storyteller
☐ practice
☐ portfolio
☐ participate
listener
☒ learn
☒ connect
☒ renew
wanderer
☐ sustain
☒ explore
☐ play
10pm.. a day..
Here I am at the end of a day feeling like I didn't really do much. I didn't, either. I have days like that. There's a lot going on up in my head and I'm low key afraid of some of it. I have a lot of stuff I want to.. or say I want to.. get done. I have plenty of stuff I can work on and build up and create and sustain and generally keep going. I have obscene amounts of time on my hand. Still.. I'm petrified. I'm scared to move and make moves. I'm afraid of what? hmm.. I'm terrified of building up something only to watch it crash and burn. I'm afraid of wasting time and energy on creating things that don't matter.
Immediately, I find the thoughts occurring that I am already wasting time doing nothing with my days, instead. A whole argument is brewing about resting and renewing and about the little things I do that I don't really give myself credit for. I miss the 1000 words a day practice when I have days like this sometimes. I felt accomplished, like I had done something hard each day I did that. It really did serve its purpose, though. I'm not ready to bring it back in that exact form. What I'm doing now.. writing here about the things I am doing.. feels too lax. It's too easy to not do anything all day, then justify it in a few words.
I intended this daily practice to be hard. I wanted more videos and recordings of me trying stuff. Just the time it takes to edit and create that documentation is valuable as experience learning software, thinking about how it looks as a finished product, and yeah.. bleh.. Still.. I'm struggling with making up a new system or daily routine or whatever that leaves me feeling productive.
Actually.. I'm scared of that, as well. Routines and systems take up a lot of space in my head. They are fun to play with and tweak and refine and manage. They are a great way to avoid having to do the stuff the system is meant to document me doing. So.. Here I am writing about it all.. which is a close second to not doing anything and just thinking about it all.
Some good things happened today. I watched a movie called Old Dads about a lot of things. The story line I got the most out of was one of the dads dealing with anger and repeatedly being called toxic. I saw myself in his ability to or his habit of just getting used to things being a certain way. Another interaction many months ago reminded me of the word defeatism. See? Those thoughts came together today and I'm starting to think of ways to get myself out of this funk I'm catching myself resigning to.. yeah.. haha!
I reached out to a couple of friends. Actually, I was surprised by a younger friend who sent me a short video about a man talking about being strong and trying to hide sadness from those around him so he can be an example of.. hmm.. hope? not letting the world finish you? It has a lot of stuff all in minutes or less. yeah.. hmm..
So I'm here. I haven't written long like this for a while. It feels good tonight. I have some ideas for tweaking this practice and helping sort of to encourage myself to do more without triggering this guilt and rebellious resistance feeling that comes up. One such idea is to try more intentional sprees of activity throughout the day.. like little versions of Pomodoro sessions. I don't know. I'm just thinking and talking. Most of my best systems came up from just doing the stuff I am so weirdly afraid of doing and at the same time craving doing the same things.
