Day: August 26, 2018

I decided to write first thing this morning–mostly to keep me off of Madden. I have a real love-hate relationship with that all-consuming game right now. I turned the min-speed slider all the way down to zero in order to express that some players are just faster than others. I was really getting tired of watching 99 speed players be chased down from behind by players with 88 or lower speed and far less acceleration. Travesty. Trash.

Madden is meant to make me happy. Video Games fall into a shrinking category of things that perform that function. I’ve been trying to reshape my psyche around the things that bring joy. Thus far the work is difficult with little of the expected reward. Instead it feels like spring cleaning for the soul but without the satisfying cleanliness at the end. 

I am likely to base my next character sketch on this idea. I’ll make him an emotional hoarder. He keeps ideas and thoughts and plans–often in the form of baubles that trigger the memory/emotion. Therefore his space winds up remarkably cluttered–at least to his mind–while to everyone else it is just a typically male (read: messy) space. 

Some Thoughts:

1. 351 didn’t publish because I didn’t hit publish twice. I really dislike that feature of the new Gutenberg editor for wordpress. In truth, I cannot point to much I like about the new editor. I was happy with what I had before, and it also appeared to be easier to embed code into the former interface than this strange text box-driven environment. However, I haven’t tried so there’s that.
2. Starting the sports season — 8 regular season football games (7 left for one kid!), 8 soccer games, 7 more High School football games. The bulk of the season should be over by Halloween. This is going to cause strain on a lot of different areas–including my partnership. Yet, when I think about the things that really bring me joy I must number watching my kids excel at sports high on the list… It would be different if they sucked. Perhaps the balance is to have a sports season such as this and then a matching stretch of months where there is none of this rigamarole. Three months on and then three off with some less drastic balance in between.
3. I will make sure to hit publish twice this time.

The worst thing that I can have is free time on my hands. Given the time I will obsess over the things I cannot change or decipher. It could be anything. Today it is youth football–specifically not knowing the scores of games that I want to know the scores for. I can wait till tomorrow. I don’t want to. I’m curious and I feel like this is a minor thing I can sink my mind into easily.

In other words, I am between stories and projects. If I am so quick to consume myself with useless nonsense, the key to my productivity is to constantly stay on task and create something of value as often as possible. I could have been writing a story today. Instead I played a lot of Madden, looked up youth football scores for the better part of an hour, and spent more time thinking about what those scores could possibly mean. 

I wasted time. I waste time a lot and I want to be better about how I use my hours on this plane of existence.

Some Thoughts:

1. RIP John McCain. I liked the guy. I felt he stood up for what he believed in and what I felt was good for our people and this country. I didn’t always agree with his policies, but he was a good man and a good leader. He wasn’t a piece of dookie like the guy we all put in the office now.
2. Long day. Did not do much with it. I did however learn that I am convinced that I will lose weight faster by being in the heat and exerting myself a little. That just makes sense.
3. I had noodles today and cheated a little on my diet. It did not end well.