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something or anything

2022-11-20

2 minute read

One hundred and one days of journaling, a milestone. I'm very proud of all the posts, it's something I wouldnt have imagined being able to do a couple of years ago.

I feel far more confident in articulating myself and my ideas. I've got a long way to go yet, but seeing so many entries before me is encouraging. I've been lucky to take the time off and do this project and I think it's given me a well needed spring board for daily work and reflection. The challenge will be continuing to journal when I have waged work again (if ever, at this rate I feel like I'll just run out of money completely and die (I'm being melodramatic))

It's a quiet day in the gallery, I typed the first half of this there. I'm at home now.

It's approaching my birthday and I can feel everything welling up. I often feel depressed on my birthday, the feeling that I should have done more by now is difficult to shake, and life marching forward is scary.

I doubt all that I've done, all that I will do. I feel like a slowly sinking ship.

I hope there is some respite in naming this feeling. I don't always feel this way.

I'm going to get my haircut, have some icecream, buy some jewellery, and see 2 movies. It sounds like a good day, and I think it will be. No pressure, just a mellow one.

My room's a mess, I've got some life and admin chores to chase up first, but I'd like a clean room for tomorrow so I'll probs tidy it up a little later.

I felt a great deal of optimism yesterday, I've all but forgotten it now. All but, there was one idea I wanted to put down.

How to do something, how to do anything

I've probably mentioned before, I'd like to get better at doing things. It's something I struggle with - I get hyped up on dreaming, on starting, on learning, but the entire package of starting, developing and finishing gets away on me.

I've always struggled with it, since I was very young. Me and my brother had a club together - the MP club. "Making Progress". I don't think we got anything done, an auspicious start.

I don't think all skills are equal, and although Anni Albers says "you can get anywhere from anywhere", I think (to oversimplify it a bit) if you learn to read first you'll find it a lot easier to learn to write. I think there are skills that I can learn that will help me in every direction. Skills of estimating time, identifying solutions and applying myself in a concentrated way. Skills of finishing work, or even recognising what it is in the finishing that I struggle with.

In time perhaps I'll put this analysis into a post on my impending dev blog (alongside such unwritten greats as "writing my own pomodoro timer application in typescript" and "look at all the javascript I can write, please hire me"). For now, it's what's been on my mind and it's good to get it down here.

listening to

Scratching the surface 220 - Elvia Wilk - A good listen, she talks about fiction making being a driving force of real change, eg in economic forcasting or design proposals. She also talks about lots of other stuff. I've got her essay A Book Explodes open in a tab, waiting to be read later tonight.

questions