It's been quite a while since I wrote in this blog and the month is almost up, so it's about time to make a post on here. I don't see this as an obligation that I need to begrudgingly uphold, I should just want to chronicle my thoughts for a future version of myself to look back on. I'm trying to commit to posting on this personal blog at least once per month; we'll see how long that lasts, but the streak is alive for now.
All that said, I don't know if I'll have anything particularly poignant to say at the moment I'm writing this. The year is nearly 1/6th over, I've made some progress on a couple of goals and neglected many others. I guess we'll talk about the good stuff, then the bad stuff, then summarize at the end. You know the drill.
I went to my last dental filling appointment in the middle of the month, so I can officially put that saga behind me. I should feel excited or relieved about this, and I did admittedly experience a brief moment of joy after leaving the dentist's office. I guess there's just a part of me that doesn't believe it's over, and in some ways, I have to acknowledge that it never will be.
There's a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I'm just going to need more fillings, I'm going back for a cleaning later in the year and I'm pre-emptively bracing myself to hear more bad news. I had to spend the past year or so denying myself personal spending just to be able to afford to pay for this lengthy process. Maybe I won't need to have 12 more fillings in the future, but who's to say?
This is supposed to be the "good" section, I say to myself with a half-hearted chuckle. Moving on, I suppose it's good to be back in a routine of exercise. I've gotten in the habit of doing cardio at least 3 times a week for a minimum of 20 minutes per session. I'm not really seeing results in terms of weight loss or decrease in resting heart rate, but I can't be impatient or get discouraged about it. It has at least helped to improve my energy levels and strengthen my legs. Next month, I'm hoping to start working back in some upper-body strength training and ramp up my cardio to 25 or 30 minutes.
I've begun dipping my toes into the world of meditation. On days that I can manage it, I carve out about 5 minutes after waking up to meditate. I sit in bed with my legs crossed, close my eyes and push all the thoughts out of my mind. I tried it outside the other day when the weather was nice, it was a peaceful experience that helped me get into an optimistic mindset for the day. For some reason, I keep picturing this shining sphere that encases my soul and shields me from intruding mental tangents, good and bad. I'm not sure why this happens, but looking forward to exploring this feeling more.
I set up a handy personal organizer app for writing down my thoughts, goals, to-dos, schedule etc. This app synchronizes between my phone and computers, ensuring I can corral my thoughts in a centralized place for safe keeping at any time of the day. My memory has always been an issue, so I'm confident that this will be a another productive step toward self-improvement.
I started a couple of small digital projects this month, nothing major but still a bit of fun. I made a SpaceHey profile yesterday, a modern replacement for MySpace that looks nearly identical to what I remember. I'm not sure where this experience will take me, but I need to be doing more small creative things like this with my time, it's good for the soul. I like the Windows 98 theme that I found, and I may take it upon myself to tinker with the code and make it appear more accurate when I have some time.
Lastly, I'm now Wonder Trading away a bunch of Shiny Smogon-viable Pokémon on the Nintendo 3DS games. The online servers for the 3DS are going to shut down in early April, so I figure it's a good time to send some fun gifts away to people before it won't be possible anymore. I added a hidden page to this website for people to visit if they receive a Pokémon from me, it includes some brief details about hacking a 3DS console and installing a homebrew replacement for the online services called Pretendo.
Oh yeah, and the Chiefs won the Super Bowl again. Neat.
I'm letting out a deep sigh as I begin to take stock of what needs to improve about how I spend my time. For starters, I have all these creative goals and I'm simply not making enough time to work on them. There was one day this past week where I worked on learning to improve my web design skills, but otherwise I've not been living up to this like I wanted to so badly at the beginning of the year.
I wonder if I'll truly ever be able to fix my brain fog and attention span issues. There are too many days lately where I experience "nothing" moods, and that sucks. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself, but sometimes I feel like I've hit the ceiling of what I'm capable of as a person, and I don't like it. There's a voice in the back of my head cackling every time I fail to become something more than what I am.
I'm trying to reckon with my inability to figure out what to do with my time on this planet, I've been doing this ever since I dropped out of college in my early 20s, maybe even longer. When I'm on my deathbed, I'll be waffling about what to do with my last 5 minutes of life instead of actually doing something.
I'm beginning to think that I just like the sound of saying that I'm a creative person as the words come out of my mouth, without actually putting in the effort to back it up. I've always wanted to skip to the end, to the part where I've made it as a person. This ill-fated desire is what sits at the root of my problems, life doesn't work this way.
Can I sit here and say for certain that I'm a more knowledgeable, skilled, successful person than I was at age 21? I'd like to think so, but others who would choose to take the least charitable interpretation of my life may differ. I know people who've non-ironically argued to my face that career is the end-all be-all measure of a person, an argument that I hold deep contempt for. I'm of the opinion that a whole spectrum of things from interests, talents, thoughts and beliefs are what matter more about a person.
Unfortunately for me, there does appear to be a nugget of truth inside the opposing belief as I peel back the layers, insofar that a thing "mattering" comes down to what other people think and how they judge your actions. Maybe it isn't necessarily the occupation itself that matters, but just what it is that you're doing with your time. "What have you done for me lately?"
If I spend an afternoon typing up one of these amateurish blog posts on my computer once a month, can I go around telling people that I'm a writer? It's difficult to imagine that it will come across as persuasive. Do you believe me?
It'd be great if I had the ability to choose one thing and focus on it for an extended period of time, like even just two consecutive days. There are so many things that I want to do, I just keep piling up my list of to-dos without making a concerted effort to check any of them off. When you want to do everything, you end up being nothing.
I ended my last post on here feeling determined to discover what creative work means to me in 2024. It's not any closer in view after a month and ten days, if anything it's become further obscured. I need to force myself to just choose something to work on, anything, no matter how small and insignificant. I need building blocks. I need to get wrapped up in something totally boring and tedious, soul-sucking, but in a way that makes me a better person instead of being in service of somebody else.
I think I'm on the right track with getting the basic things in motion. I just need to keep going, start motivating myself to be creative and put things out there as well as make time to just work on something, a skill, a project, anything. Do a small thing, complete it, move to the next one.
But maybe, more than anything else, I need to recognize that I'm already on a path. I've already done things that made me feel fulfilled and made me a better person, I need to acknowledge this fact more often. There's never been a better time to continue on towards becoming who I want to be, than now.