A probe into the anus of the soul
It's probably not much of a secret that I have a tendency to jump into the first stages of an awesome long-term project, then lose interest and forget about it fairly quickly. Often this is due to a lack of money or facilities, as is the case with my Supra, and often it's simply down to a lack of motivation on my part -- I'm still only just beginning the first stages of the interval training that normalcyispasse sold me on last year, and it's necessary for me to make some progress in that before I can even think about any parkour-like activities.
I've now been mostly unemployed and living off the grace of the state for over a year now, and I've largely squandered the opportunity for self-improvement that this leisure time has granted me. I've done a tremendous amount of de-stressing and re-acclimated myself to being a social creature, but that's really more undoing the damage that the soul-sucking job I was in did than making any absolute forward progress. I've also learned a bit about music and gotten more comfortable with the feeling of a guitar in my hands, but not really enough to hold up as an example of a year well-spent. I'm also in worse shape than I was a year ago; when I got laid off I was working out three times a week and making both visible and quantifiable progress towards being physically fit, now I smoke as much as a pack and a half a day on the days when I work at a night club, and will be somewhat out of breath after sprinting up a flight of stairs.
I've been growing more conscious of this over the last few months, and have been setting more nebulous long-term goals for myself to address it -- get into parkour, get back in school, learn to draw, learn to paint, get back in the habit of coding, add more philosophy and other non-fiction books to the pile of unread books on my nightstand, etc. The problem with nebulous long-term goals is that there is no set schedule for making progress on them, there is nothing in them that says "I have to get this done TODAY." I suspect, furthermore, that if I tried to incorporate such a framework into my goals, my entire being would rebel against them.
Yesterday I thought of a novel solution -- instead of wasting my youth away filling my time with games and time-wasting websites (I'm looking at you, Cheezburger network) and halfheartedly pursuing some goal whose completion seems eons away, I'll just say to myself when I wake up each day: "How can I improve myself today?" Each night before I go to bed, I will make sure I've done at least some small thing to broaden my knowledge, abilities, or perspective in some small way.
Yesterday I spent two hours practicing new material on the guitar and listened to the first half-hour of a Terrence McKenna lecture which I intend to chop up and base some kind of trance-industrial song on. Today I started reading a Greek language textbook found on this site. Tomorrow I'll be working about 15 hours, so I'll bring my laptop and a programming book with me to work on during the long break between soundcheck and the beginning of the show.
It may not be the best solution, and it probably won't yield the best results, but at least I'll be doing something with my life that has a bit more depth than simply existing from day to day.
(PS: Do a search for "carl sagan cosmos" on youtube -- the whole series is on there. Scroll down to one of the "playlist" sections.)
I've now been mostly unemployed and living off the grace of the state for over a year now, and I've largely squandered the opportunity for self-improvement that this leisure time has granted me. I've done a tremendous amount of de-stressing and re-acclimated myself to being a social creature, but that's really more undoing the damage that the soul-sucking job I was in did than making any absolute forward progress. I've also learned a bit about music and gotten more comfortable with the feeling of a guitar in my hands, but not really enough to hold up as an example of a year well-spent. I'm also in worse shape than I was a year ago; when I got laid off I was working out three times a week and making both visible and quantifiable progress towards being physically fit, now I smoke as much as a pack and a half a day on the days when I work at a night club, and will be somewhat out of breath after sprinting up a flight of stairs.
I've been growing more conscious of this over the last few months, and have been setting more nebulous long-term goals for myself to address it -- get into parkour, get back in school, learn to draw, learn to paint, get back in the habit of coding, add more philosophy and other non-fiction books to the pile of unread books on my nightstand, etc. The problem with nebulous long-term goals is that there is no set schedule for making progress on them, there is nothing in them that says "I have to get this done TODAY." I suspect, furthermore, that if I tried to incorporate such a framework into my goals, my entire being would rebel against them.
Yesterday I thought of a novel solution -- instead of wasting my youth away filling my time with games and time-wasting websites (I'm looking at you, Cheezburger network) and halfheartedly pursuing some goal whose completion seems eons away, I'll just say to myself when I wake up each day: "How can I improve myself today?" Each night before I go to bed, I will make sure I've done at least some small thing to broaden my knowledge, abilities, or perspective in some small way.
Yesterday I spent two hours practicing new material on the guitar and listened to the first half-hour of a Terrence McKenna lecture which I intend to chop up and base some kind of trance-industrial song on. Today I started reading a Greek language textbook found on this site. Tomorrow I'll be working about 15 hours, so I'll bring my laptop and a programming book with me to work on during the long break between soundcheck and the beginning of the show.
It may not be the best solution, and it probably won't yield the best results, but at least I'll be doing something with my life that has a bit more depth than simply existing from day to day.
(PS: Do a search for "carl sagan cosmos" on youtube -- the whole series is on there. Scroll down to one of the "playlist" sections.)