2024-09-23
Yesterday, I did very little during the day, but at the end of the day I did write a sonnet, link [here](/poetry/sonnet-1) which was sort of a play on Shakespeare's sonnet 18. I think sonnets are quite pretty as poetry goes and I do find them quite fun to write. I think a lot of poetry is... arbitrary, but of course it's fun to write in a way that is restricted. A lot of modern poetry seems to relax the restrictions that are present in the form: for instance, relaxing the meter (iambic pentameter for sonnets) or the restrictions on rhyme. I found myself trapped in a rather suboptimal rhyme and so the ending is not very good for what I wrote...
It's my first day of creatine today. I had some in a smoothie after I went to the gym. It is just a white powder, and actually looks quite menacing, or like a drug... I suppose I will see how it makes me feel after a few weeks, where I will have to begin with a little more (say, 8g) but then lower it to between 5g and 3g after. Perhaps in a few weeks, and with good diet (i.e. eating less: I'll need to find a good source of protein, then, because of course gorging on lentils and quinoa is not good if it gives me a three hour food coma) and sleep I can be in a better place mentally too, which is really my hope for this.
After work, on the train home. Turns out, I didn't have the kind of time I thought I did, so I'm carrying on here.
I've not seen my friends in a little while; all this focus on gym and whatever is actually meaning that I'm not trying to put the effort in with my friends. I'm still talking with people at work of course, but a lot of that is not fully open, in a sense, but a little constrained by the environment. I don't think it's altogether bad, though. That said, my mate ---- (this dashes thing is a silly way of censoring names?) asked me if I was free this week so I'm meeting up with him (virtually - he lives the opposite side of the country) on Friday evening. There is also a work-do tomorrow. I guess I'm not being antisocial or asocial, but still feels like I'm not doing enough?
That said, I guess it's fine, and I do want to focus more on the gym, and things of that nature, to get something in the way of improvement, where if I socialise, sure, it is fun, but it feels somewhat like an inert activity? I know there is virtue in it, but I guess I'm not in the headspace, or potentially I feel like I need to do the self-improvement first, before I can give up more time to socialising.
I was reading a blog about how technology has not really improved our lives, or given us more leisure, but instead has rather accelerated the rate at which we are pushed. Capitalism, and all that. I don't really talk politically here but I am potentially gradually being pushed towards sympathy with socialism... Well, I've always (as a member of the UK) been in favour of free healthcare, etc. and all the liberties that we enjoy, as well as improving it (not the direction the UK is going) and funding more in way of that, public transport, etc. to boost the general communal health and allow everybody to dispense with personal expenditures that are unnecessary. Or free university I am (ostensibly) an advocate of. I feel a little odd about government regulating private corporations, but really it is necessary if we don't want the kind of horrific behaviour that companies have gotten away with in the past century or two. Really, I think that we could well do with certain industries being completely "charitised" for lack of a better word; for instance, the insurance industry I work in should definitely be a public instutition, not private. Sort of like how we have Pool Re, Flood Re, etc. that are public insurances, or national insurance even. The market doesn't provide good solutions to a lot of problems.
Anyways, back on track, about time, I am of course quite pushed for time. Necessarily; then again, it may also be an expectation thing. The kinds of things I am pursuing are the old form of skill: for instance, the gym is a physical aspect of the human body, and has not been improved particularly for millenia. We have some - creatine, as I have begun to drug myself with - improvements, but certainly the fundament (lift heavy weight, get stronger) has really not changed for a long time, and in fact, there is no way to expedite the body in its processes. It is necessarily slow (I am, to clarify, not saying that there is no way to speed up the process; just that, whatever you do, it'll take a while. You can cut two years to one, but it'll still be a long year.). As with wanting to learn to play guitar, or to draw. There is no way to speed this up; it is inherently slow, and as such is sort of in the order of things that our ancestors would dedicate time to, and to which we have to dedicate the same time. Capitalism is somewhat immune, or inert, or I suppose orthogonal is the term, to these processes. Yet, still, it seems like perhaps my ancestors would have had more time to dedicate to it, where I have less, owing to the eight hours of work and the commute to that (which totals 2.5 - 3 hours there and back). Perhaps it is that previously, there was significant joy in the singular focus of the physical pursuit, say, tilling the field, sowing or collecting seed, watering, or carving a door for ten hours (as the example in the article) yet I, in leaping between countless tasks over eight hours I don't particularly enjoy feel rather robbed of time, and not as though there is any fundamental gain to my person. For instance, at the gym, I can dedicate an hour (or less, even) and come out of it feeling as though I've done something productive and good for myself; could I ever do that at work? The only feeling is relief that a task is done, and ofen it comes back from the dead, or I am told I have done it inadequately by my boss.
Perhaps, then, I should find a job that is better for me? Or, perhaps this is the nature of modern work. Well, I could just consider and keep on writing. It makes for good wv material.
Have a good one, all (one of my readers, namely me).