Re: AE's Journal Round 6 - Navigating the Liminal Space
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2024 9:56 am
2024 Update
New yearly theme: The year of ACTION! The goal for this year is to find a way to turn my inner life into my outer life by more skillfully acting on emotions and desires.
How to make this happen? The biggest limiter in my life right now is my social network. I poured a lot of effort into my social network in 2023, and I made significant progress, but I have come to realize that who I allow into my life is extremely important. Ideally, I should be finding other talented and interesting people who have access to the opportunities, but connecting with this type of person requires a more skillful approach and serendipitous environment than I had at my disposal in 2023. So in 2024, we will be remedying this. Otherwise, it's easy to end up with a social network full of people who are either not a good fit or an active drain on my life.
My main paradigm is still Cal Newport's Deep Life Stack 2.0. This is the stack where he separates "get on top of your life" from "find self-actualization," which I think is a useful distinction. It's hard to self-actualize unless you have a solid foundation, so I am going to focus on that foundation before I worry about self-actualization.
Following this for a few months has made me acutely aware of how I spend my time and how much effort I'm wasting on things that do not bring any value back into my life. Trying to keep up with the daily "three core habits" followed by time block planning has been absolutely vital in helping me plan my days more effectively. I have started to realize it's less about "time" and "energy," and more about taking the right action at the right time for the right outcome.
So what I've done here is organized my habit priorities as a pyramid of sorts, which each habit feeding into my main goals for the year. The habit pyramid has three tiers:
Tier 1 - Critical Maintenance
These are things that must happen or else I am going to find it difficult to function on a high level. They are: diet, exercise, reducing screen time. I try to do these things every single day.
Diet is something I have made significant progress on by simply meal prepping giant batches of food and then freezing it all so I can just pull whatever I want to eat out of the freezer. 90% of my diet has become oatmeal bars for breakfast, veggie and meat burrito for lunch, protein + veg + carb + varying diverse spice dish for dinner. All of this freezes well and I can make it interesting by changing the core components while not spending endless time trying to learn new dishes. I also limit caffeine and alcohol to special occasions.
For exercise, I have switched more to a cardio focus rather than a resistance training focus because cardio helps with depression more than anything else, and I am trying to lose weight. I will get more serious about the diversity of fitness once I have more time. My main goal here is to do enough to keep me sane while making other changes to my life.
Reducing screen time means trying to get off the "trash internet" as much as possible. I have made good progress here, but I am realizing I need to substantially change my lifestyle to do even better because I've come to realize I am getting most of my needs met through screens, hence why they have been hard to cut down on.
Tier 2 - Important but more difficult to control
These are things that are still important but often include factors beyond my direct control, so meeting these needs are more complicated. These habits are: socialization, sleep, and managing stress.
For socialization, this has turned into activities I schedule then try to invite people to. That's either done through a meetup group I run or by organizing stuff outside of class with my Russian class. I've realized it's a lot easier to make friends if I take the approach of "I'm doing this, who wants to come?" rather than waiting to get invited to anything. The reason I have made this second tier is that it's hard to improve my social life without moving any more, so I'm trying to curb the amount of driving I do in favor of forcing myself to actually get the condo ready to move.
For sleep, I have to maintain this delicate balance of trying to stay stimulated enough in the evenings that I don't fall asleep too early and ruin my sleep schedule, but not so stimulated that I can't fall asleep. I am a morning person, so 2200-600 is my best sleep time. Unfortunately, a lot of social life happens at night, so adaption is a useful skill. If I am out late, melatonin before bed helps me fall asleep without a longer "wind down" period. I try not to take too much melatonin too regularly though because I find regular melatonin use starts to make me wake up at 200 and be unable to fall asleep again.
For managing stress, I journal regularly to process my emotions and get them out of my head, and also zazen meditation helps a lot too. Both of these things also have the benefit of making me realize when I've trapped myself inside of some mental construction that just is not real and is making me miserable. I have recently realized a lot of the stuff I've been obsessing about only exists inside of my own head and that I am the source of most of my misery. I don't think I would have realized that without journaling or zazen because both of those activities make conscious the content of my thoughts, which is the first step in changing them.
Tier 3 - Self-Actualization/Deep Learning
These are actives that make my life enjoyable but require that I feel good in order to really do. Right now, these are learning Russian and writing. A significant chunk of my social life has become organized around learning Russian, so I'm going to continue. And writing is obviously there because I want to finish my novel.
Goals
These habits are all connected to three goals I want to reach this year, which are:
1. Relocate - I've decided either to move down to the university area of Denver or the arts district. I need more advanced cultural and intellectual experiences in my life, and both of those locations support that. I'm going to just rent, so if it turns out I don't like the area, I'll just move.
The bigger hurtle here is managing my damned condo and getting it ready to rent out. I'm going to rent it and hire a property manager because if I decide I hate that, I'll just sell it later. But I have to get rid of all my shit, fix some maintenance issues, repaint the damned thing, etc.
Minimalism has been extremely useful here, and I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff with a few more things to do. Once I finish, I will have significantly downsized, which will make my life a lot easier.
2. Build a better social network - I grew up lower-middle class, so hanging out with people who come from the upper classes made me realize that the upper class life includes a hell of a lot more active networking and active social cultivation than the lower class experience. The lower class and/or dysfunctional family experience involves hanging out with family and friends of family that you mostly hate and have major issues and finding a way to guard yourself from everyone else's problems leaking into your life. The upper class social strategy is to find other talented people to do stuff with. Applying the lower class strategy to the upper class environment is doomed to failure because you are focused on guarding against losses instead of finding gains.
I don't really care about money or status, what I do want is genuine connection with talented people, which I have discovered involves projecting that myself then actively finding people who meet those criteria. Empathy and compassion are magical lifehacks here because they allow me to bridge the gap with almost anyone.
So my strategy here is to revamp the image I'm portraying (hence the focus on fashion), put myself in a good environment full of people I want to meet, pour energy and show active interest in others, then stop feeding into connections that aren't reciprocal or aren't getting me anywhere, and that's how it's done.
3. Writing - I need a creative outlet to feel fulfilled, and for me, that's writing. As I have written a lot of fiction over the past year, I've come to realize that there's a skill/craft element of fiction that I need to be constantly honing if I want to Git Gud. So this goal is to start taking the craft more seriously instead of just viewing it as a hobby.
What about work?
I don't really love software, but my current job is easy and pays well. I'm going to keep going on that ride until either one of those factors change. My job is not a hindrance toward my other goals, and it pays so well that I can subsidize easily the rest of my life. However, I am aware that this may not be forever, so I am not going to get complacent.
What I am going to do is try to be engaged with my piece of work without getting too sucked into corporate drama, and I'm also going to give up trying to find another job. My NW just hit $800k, and given I don't love software, I don't really see any point in prioritizing this right now when I'm already strapped for time and have more important things to do.
One thing I am going to do in 2024 is start tracking my expenses again. I gave up doing that in 2023 because I had other stuff to worry about, but I see myself fully quitting in the next two or so years, so I need to start prepping the financial runway in order to make that happen. My focus is less on cutting spending and more about making sure where I do put money is both skillful and useful.
New yearly theme: The year of ACTION! The goal for this year is to find a way to turn my inner life into my outer life by more skillfully acting on emotions and desires.
How to make this happen? The biggest limiter in my life right now is my social network. I poured a lot of effort into my social network in 2023, and I made significant progress, but I have come to realize that who I allow into my life is extremely important. Ideally, I should be finding other talented and interesting people who have access to the opportunities, but connecting with this type of person requires a more skillful approach and serendipitous environment than I had at my disposal in 2023. So in 2024, we will be remedying this. Otherwise, it's easy to end up with a social network full of people who are either not a good fit or an active drain on my life.
My main paradigm is still Cal Newport's Deep Life Stack 2.0. This is the stack where he separates "get on top of your life" from "find self-actualization," which I think is a useful distinction. It's hard to self-actualize unless you have a solid foundation, so I am going to focus on that foundation before I worry about self-actualization.
Following this for a few months has made me acutely aware of how I spend my time and how much effort I'm wasting on things that do not bring any value back into my life. Trying to keep up with the daily "three core habits" followed by time block planning has been absolutely vital in helping me plan my days more effectively. I have started to realize it's less about "time" and "energy," and more about taking the right action at the right time for the right outcome.
So what I've done here is organized my habit priorities as a pyramid of sorts, which each habit feeding into my main goals for the year. The habit pyramid has three tiers:
Tier 1 - Critical Maintenance
These are things that must happen or else I am going to find it difficult to function on a high level. They are: diet, exercise, reducing screen time. I try to do these things every single day.
Diet is something I have made significant progress on by simply meal prepping giant batches of food and then freezing it all so I can just pull whatever I want to eat out of the freezer. 90% of my diet has become oatmeal bars for breakfast, veggie and meat burrito for lunch, protein + veg + carb + varying diverse spice dish for dinner. All of this freezes well and I can make it interesting by changing the core components while not spending endless time trying to learn new dishes. I also limit caffeine and alcohol to special occasions.
For exercise, I have switched more to a cardio focus rather than a resistance training focus because cardio helps with depression more than anything else, and I am trying to lose weight. I will get more serious about the diversity of fitness once I have more time. My main goal here is to do enough to keep me sane while making other changes to my life.
Reducing screen time means trying to get off the "trash internet" as much as possible. I have made good progress here, but I am realizing I need to substantially change my lifestyle to do even better because I've come to realize I am getting most of my needs met through screens, hence why they have been hard to cut down on.
Tier 2 - Important but more difficult to control
These are things that are still important but often include factors beyond my direct control, so meeting these needs are more complicated. These habits are: socialization, sleep, and managing stress.
For socialization, this has turned into activities I schedule then try to invite people to. That's either done through a meetup group I run or by organizing stuff outside of class with my Russian class. I've realized it's a lot easier to make friends if I take the approach of "I'm doing this, who wants to come?" rather than waiting to get invited to anything. The reason I have made this second tier is that it's hard to improve my social life without moving any more, so I'm trying to curb the amount of driving I do in favor of forcing myself to actually get the condo ready to move.
For sleep, I have to maintain this delicate balance of trying to stay stimulated enough in the evenings that I don't fall asleep too early and ruin my sleep schedule, but not so stimulated that I can't fall asleep. I am a morning person, so 2200-600 is my best sleep time. Unfortunately, a lot of social life happens at night, so adaption is a useful skill. If I am out late, melatonin before bed helps me fall asleep without a longer "wind down" period. I try not to take too much melatonin too regularly though because I find regular melatonin use starts to make me wake up at 200 and be unable to fall asleep again.
For managing stress, I journal regularly to process my emotions and get them out of my head, and also zazen meditation helps a lot too. Both of these things also have the benefit of making me realize when I've trapped myself inside of some mental construction that just is not real and is making me miserable. I have recently realized a lot of the stuff I've been obsessing about only exists inside of my own head and that I am the source of most of my misery. I don't think I would have realized that without journaling or zazen because both of those activities make conscious the content of my thoughts, which is the first step in changing them.
Tier 3 - Self-Actualization/Deep Learning
These are actives that make my life enjoyable but require that I feel good in order to really do. Right now, these are learning Russian and writing. A significant chunk of my social life has become organized around learning Russian, so I'm going to continue. And writing is obviously there because I want to finish my novel.
Goals
These habits are all connected to three goals I want to reach this year, which are:
1. Relocate - I've decided either to move down to the university area of Denver or the arts district. I need more advanced cultural and intellectual experiences in my life, and both of those locations support that. I'm going to just rent, so if it turns out I don't like the area, I'll just move.
The bigger hurtle here is managing my damned condo and getting it ready to rent out. I'm going to rent it and hire a property manager because if I decide I hate that, I'll just sell it later. But I have to get rid of all my shit, fix some maintenance issues, repaint the damned thing, etc.
Minimalism has been extremely useful here, and I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff with a few more things to do. Once I finish, I will have significantly downsized, which will make my life a lot easier.
2. Build a better social network - I grew up lower-middle class, so hanging out with people who come from the upper classes made me realize that the upper class life includes a hell of a lot more active networking and active social cultivation than the lower class experience. The lower class and/or dysfunctional family experience involves hanging out with family and friends of family that you mostly hate and have major issues and finding a way to guard yourself from everyone else's problems leaking into your life. The upper class social strategy is to find other talented people to do stuff with. Applying the lower class strategy to the upper class environment is doomed to failure because you are focused on guarding against losses instead of finding gains.
I don't really care about money or status, what I do want is genuine connection with talented people, which I have discovered involves projecting that myself then actively finding people who meet those criteria. Empathy and compassion are magical lifehacks here because they allow me to bridge the gap with almost anyone.
So my strategy here is to revamp the image I'm portraying (hence the focus on fashion), put myself in a good environment full of people I want to meet, pour energy and show active interest in others, then stop feeding into connections that aren't reciprocal or aren't getting me anywhere, and that's how it's done.
3. Writing - I need a creative outlet to feel fulfilled, and for me, that's writing. As I have written a lot of fiction over the past year, I've come to realize that there's a skill/craft element of fiction that I need to be constantly honing if I want to Git Gud. So this goal is to start taking the craft more seriously instead of just viewing it as a hobby.
What about work?
I don't really love software, but my current job is easy and pays well. I'm going to keep going on that ride until either one of those factors change. My job is not a hindrance toward my other goals, and it pays so well that I can subsidize easily the rest of my life. However, I am aware that this may not be forever, so I am not going to get complacent.
What I am going to do is try to be engaged with my piece of work without getting too sucked into corporate drama, and I'm also going to give up trying to find another job. My NW just hit $800k, and given I don't love software, I don't really see any point in prioritizing this right now when I'm already strapped for time and have more important things to do.
One thing I am going to do in 2024 is start tracking my expenses again. I gave up doing that in 2023 because I had other stuff to worry about, but I see myself fully quitting in the next two or so years, so I need to start prepping the financial runway in order to make that happen. My focus is less on cutting spending and more about making sure where I do put money is both skillful and useful.