Hit books. Wash self. Pet kitties. Repeat. (Don't mix up the verbs.)

I'm feeling pretty good about how hard I'm hitting the books. And in general, tackling all the stuff that needs doing. In some ways it's easy to manage, as there are only a few really big things that need to get done right now, so it's not about remembering a milling things, but just 4 or 5 big things that need all my attention, one after the other, or sometimes in parallel. But it is a bit more complicated than that, there are another 8-10 smaller things I have to keep up at the same time. It's kind of like juggling. All these small things like keeping my body washed and fed. They need a little bit of time, regularly, or bad things start to happen. You can't just wash yourself really good once a week.

The sunset is quite beautiful from my office window right now. despite it all, I still try and get out for a few minutes in the morning to enjoy the beautiful fall weather. It's important. One of those deathbed things. Meaning, if I look back on it from my deathbed, I'll be sad if I don't take the time to look at the sunrise, listen to the birds, pet the kitties, hug the wife. Though I'm not getting up early enough for the sunrise these days, but at least the morning light.

The main thing keeping me up late is the... I don't know how long it takes, I should probably time it, my shutdown ritual. I review all the things I'm juggling, the deadlines coming up, and decide on my list of things to do tomorrow, and take care of any loose ends I need to, before going to bed. It keeps me up a little late if I don't start early (and I'm usually working until late, so I can't start on that early) but the reduction in stress it causes, because I'm not worrying about forgetting something important, seems to be worth the late wake-ups. Though I do really miss waking up earlier. Today I'm doing it at 5pm, which is like 4 hours earlier than normal, so that's good, but it's because I've got games tonight, so not indicative of a pattern yet.

Games night was a tradition I started in grad school, to keep me sane. Kinda nostalgic.

OK, lets see if I can get a good picture of the pretty sunset-time view out of my office first...

doesn't quite do it justice. I need a faster way to transfer photos from my dedicated camera to my computer. The phone is just so much faster and more convenient...

anyhoo, enjoy ;-)

-I Out

P.S. if you don't understand the title of this post: here's what not to do: Pet books. Hit self. Wash kitties. (maybe you could argue for washing the kitties, they are filthy. But you try washing a cat that doesn't want to be washed.)

Research. Writing. Reading.

 Work. Worky work worky work work. Busy busy. The end.

That's not enough? OK, here's a list for you:

- Annotated bibliography and project proposal

- Ethics case analysis

- Friend birthday planning

- Every week things like class planning for my weekend volunteer classes, cleaning, some food prep, basic self care

- Lots of readings

- Preparing for next week's two papers

- Finishing IKEA cabinet assembly

- Minimum calendar and task list upkeep so nothing important slips under the radar

- Other stuff I'm not thinking of off the top of my head, and that's why I wrote them down on a list

I'm kind of enjoying the researching, since I got to choose something I'm already interested in. So that's nice.

Almost time for my post for this next coming week though, which will probably sound similar to this one, so I'm stopping now so I have something for that.

Be well,

Love,

-I

Not Rushing. Bazillion. Reaaaaaaly good. Busy.

 October is, and is going to continue to be, a hella busy month. I've got big papers due this week, and TWO every week going forwards, through the end of the month. And the reading load has not decreased. 

Perhaps I've said this before, the way we teach humans is mostly pretty dumb. This is one of those cases. It's too much to do all at once, there's not enough time to give the diligence each element deserves, so it's just going to get skimmed and glossed over, to the detriment of all. Lots of shallow learning, quickly forgotten because there is absolutely no time to process and go over the really important stuff.

I'm also slow. So, that doesn't help things.

Anyways, I've been here before and I'll get through it again, but a part of me groans at doing it. I better dang well get a profession I enjoy and that can support me while I do something of value out of this, or I'm gonna be pissed. At myself, I guess. 

Will it be a good fit? It seems likely? I think it's likely. I hope it is. Otherwise it reall is insult to injury.

I guess, theoretically, I could just take one course per semester, but no, the previous month was fine. Everybody just didn't coordinate with each other and it's all happening this month, so it's gonna be a feast or famine kinda thing.

Anyhoo, expect short blog posts, is I guess the practical information in this post.

I got a new computer. It was a reaaaaaaly good idea. My old one was lagging constantly, and often simply refusing to work, to load pages, to do various things. It is night and day, and I am using my computer so much now, it is really me getting the greatest value from it. I suspect the activity will simmer down again once I'm out of grad school, and by that time it will probably be slow again because nobody cares about optimising their software.

The other thing that would make a huge quality of life improvement to me, is a really solid note-taking app. I do not have such a thing. Or rather, I've got like a bazillion note taking applications I've been using, with notes scattered all over the place. It's quite inefficient, but the research required to find a better system takes way more time than I have. I guess it's par for the course with me, my organization system when I'm short on time tends to be throw things randomly on surfaces and have one surface be the more important one where urgent things go.

Ah well. I do think everything is getting better, one small step at a time. Even though there's a lot to do, I'm trying to practice a more laid back approach to it. I focus and do the work, but I'm not pushing myself to hurry and get it all done faster. I let things take the time they take, and just start early and work often. Simply not 'rushing' through everything is a huge load off. It just means there's not a lot of play time, but when I'm not rushing, work can become play.

I Out!

Paradox, Synthesis, and the Present.

I was reflecting on a few things. Some of this happened while having conversations with friends. I realize that I actually enjoy work and working on things, most things, as long as I have one or two factors in place.

The big one is simply not rushing. If I allow myself to take the time I want to complete something, it's not hard for it to be enjoyable.

This requires a few factors and thoughts. I can't just do anything anyway. But a second related factor, or maybe it's just a part of this first one, is not feeling like I'm not doing enough. It's a kind of awarness, or acceptance, that there are x hours in a day, and even if I work dilligently, I can only get so much in. Therefore, when I finish the day and I haven't gotten everything done on my todo list, it's ok. I've spent my time well each step along the way, and so I feel good about how my day has gone.

As I said, this requires a few additional factors. Most notably, some basic level of organizational system, where I have all my obligations and time-specific meetings/deadlines, in my calendar and on a list where I'll look at it regularly enough to be aware of things that are coming up.

This allows me to, knowing the speed at which I do things, get them done with a little time to spare, so I don't have to feel rushed. Again, it's all about being allowed to take my time on things.

Another element of that, is having habits that make sure I don't dilly dally or drag my feet. Sometimes I'll give myself a deadline, like an hour and a half, to finish a dense textbook chapter, with note-taking. I'll time it in half-hour chunks, and when the alarm goes off, look at how much I have left to do, and speed up if it doesn't look like I'll finish in time. Speed up doesn't mean try and skim through it, it means take less detailed notes. This is a good way to keep whatchamacallits law... Parkinson's law, in check. (where work expands to fit the time allotted to it.)

This doesn't always work. Sometimes there is a lot of work that has to get done in a short period of time, and I don't know how much truncation will affect the outcome because it's new to me. Like the first week of classes where I was misinformed about when the reading was due and had to read two weeks worth in one week. Then I just have to overwork for a bit and be exhausted.

But most of the time, it works.

In addition, I'm trying out a new habit, where I give myself an hour each day, to work on the #1 most important thing to me. Often this is a longer term thing, like "get organized" (or a specific sub-goal/task of that big goal) which it's easy to just ignore forever because there are always more pressing things to get done. But, not always more important. So far it's been implemented inconsistently, but it's quite enjoyable, whenever I do fit it into my schedule.

Why is this all important? Well, ultimately, I want to be able to end each day feeling like I spent my precious time well on this earth. Having big goals can be fun and motivating, but if I've got the attitude of "I'll only be happy/able to relax once I've achieved x goal" then I'll kind of be wasting the time before that happens not to mention I doubt most goals (all goals?) will have the ability to keep me contented indefinitely, after they've been achieved. Life is more of a process than an end goal. Ultimately the end of life is death, so it's not really "about getting to the end" and even if I think it's about self/God realization, why waste the time before I'm enlightened being more miserable than necessary? And I think being process oriented and present time oriented is actually a boon to the process of self-realization.

And, on the side of subjective truth, the present moment is all we ever have. We can act and plan so that our future versions of ourselves are enjoying their present moment too, but if you continually do that at the expense of the present, you're never or rarely getting that futur pay-off your looking for.

Plus people who are happy in the present tend to be more successful in their endeavours anyways.

Plus we're notoriously bad at accurately prediction what is going to make us happy in the future.

This may all seem kind of paradoxical: I'm focusing on organization and planning, something that ostensibly seems future oriented, yet interested in my present-moment experience.

Another kick I've been on recently is the fact that life is complex, and rarely is one side of an argument right, usually there is some synthesis of the two conflicting viewpoints that is where you actually want to be. The Buddha's "middle way" is a great example of this. Neither strict asceticism, nor loose hedonism, but a balance of control and relaxation, intelligently applied moment to moment. Generally the synthesis is not just some middle ground, lukewarm to someones hot and cold, but qualitatively different and experientially superior.

It's like science. The usefulness of science, the pursuit of truth, is it's predictive power. When your understanding is close to the truth, you are more effective in the world. In the area of philosophy, I think that might mean a life that experiences joy, love, peace, and fulfilment, and helps others experience that as well.

That's this week. Take care and see you later,

-Isaac