AE's Journal Round 6 - Navigating the Liminal Space

[AnalyticalEngine]

Background: I am 33 years-old, single with no kids, live in Denver, CO, and work remotely as a software engineer. I have been pursuing FI since 2012 and have reached my leanFIRE, back of the napkin, NW target of $750k. I wrote an older journal about regaining my sense of agency after losing it to the salaryman lifestyle, which you can read about here.

I have since regained my sense of agency by doing a lot of Jungian self-therapy (which I can elaborate on if anyone wants to hear it) and trying to unlearn some painful experiences from my past. And now that I have agency, I'm attempting to actually redesign and live my lifestyle instead of just hoarding money and praying FI comes sooner.

Lifestyle design
My current challenge is building and maintaining a fulfilling lifestyle for the first time in my life. Living without agency blinds you to the options you actually do have, and so learning to actually act on those opportunities is the skill I am currently trying to cultivate.

Here are my current lifestyle targets I am trying to incorporate into my web-of-goals. The format of this journal will be measuring progress against these goals on a monthly or quarterly basis.

1. Fitness
I have been exercising fairly consistently since early 2022, and the better shape I get in, the more I realize the world of fitness is vast and limitless and I could be going so much further than I am. So my current target is to run 2x/week, lift weights 2x/week, and cultivate more active hobbies like skiing and hiking, of which Colorado has many options.

2. Diet
My diet is weaker than my exercise routine. I currently suffer from the standard American problem of eating too much sugar and going out to eat too much. I'm looking to lose 20lbs and cook meals at home. My diet plan is nothing too crazy and will consistent of trying to eat a lot of vegetables with healthy meats and carbs and tracking macros/calories.

3. Moving
I own a condo in the suburbs I'm trying to escape from. So I'm going to move but I need to figure out where. Current options are downtown Denver, NYC, DC, or New Mexico. I will pick one of these cities and spend a lot of money on a nice apartment. I'm either going to sell or rent my current condo, and I need to figure out which I'm doing.

I also figure that once I'm in an apartment instead of my house, moving will be much easier in the future because I can just switch places or cities when my lease expires.

4. Minimalism
Part of moving has been getting rid of junk I own. I have already gotten rid of a lot but perfection yet remains unreached. With all the low hanging fruit gone, I'm having to work my way through belongings that are harder to get rid of. The end goal here is to only own things I use regularly and make it easy to move.

5. Self-Therapy
I have a pretty extensive self-therapy practice that includes journaling every morning, recording and analyzing my dreams, reading theory books, and alternating between zazen and metta meditation. I view self-therapy as the practice of removing harmful Kegan3 routines programmed into my mind by society and replacing them with new Kegan4 beliefs that better serve what I'm trying to do. It's the act of objectifying your own thoughts and experiences so you can understand them and learn new patterns of behavior that are healthier.

6. Writing
I'm trying to get published as a historical fiction author, and so I do a lot of writing and skill development toward this goal. My end goal would be to be a writer instead of a programmer. One of my biggest challenges right now is to balance writing with my lifestyle changes because historically I've only been able to do one or the other.

7. Building community
Without work or family to fill my social world, I've needed to majorly level up my social game and make new friends. I used to call myself an introvert, but as I resolve a lot of my problems with self-therapy, I don't actually see myself as an introvert any more. Rather, I think I am an ambivert who learned to be introverted due to always being in the wrong environment. Self-therapy has been absolutely critical in unlearning negative relationship patterns that were keeping me stuck.

So I'm trying to make new friends and build a better support network. The main point of moving is to put me in a more demographically appropriate area to make this possible.

8. Learning Russian
I started learning Russian for my historical fiction and then found I actually love trying to learn new languages. It's the relatively fast progress and quick feedback that makes it enjoyable. With consistent practice, I can understand more and more, and much like with exercise, the growth process is addictive in a positive way. Plus learning a new language is a good way to meet new people and have new experiences.

9. Drawing
I don't really consider drawing a main focus in my life right now, and I may drop this goal for the others, but this is a longstanding hobby of mine I'm trying to improve. My main goal with this is to go to urban sketching events or draw landscapes from my travels. I am also trying to improve my figure drawing and character designs.

10. Travel
With my love of history, I also enjoy traveling to see historical landmarks. I plan to do this more in the future, although it's lower priority than some of the more urgent items on my list.

The Endgame
My goal is to incorporate all of these elements into a new lifestyle that allows me to reach my goals, connect with others, and be present in my experiences. I will record my progress toward that goal here.

[ertyu]

Jungian self-therapy (which I can elaborate on if anyone wants to hear it)

I want to hear it, I'm always into people's coaching/therapy/self-therapy efforts

[OutOfTheBlue]

Integrating all these elements sounds like quite the challenge, but a very promising and ultimately rewarding one as things are (and become more and more) aligned with your own vision and inner drive. Enjoy every step of the way!

I love that you've included the community/social/relational aspect as a foundational area and that you're skillfully moving away from the introversion/extraversion dichotomy. Ambiverts for the win!

If you're going to continue working for the time being, maybe it can be helpful to define a minimum daily/weekly dosage for whatever you want to do, so that you may keep a consistency even at a slower pace.

---

I too am very interested to learn more about the ways you've been doing self-therapy. Jungian readings, dreamwork, meditation, journaling... Way to go!

Please know you can bring all this to the Plotkin MMG as well if you wish so as there is space there for sharing and discussing our personal journeys.

--

About running and fitness, I wanted to share a resource that could become a useful addition to your arsenal (if you don't know it yet) with minimal overhead. I think mountainFrugal mentioned using it as well.

It's a book by Kelly Starrett called "Ready to Run: Unlocking Your Potential to Run Naturally". In it he describes twelve performance standards.

Think of it as a checklist that helps you target what to work on. These standards involve lifestyle, range of motion, movement capacity, and habits related to running.

They are:

• Neutral feet
• Flat shoes
• A supple thoracic spine
• An efficient squatting technique
• Hip flexion
• Hip extension
• Ankle range of motion
• Warming up and cooling down
• Compression
• No hotspots
• Hydration
• Jumping and landing

In essence, Kelly Starrett suggests adding to your fitness routines 10 minutes (or more) of daily maintenance work, which works for injury prevention, improving mobility and addressing issues as they occur.

Additional exercises that address various pains and mobility issues with archetypal movements can be found in his other book, "Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance", which can be used as a complementary reference resource. Cheers!

[NewBlood]

Nice to read what feels like the synthesis of your previous journal. Good luck with the new phase!

Do you have good historical fiction authors to recommend?

[AnalyticalEngine]

@ertyu, @OutOfTheBlue - Glad to hear there's interest. Give me a bit to type up a summary of what I've been doing since it's going to be long and I'm about to post about a writing conference I went to. The high level overview is I'm doing a lot of daily journaling to discover what unhealthy habits I picked up from past wounds/bad examples, tying that behavior to a Jungian archetype, then trying to develop my relationship with that archetype through dream work and active imagination. The more I get into Jung, the more I realize this guy had some brilliant insights.

I'll also try to bring these to the Plotkin MMG soon. Should be easier to make time for it once I get on top of my goals and schedule and organization.

@OutOfTheBlue - I think setting a daily goal for activities I want to do is the real key. There's a lot I've been trying to jam into my schedule, so making room for everything and setting aside plenty of time for sleep has become really important. This approach has been helping because I am slowly reaching the point where I'm managing my own time and goals and work is becoming just another activity I can cut out of my life when the time comes.

Also thanks for the rec on the fitness book, I will check that out. My gym workout is nice but I'm realizing fitness should be something I practice all day. For example, I might be running a 5k daily at the gym, but this then gets offset by the fact I sit all day for work and hobbies and driving etc. Definitely room for some improvement.

@NewBlood - Thanks! I'm looking forward to heading off on a new path in life. I feel like I'm finally ready to be a lot more self-authoring.

Let me also get back to you on the historical fiction authors. I'm about to go do a huge analysis of the genre and I'll have some recs for you once I'm done.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Writing Conference Post Mortem

I went to a professional writing conference this weekend hosted by a local writer's guild. The conference was $399 to go to, so this is a big change from going to free tech conferences sponsored through work, but I really felt I got my money's worth from it. The food was very good and hearing the cutting edge updates from the industry was a way better signal to noise ration than shifting through random stuff on YouTube and podcasts.

Here are the main points.

Treat writing as a business
Writing is often made out to be some mysterious profession full of magical people, but really writers are just other humans. Meeting a bunch of people who had written and published books took the mystery out of it and made me think this is a lot more achievable than I was lead to believe.

That being said, it's useful to be specific about your goals. It's entirely possible to sell indie books on Amazon and make an okayish living at it if you target a niche. What this entails is writing a lot, knowing your audience, delivering them a product, and treating this like a business. If you do that, you have a decent chance at making a few bucks. You can even live on this income if you apply other ERE principles to it.

What's probably not going to work, however, is writing any random idea that comes to mind and praying to the gods of publishing that you become the next JK Rowling or Stephen King. This almost never happens and involves a lot of luck. Don't bank on it. Also don't get too into the weeds of writing stuff no one wants to buy. You are selling a product.

Traditional or Indie publishing?
Should you try to get picked up a traditional publisher or go the indie route? Royalties are better with indie publishing. You will usually get about 70% of royalties with indie and only 30% with traditional.

You are entirely on your own with indie. You need to find your own editor, run your own marketing campaign, and find your own audience. Traditional publishing will do some of these things for you, but increasingly they are cutting that as their own margins falter. Many traditionally published authors are still 100% responsible for their own marketing.

Also the traditional publishers tend to only want mass market appeal. If you are targeting something more niche, indie is going to serve you better because you can go find your own audience. Indie is the new midlist, basically.

Networking
I really wished I had made business cards and had my first manuscript done before going to the conference because the real thing you are paying that $399 for is the bundle of professional connections. They had 10 minute pitch sessions for audience attendees to pitch to publishing agents, they had quite a few editors and publishers there, plus there are a ton of other authors. It was a great opportunity to meet people actually doing this and hearing about latest trends.

One thing that stuck out to me was the need to learn how to sell myself better. I have never had to sell myself in programming because my skills are so in demand and programmers as so antisocial that I have recruiters banging on my email door daily.

This is not the case in writing. You are one face in an endless crowd. Learning to sell yourself is critically important.

So I'm going to join Toastmasters as one of my extracurricular actives, as this is a skill I could develop much further and would serve me in many areas in my life.

Escapism
The bad thing about writing: you are shackled to the entertainment industry. You are selling people an escape from reality. I do not like this. Having struggled with escapism myself, I am uncomfortable with enabling this in other people. I also met a lot of authors who are clearly neck deep in escapism with how they approach their own writing. That is also a problem I used to have. It's very easy to turn to writing as an escape from your life and then have this turn pathological.

That being said, I don't think writing has to be this way. Writing can be about expression and education too. Luckily, historical fiction tends to be a genre that's a little better about this. Romance and fantasy/scifi seemed like the more escapist genres.

Obviously, people do read books in part to escape from their lives, and I don't think this is always a problem if it's done with balance, and the book is of good quality. So my goal is going to be to write a compelling story with accurate historical details that can be both fun but also educational.

Historical fiction as a genre
Historical fiction is the 4th or 5th highest selling genre, and is highly consistent with its sales. It's not usually a blockbuster but there is a market for it. This means it's probably a good fit for indie publishing.

The hard part with historical fiction is time boxing your research efforts, as history is an incredibly bottomless hole of facts. The advice the speakers had was to time box it and go from general to specific details. So set aside 2-6 months for research, then start with sweeping accounts of the period. From there, pick a specific event or person to focus on and go read that. After that, find some slice of life details and historical to make the book immersive. This is going to give you a more targeted approach than going out there and trying to find everything.

Author brand
Once you break out into a genre, you usually want to stay there and write similar things because you will build up an audience looking for specific novels. If you write historical thrillers set in 16th century England, you keep writing those once you have people buying your books. However, I did meet a few people who genre hop, but they usually do so under a different pen name to keep the brands distinct.

Next steps
The conference was great for clarifying what I'm trying to do and making me realize this is actually possible. I've been dragging my feet on finishing the first draft because I didn't really believe it was going to go anywhere. However, now I see it is possible and it's worth at least trying. Even if my first book isn't very good, the goal is to learn skills with the attempt that will make your next book better. Plus I think learning to sell myself, network, and build a business will be good skills for an ERE lifestyle.

So here are my steps:
1. Writing goals - I seriously doubt I'm going to become the next Stephen King, but I'm not looking for that anyway. Really my goal here is to play with ideas in a way that people will actually pay attention to. This will also open up other opportunities for traveling for research, going onto podcasts, building an audience, etc. Basically, I am trying to be "academic" without shackling myself to an educational institution. Writing is a good way to get your ideas out there and get people to read them even if you don't make much money. The goal here is cultural capital and playing my own game rather than playing the corporate or academic game.

2. Indie publishing - I'm probably going to focus on the indie publishing route, as I see my work being more niche. I think I can build a dedicated audience looking for entertaining historical reads. Obviously this means I need to, you know, actually finish the book.

3. Time box research - I'm going to give myself two months to finish research for my current novel. I already have a bunch done but this will force me to clarify what I'm missing and be more targeted about what I'm reading.

4. Do a review of the genre - I need to read more to know what the genre trends are. Time to go over to Amazon and see what's selling. Then I'll structure the story I already want to tell around what people want to buy.

5. Actually write the damned book - The most important part. I'll give myself six months to do this.

After that, I will have learned many lessons and can move on to trying to sell it.

[Jin+Guice]

Trying to sell your art (and by necessity yourself) is a slippery slope. My ex-gf published a book on a small press and it only made her less happy. She did seem to enjoy the internet niche marketing game, selling smut on Amazon under a pen name. I think she still feels like a little bit of a failure despite an extremely successful career in journalism.

I have another friend who writes sword and sorcery short stories. His only goal was to get published, which he has now done several times starting this year. He is much less successful but much happier with his results.

The kind of success that seems to get sold at literature conferences is a depressing thing to hang your hat on. Of course everyone wants to be validated, published and read, and for that I think some success beyond the confines of your own pen is a worthwhile goal, but the goals that usually get promoted both in the direction of "doing it for passion" or "doing it for money/ fame/ success" are both equally hollow, imo.

IMO, there ERE approach to the arts is to do it because there is something you want to express, but not to totally ignore the marketing/ money/ audience side, bc most people do also want to share that expression with an audience and the rest of the arts community.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@J+G - Writing something I want to express then finding the audience for it is the balance I'm trying to reach, although I have a lot of growing reservations about the entertainment industry. The very last thing I would want is for this to turn into the same kind of grind software development has except that I'm only getting paid 20% of the salary. I met a lot of people in that position at the conference.

The real problem that's causing me motivational issues is I keep asking myself if the world really needs any more entertainment. Our postmodern world is absolutely awash in this, and as a writer, you're not only competing with other novelists, but also things like video games, movies, social media, etc. What you're selling people is escape, and so it's hard not to go into this feeling like a drug dealer.

There's a book I bought recently about how to create compelling characters, and the introduction flat out says "you need to create characters that readers want to spend time with over the people in the real lives" because the competition in the industry is so stiff. It creates race conditions where everything has to be more addictive than everything else, and that's an icky game to play.

Also I don't want to fall victim to hustle culture, which is a growing tendency in myself I am noticing.

So it's not like going to give up, but I am going to keep all these things in mind with how I pursue this. Honestly, I think the most important thing is balance. Writing shouldn't be at the center of my life. It should be a compliment to other activities and relationships. And with trying to sell it, I do think I can sell it in a way that feels natural without being a total sellout. Keep in mind my default temperament is curmudgeon, so learning to be better at sales is a skill that I need to learn anyway.

The goal is to feel good about whatever I'm doing regardless if it's a break out success or not. And it's likely not going to be a wild success because I am intentionally avoiding the grind here, which is fine. Again, there is more to life than success in this one area, but it's still a worthy thing to pursue.

[jacob]

Writing is ultimately about communicating. Creating a message. (even if it's only to yourself)

I wrote the best when I was communicating to my five year younger self. That's not to say that that was my best writing, but it was the kind of writing that flowed without much effort.

Whereas today, after my one-hit-wonder, I'm writing to create "the next classic". As such I'm stuck behind a huge wall of a self-editing hell-scape. I know too much. I'm trying to please every possible reader. Predicting complaints, etc. I'm no longer writing from a naive, idealistic, or enthusiastic state.

There are a lot of perspectives on writing.

Is it a craft, an art, a means to another end?

[7Wannabe5]

Maybe think about it from the perspective of selling people "exploration" rather than "escape."

[OutOfTheBlue]

Yeah, with your level of savings, you have bought yourself the freedom to fully or at a very high degree decouple (in this case) writing from the need to play the "entertainment industry" game by following set rules. I'm not saying you should disregard paths to success, but it's you who defines success at this point. Be the writer you want to be, write the books and stories you want to write, at the pace that's right for you. No need to churn books like there's no tomorrow (although by all means do so if so inclined). You can also take the time to craft each book at its own rhythm and maybe create something that endures.

There are many books on how to write the next best seller, but not many such as "The Space of Literature" by Maurice Blanchot, to give a starking contrast.

[Jin+Guice]

The art world is bullshit for the same reason the regular world is bullshit. It's a fresh variety of bullshit that might be refreshing or terrifying if you're coming from corporate bullshit. But it's still bullshit and I think applying ERE thinking to your art is a necessity. You're not a sellout because you care about people reading your shit or you have a goal of making some money and you're not a loser if you just write for yourself. The myth is that you have to either only care about money and always make as much money as possible OR do it because of "passion" because "you are artsy and not a sellout." Both of these are bullshit and fail to acknowledge what is great and terrible about making art.

I assume at some point computer program was fun or interesting for you? And now it's just w*rk? I also imagine you are persuing writing either because you are tired of programming or because you find writing more fulfilling and interesting?

Programming aside: I have a lot of friends who are programmers who really enjoy it. They solve fun interesting problems and get paid a shit ton to do it. But whenever I find out what they are building it's something like a document reader for a mortgage website or some healthcare platform for a corporate retirement home. But because these things have money and people behind them, it is considered really important. Does the world really need more programming?

The world doesn't need you or your writing and it doesn't need me and any of my bullshit. There is nothing you can do the world objectively needs. If your goal is subjective, then if you make one person think or smile or feel or you successfully create something you love or successfully express yourself or whatever your subjective goal is, then you did it!

One additional comment: Having a super pure goal does not lead to success often. Most people I know who have success in the arts treated their art "career" as a dynamic process where they followed successful avenues and pruned unsuccessful ones. The happy ones only pursue avenues they enjoy.

I do know folks who practice art purely for themselves and truly don't care if anyone sees it and folks who are motivated by money or who built something they love and now devote most of their effort to hustling it super fucking hard. The common thread amongst all of these people imo is that they are subconsciously or consciously following their own story and their own myths. Sometimes that myth aligns with the popular cultural myth and sometimes it doesn't.

[prudentelo]

Jin+Guice: This is great post, very interesting idea. What interests me in this space is, how reliable is it to get small (10-20k/year USD?) income from making art with no moral compromise. That is not enough for "normal" person but enough for ERE person. Also small amount compared to "real" artist but more than normal hobbyist will ever make from art.

[Jin+Guice]

@prudentelo: That depends what you mean by “reliable” and “moral.” Also what you define as “art.”

It’s easier for me to get paid as a sound engineer than musician. Usually it’s easier to get paid as an editor than writer. In general I prefer playing the music and find it more expressive, but there are parts of sound engineering that afford me artistic opportunities that playing does not.

If it’s not clear in what I wrote before, I don’t think there is any “moral” way to do it. By almost any definition, I think that’s the wrong way to look at it.

The less compromising you are, the harder it is to make money. Less because some guy in a suit comes along and asks you to compromise yourself for your “one big shot” and more because you are less likely to pursue serendipity.

Medium also matters.

Competition may also be higher than you expect as artists generally figure out that you can live on a low amount of money. The amount of wildly successful musicians I’ve met who make around $35k a year is astounding.

All that being said, I think if you really want to, almost anyone could eventually eek out $10k a year as almost any kind of artist. The real question is, how many years do you want to play 6 nights a week for $35 a night and do you really want to put in an enormous amount of time and possibly relocate yourself for the opportunity to do so?

[AnalyticalEngine]

@jacob - That's been similar to my experience too. One thing I've been doing lately is writing a memoir, which is about 100x easier to write than researched historical fiction. This has a lot of benefits actually. Making sense of one's past makes it easier to change the future, and also I am now better at removing my voice from characters who shouldn't sound like me.

But it is true that keeping the goal in mind helps. I've even thought about tackling something non-fiction first, since non-fiction is easier to write than fiction.

@7W5 - That is also a good point. I think readers do enjoy getting a glimpse into other worlds when they're portrayed in a clever way. I'm thinking of some crime dramas I've been watching recently (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul and The Wire), and the thing I enjoy about them is seeing how they portray these settings/societies with the characters they choose. Getting a glimpse into other pieces of the world is one thing good fiction can do.

@OutOfTheBlue - Not needing money is definitely a huge boon. The harder part is getting the audience over the cash. But I think there's a lot to be said that if you present people with the right energy, others will naturally gravitate toward whatever project you're making. I've had this happen with other creative projects I've done in the past and found good success building audiences from nothing simply by putting out good things.

@J+G - The bullshit is indeed inescapable, in part because of how humans just are but also in part because of how the modern attention economy and capitalist hellscape is structured.

I lost interest in programming because every job I've had is painfully understimulating corporate nonsense and I have failed to put myself into more challenging positions because I've been saving my energy for side hustles and never moved past the whole "they pay me less than I make them, so why apply myself?" mindset. Also I'm realizing that I always found school ridiculously easy and this created bad habits of under-applying myself at work. I'm still not sure if this is a rational response to work BS or if I have just been shooting myself in the foot with missed opportunities via not engaging enough. I'm starting to think I need to at least try to be engaged with programming or I need to just quit because a life of chronic disengagement is extremely not fulfilling, to say the least. Easier said than done when you are getting paid a lot to not do much.

@prudentelo - This is all true. The average novelist makes ~$20k a year iirc. That's enough to live on by ERE terms, but of course, the real cost here is opportunity cost. You're cranking out full time work for that $20k and you might make way more doing something else. Also writing is incredibly time consuming and you're also missing out on 40 hours+ a week of time you could have been spending with friends, hiking, learning a new language, whatever else. Most writers also need a regular job on top of this because it's so little money, which is why I've met plenty of people at these conferences who get 3 hours of sleep and have no life outside of work, family, and writing.

But for many people, I think writing feels like a calling, and they can't help but do this because it's their greatest passion in life. You've really got to want this to make it happen.

---

Although, tbh, I may be putting the cart before the horse with all of this because I don't even have the first book done. My plan has been to just finish the first book even if it takes me a long time and isn't following some marketing plan because that is itself an achievement. Then once I have the process down, I can worry about writing a second novel more in line with building a career. Overstrategizing a first novel when I'm still trying to figure out so many things may be the wrong move.

I am also being majorly slowed down in writing at the moment by all these other changes I'm making in my life, which all require significant executive attention. But I don't think it makes sense to obsess about writing at the cost of health and relationships, both of which are higher priorities for me right now. So if this means I can only spend an hour a day on the novel, so be it.

[DutchGirl]

Hereby I am signing up to read this content, at least.

I'm curious to read what's happening next. Good luck!

[Jin+Guice]

If you are actually focusing an hour a day on writing, that is very good. Especially since I know the rest of your life is in upheaval rn and you are working full-time.

[DutchGirl]

When I was getting my education in healthcare, after a long day of work and seeing some people getting a terrible diagnosis and some other people get really ill... I went to the theater to the show of a comedian and really enjoyed myself. At that moment I thought: I can be in this career of trying to keep people alive, trying to cure people from diseases, and it's wonderful that we can do that (sometimes) - but if you then have a healthy body and mind, you just have life. I feel like it's the artists who make life GOOD.

I read books. Sometimes it's just fun entertainment. But it can also be something that shows you other possibilities in life (like that one book I read when I was about 11, about reincarnation - I still don't believe in reincarnation, but at that point that as the first real exposure I had to other worldviews than the one I was raised in). Or it can help you understand other people's circumstances and challenges. Sometimes it gives words to feelings or things you have experienced but didn't have the words for, yet. It can help give you tools for the challenges you face in your own life - and I'm still talking fiction books and not self-help books, although of course they can be useful as well.

I would therefore not necessarily see (all) writing as luring people away from more valuable things that they can do with their lives. I think it can be beautiful and worthwhile.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@DutchGirl - That's a good perspective and I do agree. I think finding a book that resonates with your inner experience can be deeply profound and a good way to connect both to yourself and others. Expression is something fiction does very well, and expression is an important antidote to alienation.

Like I think about my favorite authors, like Vonnegut and David Foster Wallace, and the reason their stuff speaks to me is they manage to express something I've felt but been unable to put into words. I think that can be very powerful, and the beautiful thing about being an author is being able to do that for other people.

[AnalyticalEngine]

September Update
In August, I felt like I was just sitting at home and stewing in my personal problems. In September, I signed up for about an entire semester's worth of random classes and now I'm completely overextended. But at least I'm not just stewing at home!

The classes and social strategy
I'm in a police academy class, a class down at the district attorney's office, and also Russian language classes. I mainly picked these things to get experience for writing. They're all interesting but 15 hours a week of classes on top of full time work is too much. They're all going to end by the end of this month, so this is a temporary problem. Russian is the only class I'm going to continue.

I feel like I have to drive everywhere but this is a problem of how Denver is sprawled and also the fact I'm trying some new experiences to decide where I want to move. Although this very much seems like a "be 30 in Denver" problem because I am discovering the social sphere for adults is...basically only organized around hobbies if you've given up work and family. Hobbies mean driving everywhere in Denver and so here we are.

It would probably be easier to make non-driving everywhere friends if I lived somewhere more "hip" and full of "cool young people," so that's still a work in progress.

But! I'm figuring out some strategies. The best social activities are the ones that are just 100% social. Stuff like book clubs, classes, whatever are just starting to feel like Work 2.0 because they all require a specific type of intellectual effort that I'm getting burned out on with work and all my high scholar hobbies. So I'm going to try to be more intentional with how I cultivate this once I'm free from classes. The key is high target rich environment + repeated contact + opportunity to spend a lot of time talking + being the person to actively invite people to things.

Speaking of work
The fun is over and I have been assigned actual work tasks. Such is life. Honestly having nothing meaningful to report on was stressing me out, so it's an improvement there. On the other hand, focusing at work sucks up that high scholar energy I want to dedicate toward learning Russian and writing.

I've said this a bunch already, but I'm considering switching careers. The problem with working from home is that I'm spending all day alone and having to think about difficult, unfun engineering problems, and I don't think this is great for my mental health because I end up exhausted in ways that make it difficult to do the things that bring me energy, such as relationships or my hobbies. But again, I make too much $$$ and a 50% pay cut is unappealing.

I'm considering volunteering at the police department and to teach English at the library to get some experience doing other stuff, but I feel like my schedule is already too much Work and Productivity. I'm probably going to do it anyway.

Health
Exercise schedule has fallen apart due to overcommitments, but I've pretty much cut out the habit of junk food and just cook Healthy Diet Stir fry at home. I'm trying to lose weight which does not pair well with exercise due to lack of energy. I might downgrade from heavy cardio and weight lifting into yoga and walking for a bit until I've lost like 20lbs and have more energy.

I've decided I have to be addicted to one think so I'm accepting my caffeine addiction in the form of tea in an attempt to cut sugar. We'll see how this goes.

Self-therapy
My mental health is better than it's been in years, but it's still a tightrope somedays. I'm trying to balance "feeling my feelings" via Jungian work and lots of journal with "stop stewing in personal problems" via cognitive behavioral therapy. It's this delicate balance of trusting myself but also not too much. This has largely amounted to journaling like an hour a day then trying to accept difficult emotions, make real plans to change things, let go things I can't change, and watch out for unhelpful thinking styles.

Depression happens when you've failed to turn your inner world into an outer reality for too long and so lose track of how you feel and your capacity to act. So what I'm trying to do is capture my inner life, act in the outer world, and try not to feed into catasrophizing, negative, or unhelpful thinking styles.

No more internet addiction
My busy schedule plus the self therapy cured my internet addiction. I now spend less than an hour a day on all social media/the internet, and this is mostly just keeping up with a few friends and scheduling things on Facebook or meetup.

How did I do this? The internet just sucks now. Every year it sucks more. I used to love the classic indie web in the 2000s but that died and has been replaced with the husk of corporate addiction wasteland that is the Internet now. I realized it was detracting from my life and adding nothing back, so I just quit one day and have not looked back.

Basically it's improved my life in every way, but the biggest is just having space to think my own thoughts without worrying was some rando on reddit say and wasting time thinking about it. It's substantial improved the self-therapy and my creativity.

Things I need more time to do
Decluttering/cleaning and writing. Need to just block space in my schedule to make it happen. I'm also taking a break from my research intensive historical fiction to write an urban fantasy story instead while I'm so busy and can't focus as much on writing. I'll come back to it once my lifestyle is more stable.