Day 4 - or how many times can I milk the same topic

14 Jul, 2025

Sidenote

I'm truly struggling posting these text entries essentially as is. They are unpolished. And even if there are nuggets of neat ideas in there, I do not like posting something so... raw? Posting anything this.. like... raw makes me feel stupid an ineloquent.

Day 4

Part of the point for the reset is to think bigger than truncated social media, allows so how long or should I milk this topic?

at least one more time…

Back to work tomorrow. When I want a focus break, I consistently jump on social media or Pokémon Go. I don't want to do that going forward. So, what am I going to do? Read real books I think?

I did something similar in like 2012 or 13 or 14 – it may have been part of the 2014 self improvement plan because I was reading a bunch on public speaking – I need something like that. At the time, I read something like seven books a month. And while that that is not the goal, it would be a nice outcome for the less fractured attention.

Which means I need a book. I'll probably start with the privacy book I got with my PD fund. My immediate response is of course... "you shouldn't always read real books" because I'm not allowed to read "fun things"

Where did such a self-defeating response come from?

Is this the low attention span, skulking monster of social media in my head, trying to protect against change? Just give me dopamine it says, and I say what about this - this writing endeavor - this does not give you dopamine?

And you know what? It fucking does! The first day sucked. The second day was fine. The third I was listening to YouTube. Today, just the silence and the ceiling fan. When I stop writing to let my hand uncramp or sip my drink, I can hear my thoughts. Not a TV show. Just words floating around about the topic I'm writing about...

I've never been bad at solitude, but I don't remember the last time I sat in full silence?

I'm already out of ink… Refilled with the same ink. I'm still writing with the same grey glitter ink I bought years ago. I'm done rationing things like this fancy notebook. You can't get this notebook or any of the Baron Fig Limited edition notebooks anywhere, from any auction site of whatever.... I'm "ruining" this notebook.

You can't ruin something you use for the reason it was created.

Like your brain!

(Here appears a doodle of a grasshopper made out of an ink stain suffered during the refill)

Even at work, I listen to a podcast or have music playing. Podcasts, especially the ones I listen to, are long-form media... or at least I think so? All of my favorite ones are like 90 minutes plus.

But I don't pay full attention. Does that count?

Part of the goal of this brain reset is to be able to keep to better engage with difficult media more intentionally. Podcast tend to be, at least like the technology ones I listen to, are less "in-depth" then what I suspect the intention of this project is.

It's about deep thinking with an idea. Making meaningful contributions to the discourse. I'm too deeply engage with something in order to create something with it or something new with it. I'm not a creator in the tech ecosystem, so is listening to a tech podcast, even a long one, "OK"?

I mean… Of course it is? I make the rules here.

(Clearly, I have strong convictions here with all of those?)

This is the same brain weasel in a different form: "if it isn't in your field of contribution, it doesn't count" which… Fuck you, seriously?