which are what I really do need to do... in other words, I'm procrastinating. It's theoretically not a bad way to do it, and I suppose I do benefit from having written these three thousand words. When I used to write lle (life log entries) on the computer, I would sometimes get up to 5000 words per day, just because I needed to get my thoughts on (virtual) paper. I suppose this is much the same.
Screentime today is 3h40m. That's pretty bad. Of course it's actually more than that, since I was staring at my laptop screen all day for work too, and have been staring at this laptop to write wvs. But on the phone it is 3h40m, which is not great. Yesterday it was 52m, much better. But I really want it to be much lower.
I notice that using my phone too much, and Youtube too much, is still a vestigial sin of mine. I have inherited it through many years, and it has persisted under the illusion that I gain something from it. Really, it often annoys me when Invidious does not load (which happens more and more often), or if the internet goes and I have to re-seek in the video to where I was, or if there is nothing good to watch... I rarely watch junk, but do sometimes find fairly pointless things to watch. I watch Brodie Robertson a lot, who is really good and I don't want to denigrate his work, but that kind of Linux news is ultimately not very useful to my actual everyday life: I gain nothing from it.
I do listen to podcasts: Diary of a CEO, and Modern Wisdom, nowadays. I find it to be very educational, genuinely. However, I need to actually implement the education I learn, otherwise it is just reiterating to a paraplegic about how to move one's legs.
For this week, or maybe last week, I was going to spend the whole time without my phone. As it turns out, I (currently) need my phone due to TOTP being on it that I use for work, but I could remove this and install it elsewhere (on the (probably 9 years old by this point) S4mini?). It would be a great vice to kick and would probably help clear my mind. I imagine it would help my focus as well, not to have that distraction, and clear a little extra time.
Generally, I can benefit a lot from just getting rid of things. Via negativa. I misuse media, and misuse my phone. I have always called my phone the 'agent of sin', and really it is, but ultimately I am the sinner: the phone merely enables me. I've gotten rid of most bad things: I never really used social media like Facebook or Twitter, I don't use Reddit anymore, etc. But I still watch Youtube (if, via Indivious, not on the app, which adds some friction) and browse the web, etc. I think this is generally the problem. The mere fact of it being a phone, and having, e.g. a 60Hz AMOLED panel, and the touchscreen, annoy me too. I know it is all made in such a way as to control me, hijack me. It's not as bad as some of the ones now, as the technology back in 2018 was still not quite what it is nowadays, where the main goal of tech companies is to "get them young" with addictive screens, gestures, animations, etc. I've never bought into it too much, yet still use the phone a lot for... what? Youtube, mainly, honestly. So, I want that to go. I could just add Invidious sites, and Youtube into my /system/etc/hosts, which to be honest I'm very tempted to. Actually, let's do that, tonight.
I'll then stop using the phone so much, not to watch Youtube, etc. I'll see how my screentime changes over the next week, with intentional reductions in use and the /etc/hosts block in place. I could write about it next week. I think it will do me a lot of good not to be engaging in that sort of thing. There is I guess the part of me that will say, "but what of the good music you will miss out on?", and "what of the ability to learn new ideas?", but really at this point, I likely don't need to listen to much new music (nor do I ever, really) and I can come up with a lot of ideas by myself if I need them. I know the basics and can work on actually implementing those, before I then need more information to add to it. I can probably learn a lot by doing, for many of my vices or desires.
And so, I'm going to leave it at that. Vestigial vices are really what I am struggling with at the moment. Today, I slept little due to a late night out, and then did not go to the gym in the morning. As a result, I've now gotten to the evening, having not done my gym exercises (it's now too late to go to the gym physically, and I've eaten which makes even doing things in my room likely to induce cramp) and have not practised guitar. In other words, I've sort of messed up. On the bright side, I've written three wvs, but I wonder if it was a worthwhile tradeoff. A lot of what I'm doing now is trading off one thing for another, which means I still get things done, but maybe not exactly what I want to get done. I can always fix it tonight and tomorrow: I can get a decent night's sleep tonight, wake up early, go for my swim and potentially even to the gym for a little bit after (doing legs, which isn't really that horrid compared to upper body), and then go to town to study as usual. So I can get a fair bit done: I can then go to the allotment and begin work there, etc. I can make up for today (wv heavy) by doing more tomorrow and over the weekend. I've even got Monday and Tuesday off work so I can catch up then. In other words, it's not the end of the world, and whilst my goal of having a perfect week this week has not really come to fruition, I still think it's been a good one.
Talking of good ones, have a good one.