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Any major schedule change will, in my experience, totally throw a wrench in your day to day operations. Dynamics change in ways I never expect. For the first week, I didn't get much done and writing is still pretty tough! It's hard to focus, but there's really no good time for me to nap during the day. My dosage of caffine has kind of gone up, accordingly, with more frequent tea and coffee brewing sessions. I'm not really nuts about that - I had gotten my caffine intake to very reasonable levels except during the last month of my thesis writing. I think that situation will just improve when spring comes around. Winter's shit for me feeling alert. I don't live through winter so much as just get through it.
I don't think that, say, 2016 was just bad - I tend to think it's going to be a generally bad decade. I think it's going to be rough from here on out. I think we choose the world we want to inhabit, but "want" is a loaded word - it implies something we intentionally desire. But I think there's a desire to simplify, a desire to flatten. It's not always negative, but in a bad environment (again, a loaded term, but bear with me) I think that desire explodes. Becomes apocalyptic. Fascism and anti-intellectualism are both combustable drives towards super-simplification. Towards a desire to not think. There is a point, I think, where transparent misery with easily observable causes becomes preferential to complicated luxury. When complicated luxury is deliberetly tied to a different kind of misery - one tied up in overly complicated bueracratuc pretenses (as opposed to an apparatus that essentially functions as it's described as functioning - truthfully and in good faith) - people rebel. But the anti-intellectual impulse makes them easy to mislead. I'd say the ways that this dynamic functions under the surface are complicated, but the manifestations are pretty overt. You can see them for yourself.
Despite all this - and the profound bullshit that's happened in my personal life over 2016 in regards to business - I think I've done well in the things I have control over. My sleep schedule is generally good. I haven't excercised as much as I'd have liked, but my cooking is pretty healthy and I'm reaching out and trying new things. I've cut back my drinking by a really substantial amount, which has made me feel healthier in all ways. It's saved us a reasonable amount of money, too, which is good because we're broke as fuck. I've worked hard - taught two classes for the first time in the Spring Semester and finished my thesis, getting my Master's. That feels good, man! Not bad for a depressed prole with attitude problems. My family didn't seem super excited about it but, you know, fuck it. I think I'm the first in my near family to succeed like this, academically. At least, I don't know anyone else, anyhow.
In my family, survival is success. My family history is depressing - don't worry about it - we're not all dead or fried, but there's a lot of us who just don't make it by virtue of being ourselves. There's a lot of potential in my family, but a lot of it gets snuffed out by dispair or drugs or suicide, so even the relative successes don't really make it that far. But, you know, I'm driven by a desire to see what I can do next. There's an episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza just does the opposite of whatever his impulse is and his life really improves and that's generally my plan, as well. I've typically been happy with the results.
I don't think that, say, 2016 was just bad - I tend to think it's going to be a generally bad decade. I think it's going to be rough from here on out. I think we choose the world we want to inhabit, but "want" is a loaded word - it implies something we intentionally desire. But I think there's a desire to simplify, a desire to flatten. It's not always negative, but in a bad environment (again, a loaded term, but bear with me) I think that desire explodes. Becomes apocalyptic. Fascism and anti-intellectualism are both combustable drives towards super-simplification. Towards a desire to not think. There is a point, I think, where transparent misery with easily observable causes becomes preferential to complicated luxury. When complicated luxury is deliberetly tied to a different kind of misery - one tied up in overly complicated bueracratuc pretenses (as opposed to an apparatus that essentially functions as it's described as functioning - truthfully and in good faith) - people rebel. But the anti-intellectual impulse makes them easy to mislead. I'd say the ways that this dynamic functions under the surface are complicated, but the manifestations are pretty overt. You can see them for yourself.
Despite all this - and the profound bullshit that's happened in my personal life over 2016 in regards to business - I think I've done well in the things I have control over. My sleep schedule is generally good. I haven't excercised as much as I'd have liked, but my cooking is pretty healthy and I'm reaching out and trying new things. I've cut back my drinking by a really substantial amount, which has made me feel healthier in all ways. It's saved us a reasonable amount of money, too, which is good because we're broke as fuck. I've worked hard - taught two classes for the first time in the Spring Semester and finished my thesis, getting my Master's. That feels good, man! Not bad for a depressed prole with attitude problems. My family didn't seem super excited about it but, you know, fuck it. I think I'm the first in my near family to succeed like this, academically. At least, I don't know anyone else, anyhow.
In my family, survival is success. My family history is depressing - don't worry about it - we're not all dead or fried, but there's a lot of us who just don't make it by virtue of being ourselves. There's a lot of potential in my family, but a lot of it gets snuffed out by dispair or drugs or suicide, so even the relative successes don't really make it that far. But, you know, I'm driven by a desire to see what I can do next. There's an episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza just does the opposite of whatever his impulse is and his life really improves and that's generally my plan, as well. I've typically been happy with the results.