2024-10-01
It's the first day of October. Of course, I have a lot planned for this month, and so its inception has somewhat of a worry-inducing effect on me. Not that it will be particularly terrible if I miss things, or don't manage the amount of blog entries I want to write, or don't manage to learn Italian as effectively as I want, or don't manage to draw each day. In fact, I've gotten on the train with absolutely no inspiration as to what to draw, and it's a bit bumpy anyways (I am used to writing on the train, but it feels particularly bumpy today, so probably not great for drawing) so I'll save drawing for the evening. I've also got a lot of odd jobs to do, like consider whether we'll have time for a dinner before opera tomorrow (it is at seven, and we won't get to Covent Gardens before half six) and sort of getting euros for the trip to Italy, and packing my bags.
I feel as though my thoughts are unorganised? I'm not particularly sure on the way to organise them, or if it is really organisation which they need. See, to achieve the things I want to do, I need to just do them. Instead, I write wv, and stress about things. So I wonder if the stress is from having things hanging over my head I need to do, or if is from an underlying lack of sleep (my sleep has been terrible of late) or if it is from something else. It's a bit difficult to psychoanalyse oneself.
Recently, I notice I have been struggling to hit the thousand words mark; not that it has been impossible by any means, but I notice that it doesn't seem to come as easily as it was. Again, there is likely a reason for that, and I wonder if it has to do with a lack of meaningful consumption against output, or again if it is due to the stress of real life, or the demands I am placing on myself to try to blog and draw and do whatever else. I realised last month that the previous thing I was doing, where I would set deadlines and targets, was not conducive to my actual success, and that I should be satisfied with doing more in a way, as opposed to always striving to get more done. Only yesterday I had to talk myself out of buying a violin I wouldn't be able to play.
I feel as if I'm behind on things, as if I'm working on a backlog, or as if I neglect things for only a day or two and they morph into a much more troubling, outstanding, backlog item. At the same time, I struggle to find time to meet all what I want to do, and actually work against the backlog of tasks to get it down. It seems like life always throws more work at me, and I am struggling to keep up. I am really not sure on how to balance things; in fact, it seems like somewhere a balance is out of whack. I am not sure where though; it takes some serious skills (I don't have) to be able to identify where and why the feeling of malaise is gripping one.
In terms of the information we produce, as a civilisation we produce a lot don't we? Of course, I as an individual even am producing far more than I can even consume (I would no way to have the time to read a thousand words each day) and each individual produces as certain amount. A lot is not published, and is notes for the individual, but even then we have groups of people producing movies and films and series by the dozen, each requiring huge investments in time... As well, each individual item can take up to an infinitude of time just by itself, as there is analysis that can be done above and beyond the original material, and recursively into that... For instance, if someone (no idea why) wanted, they could take the roughly hundred-thousand words I have written to date on wv, and analyse them to no end... Why did I not write much until August? Why did I write so much in August and September? What else was on my mind as I was writing? What are my emotions about my previous entries, and what would they be at any given point in time? A diachronic and synchronic account of the evolution of my opinion about certain entries. What factors caused this shift in opinion. And so on, and so on. Absurd quantities of ink could be spilt about the silly amount of ink I've spilt writing wvs.
It also makes one wish there was a way to process all the information, as in some computerish future where we are merged with technology to give us more processing power... at the same time, it is probably wiser to actually try not to process too much information, but instead work with a much smaller subset of information. I suppose it is a kind of FOMO that there is so much information that I will never get the ability to process...
But then back to work. If it is I feel a backlog of tasks, then that is because I have taken on too much work and cannot handle that much; as such I should probably lower my expectations a little. Really, the fact is that the main progress (and human progress is quite slow) is in doing the same thing for several years, not for doing it particularly well or fast. For instance, if I want to progress my health (and I am already seeing gains at 37) I should go to the gym 100 times, a thousand times. That is the intent behind the @@[thousands][/thousands] page, but of course it could be taken the wrong way (by me). The overall intent is a sort of consistency, with allowance for inconsistency. In terms of getting things done, this can happen as and when, and if it doesn't happen, so be it. I suppose a major factor is that I need to be less harsh on myself.
I wonder if in the future I will question how easily I've slipped into a sort of egoistic, demonstrative sort of mentality, where I want to be able to show myself I have something to show, without really understanding the meaning of life.
Maybe I do need to that Buddhist monk break... Again, I sort of want to do it to demonstrate to myself though. In fact, even this wv is a form of self-demonstration, I want to have something to show. Despite it being published, I really am writing for myself, and to sate my own inadequacy complex.
So, has it helped, me writing this wv? Not at all. The outcome is that I've spilt ink. Now to get a wet towel and hope it comes off... another task.
Have a good one.