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forgot to give this one a title

2022-08-11

4 minute read

The day started well

I'm trying to wake up early now, 7:30ish, to have a semblance of routine. I've managed to do two days now, fingers crossed we continue. My flatmate's got COVID, I'm really hoping I don't get it for a second time - I have movies to watch!

Yesterday went well, I woke up and made coffee, some porridge, then I wrote the journal for the day. The morning felt like a good time to sort that kind of stuff out. Spent a long time on the journal, I think that's okay. Keeping this journal is a priority for my break, a way to prove it all happened, a way to reflect and hopefully, cerrar ciclos (a phrase I've read a lot in spanish memes, and really like).

I went bouldering at about 10:45, had a standard session. Managed to go both ways (again) on the black climb on wall 2 (will add photos later) a goal I've been working towards. Finished the red climb on wall 1, though not very cleanly. It's still a little awkward, I think I'm missing something in the movements. Now that my watch is working again I'm taking full advantage of it - I set a 5min timer for breaks between climbing attempts, and during that break I read the latest copy of Real Review

From 'Second Thoughts' by Jack Self

In a 2018 study into mindfulness by consultants McKinsey, the anonymous authors buried their most problematic conclusions in an appendix. They found that a relatively superficial engagement with mindfullness did indeed improve performance amongst office workers. But too much mindfulness and you run the risk that employees will start to think their jobs are actually meaningless, and their work is mostly bullshit. Such revelations lead to dissillusionment, demotivation, and higher churn rates as more people quit.

My old workplace started rolling out 'company values' and it was almost embarrassing how unrelated they were to anything contractual or structural in the company - we were all supposed to "go above and beyond" and "Be present and positive" while working on a product that did as little as possible and was stuck in the past. They are experiencing pretty constant churn, as are many companies at the moment post-lockdown, but I feel this values project hasn't helped their case.

warp weft weep

Once home I went about weaving, I'm still intent on finishing weeping (title not set in stone) this week. I'm getting through it well, but my inexperience is coming round to bite me as I suffer from uneven beating and over tightening the weft. Nothing disastrous though, I think it will still look pretty good and come out mostly cool. I'm taking care now to be more generous with the arches as I beat, and getting into more of a rythym now that many of the fiddly bits are out of the way. I took a break for a while, and then came back later and did a big section while watching Sandman. I can't focus entirely on the show and weave at the same time, but I still found I'd covered a lot of ground weaving and knew what was going on the whole time. I am still working on what the most relaxing way to weave is, I find if I just sit at my desk it can get very frustrating and sore. The solution may in fact be to get a better loom, and a better workstation, but there's no harm too in examining the conditions of stimuli and entertainment.

In progress shot of the weeping boy weaving, on the floor

Another part of the Second Thoughts article actually talked about two theorised systems in our brains structure. System 1 and System 2:

I suppose, right now with weaving, much of what I'm doing is System 2 because I'm still learning and new to the practice, but with time I can shift it all into System 1.

The automatic operations of System 1 generate surprisingly complex patterns of ideas, but only the slower System 2 can construct thoughts in an orderly series of steps. – Daniel Kahneman inThinking, Fast and Slow

Nós vamos sempre aprendendo

Did an hour on portuguese homework, writing sentences using 'cada' or 'todo'. I'm still not completely across it - I've had this before with concepts in things where some how I haven't grasped the idea correctly and the rest of the time I am struggling to make sense of it. It's a frustrating feeling, like hitting a brick wall, but I've found the only way through is repeated and on going practice (I remember the disproportionately difficult time I had trying to understand MVC). Eventually, the mental models I need to understand will be there, but it takes time to develop them. I wonder if I could find ways to speed up that process? Probably, like always, sessions of focussed study of at least 1 1/2 hours.

thats enough for now.

I think I've been writing for an hour.

what else?

listening to

Questions

a stack of books, a jug with water and flowers, a salt lamp, on a bedside table in the sun green bedspread with a guitar and some notebooks on it, in the sun