Day 27: As A Child

My workout schedule has been a bit thrown-off by my recent back injury, which is thankfully healed now. But going into my exercise this morning, I did not know that, so I focused my efforts on new movement patterns. It was a truly great experience, just experimenting, guessing and failing, discovering new things about myself, finding novel and interesting ways to take on my own weaknesses. It was very humbling to realize that with some seemingly simple tasks, I was starting from square one due to my own history of lacking activity, and in spite of the significant gains I've made through my normal training. If this opens up new avenues in my training, I say it can only be a good thing.

Tired, but a good tired. Cheers.

Goals:
Weekly Income From Creative Endeavors - $5/$500
Adhere to Daily Schedule - No
Write 5,000 Words/Day - 0/5,000
No Artificial Ingredients in Diet - No
115 to 135 g of Protein - Yes, 130g
Weight of 77 kg, 8% Body Fat - 70.9 kg, 12% Body Fat
Practice Singing - Yes
HTML/CSS/Javascript - N/A

Still learning,
~L

Day 26: The Knuckle Frog

. . . is not a pugilist amphibian of any sort, despite what hopes you may have had. Instead, it's just what I call a frog stand in which one balances on the knuckles, rather than an open palm. Shrinking your base like that--as well as opening up the range of motion for the wrist--means the task of stabilizing one's self is much more difficult. It puts a heck of a strain on your fingers, I can tell you that much. It is also a lot of fun.

If it seems like I talk about fitness an inordinate amount, it's only because it has become a really strong symbol for what I'm trying to accomplish here: the building of skills through gradual and consistent practice. Though my sleep remains more a burden than a boon these days, I take encouragement from my growth where I'm finding it.

Goals:
Weekly Income From Creative Endeavors - $5/$500
Adhere to Daily Schedule - No
Write 5,000 Words/Day - 0/5,000
No Artificial Ingredients in Diet - No
115 to 135 g of Protein - Yes, 116g
Weight of 77 kg, 8% Body Fat - 70.9 kg, 12% Body Fat
Practice Singing - Yes
HTML/CSS/Javascript - Reviewed HTML content division elements.

Still learning,
~L

Day 25: Listless

My sleep is usually fitful, nightmare-fraught, interrupted and of little actual rest. Some nights are worse than others, and leave me with little capacity to focus on much of anything. Today was one such day, resulting in a sort of going-through-the-motions approach. I have things on my mind, but not the energy to undertake saying them at this point.

Goals:
Weekly Income From Creative Endeavors - $5/$500
Adhere to Daily Schedule - No
Write 5,000 Words/Day - 0/5,000
No Artificial Ingredients in Diet - No
115 to 135 g of Protein - Yes, 131g
Weight of 77 kg, 8% Body Fat - 70.8 kg, 12% Body Fat
Practice Singing - Yes
HTML/CSS/Javascript - Studied and coded body and hierarchy constructs in HTML.

Still learning,
~L

Day 24: Tearing the Seams of the Sky

Whilst walking home this evening, I was caught in a thunderstorm. The first flashes of lightning appeared distant in the sky as I boarded the subway train, and the rain followed, sudden and heavy as I disappeared underground. I disembarked and resurfaced to find the rain weakened, but the clouds still alight, thunder rolling much closer. Not once did I see a bolt reach out and strike the ground, instead, I saw blue-white fissures appear in the vast dome above, time to and time again, until it seemed it must shatter and fall around me.

The boiling humidity of the day gave way to cooling rains, and nature's own grand light-show against darkened azure clouds. I turned off my music and listened, savoring every moment of it.

Goals:
Weekly Income From Creative Endeavors - $5/$500
Adhere to Daily Schedule - No
Write 5,000 Words/Day - 0/5,000
No Artificial Ingredients in Diet - No
115 to 135 g of Protein - Yes, 116g
Weight of 77 kg, 8% Body Fat - 70.9 kg, 12% Body Fat
Practice Singing - Yes
HTML/CSS/Javascript - Studied and created root structural and metadata HTML

Still learning,
~L

Day 23: Needle and Thread

In my end-of-day spare time, I took my first serious pass at basic tailoring; in particular, I have a number of shirts which I like, but which fit me like a sack, hanging loose and billowy off my body. These I wish to alter, especially the dress shirts which look so comical stuffed--rather than tucked--under the hem of my pants. It is not a skill I have ever devoted any effort to, though I have observed basic mending being done. There is a certain childlike fascination in it for me, to turn my mind and hands to a task utterly alien, where I cannot claim even understanding of the most fundamental principles. I am, of course, making liberal use of the resources on the internet, but I can clearly see this will be an engaging challenge in my spare time.

I am happy with how the HTML documentation work-through is going so far, though I'm not sure when I should aim to release the first video--either tomorrow or next Saturday? I am leaning towards the latter, as it gives me some time to reflect on production aspects of the video itself, and anyway I've only just started the process yesterday.

Goals:
Weekly Income From Creative Endeavors - $5/$500
Adhere to Daily Schedule - No
Write 5,000 Words/Day - 0/5,000
No Artificial Ingredients in Diet - No
115 to 135 g of Protein - Yes, 122g
Weight of 77 kg, 8% Body Fat - 70.9 kg, 12% Body Fat
Practice Singing - Yes
HTML/CSS/Javascript - Reviewed HTML syntax and structural conventions

Still learning,
~L 

Day 22: Arcana Intereticulati

Today marked the beginning of my latest endeavor, which is a thorough re-immersion into HTML and CSS. As I've mentioned in a previous post, my plan is to work my way through the standing W3C documentation on the specs. This is arguably the most daunting way to go about it, giving how positively massive those documents are, but my reasoning behind it is that it allows me access to all the raw information without an intermediary deciding what is or is not worth learning or emphasizing for me. One, however, must be willing to curate for one's self if intending to learn HTML in any practically applicable form; the ordering of the HTML spec is somewhat problematic, front-loaded as it is with foundational concepts (including extensive discussion of the DOM) which are largely hidden from the developer's eyes in most basic usage cases. One might feel hopelessly overwhelmed if they felt they were expected to understand this content before getting to the fourth section of the document, where actually usable HTML code is introduced for the first time.

Now, certainly, I make no claims to be any master of HTML, CSS or Javascript--if I were, why would I be undertaking this project?--but I happen to believe that one of the best ways to learn a concept and solidify it in one's mind is to teach it; to that end, instead of giving daily showcases of my studies, I will instead film educational videos on my learning process weekly. I had initially considered doing daily or thrice-weekly videos, but after thinking about the time required to do one well, and given my desire to take my time with it and learn some things about video editing and recording this way, weekly is far more practical, and also puts me in a position to have significantly more content for each.

So: the curriculum. Trying to teach without a sound and logically progressive curriculum is an absolute nightmare for both teacher and student, and runs the risk of putting people off. With that in mind, I've come up with an order which I feel promotes quick learning as much for my benefit as anyone else's.

1. HTML Syntax and Structure
2. HTML Elements
3. HTML Attributes
4. Implementing CSS & Basic CSS Selectors
5. CSS Declarations
6. CSS Pseudo-Elements, Pseudo-Selectors & Other Advanced Selectors
7. CSS Units of Measurement
8. Javascript & HTML DOM
9. AJAX, jQuery & JSON

Now, how long this will take to get through? I cannot say for sure. Given the things I have in mind for my main website, I'll want to have the big three web design fundamentals well in-hand, and likely pull Python (specifically Django) into the mix. But I also have other endeavors that are more important to me, and if faced with a conflict, I will throttle this process and use other outlets for promoting myself in favor of the other demands. Anyway, this should be an interesting undertaking, and I hope to learn a lot along the way.

Goals:
Weekly Income From Creative Endeavors - $5/$500
Adhere to Daily Schedule - Yes
Write 5,000 Words/Day - 0/5,000
No Artificial Ingredients in Diet - No
115 to 135 g of Protein - Yes, 115g
Weight of 77 kg, 8% Body Fat - 70.7 kg, 12% Body Fat
Practice Singing - Yes
HTML/CSS/Javascript - Overview of Documentation, Curriculum Determined

Still learning,
~L

Day 21: Coming Attractions

Now that I'm maintaining more regular habits and steadily building up steam that way, there are a few things I want--and to some extent ought--to put that momentum towards immediately. The first of these is a career move: much as I loathe social networking, I need to set up accounts with the major platforms for the sake of promoting my creative endeavors, because their reach is too far to be ignored. I also need to keep my ear to the ground for other promotional outlets, and to put together a proper website of my own.

I have a Youtube presence ready to mobilize, but I'm still unsure of where to start. I know that I want to use it as part of my language-learning initiative, and to promote my musical endeavors when they take off, but I'm not sure how much impact it could have on my other efforts or how to go about harnessing it for those less obvious ends. Perhaps this calls for some experimentation?

Goals:
Weekly Income From Creative Endeavors - $5/$500
Adhere to Daily Schedule - No
Write 5,000 Words/Day - 0/5,000
No Artificial Ingredients in Diet - No
115 to 135 g of Protein - Yes, 126g
Weight of 77 kg, 8% Body Fat - 70.7 kg, 12% Body Fat
Practice Singing - Yes

 Still learning,
~L

Day 20: Past Efforts

Today, while sorting through sheaves of loose papers, I chanced across an artifact of a recently previous self-education endeavor; several pages, covered on both sides with lists, charts and personal annotations concerning the fundamentals of music theory. I remember well sitting down to scrawl it all out in my particular, comically small chicken-scratch two years ago, and the information laid out there is more or less retained. You could say it was successful, except that I still compose and arrange at a snail's pace, sing less than a third as well as I could, and cannot play any instrument tolerably in a live context.

Application was the missing piece there, and an obvious one, yet also the one that most disrupted my volatile ego. I flatter myself that I am a reasonably quick study in the theoretical aspect of most things, but I cripplingly shy away from actually practicing, where I know I will be faced with an ability to create that is--at least initially--very limited next to my ability to imagine and devise. It still blindsides me sometimes to realize that my egotism manifests in that particular way, given that the skill I take the most justifiable pride in, my writing, was earned through writing millions and millions of mediocre words that turned into good ones after some twenty years of constant effort. Yet, there it is.

Of course, I do not discount the value of the theoretical basis I possess, it is what turns a mechanical skill into a thoughtful craft, given enough practice. But these days, I tend to feel that theoretical learning is best paired with application for reinforcement; I am without question a 'learn by doing' type. In the spirit of that, I've picked my next self-education endeavor: rebuilding my HTML and CSS skills from the ground up, working straight through the W3C documentation on both specs. I intend to start into that endeavor on Thursday, and my progress metric will be a showcase of and display of what aspects of each specification I have studied that day. Every second week, I will test myself by setting aside a time to design and code simple websites from scratch, checking how much time it takes me from start to finish. This will reinforce my understanding of the specifications as cohesive units, instead of just modules.

Goals:
Weekly Income From Creative Endeavors - $5/$500
Adhere to Daily Schedule - No
Write 5,000 Words/Day - 0/5,000
No Artificial Ingredients in Diet - No
115 to 135 g of Protein - Yes, 117g
Weight of 77 kg, 8% Body Fat - 70.7 kg, 12% Body Fat
Practice Singing - Yes

 Still learning,
~L 

Day 19: Evaluation 2

Though I have stumbled more than I have moved forward with this venture so far, I am sufficiently happy with how thoroughly my head is in the game now that I feel it's time to make things concrete again. The first thing worth addressing is that lately, I have entirely neglected to take accounts of my progress towards certain goals. That was a critical oversight, and one I will do my very best not to repeat from tomorrow onward. An accountability journal is of little value without the accounts.

So, to begin, my schedule. If there is one thing my own experiences have taught me, it is that having a schedule of some sort, even if it's relatively open-ended, is crucial to building the habit of productivity. Being able to set aside time utterly removed from distraction to focus on one task has always worked far better for me than attempting to multitask my day away. However, planning the schedule can sometimes be daunting. For me, the first hurdle I had to overcome was saturating myself with mentally demanding activity after mentally demanding activity out of a well-intended but misapplied desire to learn and do as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

Once you've come to some realistic conclusions about what you can handle for starters, planning a schedule can be made easier by accounting for certain inevitabilities: sleep, work, eating, hygienic routines. For me, the sleep issue is one that has vexed for some time. I tend to function best with 5-6 hours of sleep, taken in two or three blocks, usually during dawn/daylight hours. The periods in my life during which I adhered to such unorthodox sleep patterns, I had a surfeit of energy and focus, my imagination was vivid and my mood stable. However, the fact that the rest of the world largely obeys standard circadian rhythms means that I have to adapt so that the bulk of my sleep takes place during the 21:00 to 07:00 block that is very widely regarded as acceptable sleeping time.

Now, work. For me, of course, this has two definitions: writing and freelance commissions. The former is, thankfully, something which can done at any time of day I so desire. Theoretically, the same could be said for freelance work, except that much of that work involves client interactions, so it's fairly convenient to plan putting myself in that frame-of-mind when I am most likely to deal with these people--and when I'm most likely to be working with my students. This time investment, then, can be pinned down to somewhere between 16:00 and 22:00, when people are off work, out of classes and still awake.

Now eating and hygiene as 'inevitabilities' are a bit harder to use as parts of your daily framework, because there's not really anything stopping a person from slotting those two elements of their day in anywhere. These, and much of the rest of my day, however, can be made easier to determine if I use a voluntary aspect of my day to anchor things: exercise. That I have fairly well-defined desires from my exercise regimen helps a great deal; I want to be able to use the nearby park with minimal chance for obstruction, I want to get the work out done during the coolest part of the day, I want to carry that satisfied and lively feeling through as much of the day as possible, I want to exercise while thoroughly fasted, and I need a significant chunk of time to be thorough.

So, then, it has to be early in the morning, as this meets all my criteria. But as for exactly HOW much time it takes up--and by extension, where I can fit that in--real precision is hard, and tolerances must be fairly wide. Even so, I can at least make estimates based on the content of my daily exercise.

The one pervasive feature is that every session will begin with mobility and dynamic stretching work (25-35 minutes) and end with static stretching (20-25 minutes), so we already know it will take at least 45-60 minutes. Next, Monday is an endurance day, which means high reps with brief rests between sets. To hit everything sufficiently, the routine would likely end up being 35-45 minutes. So, taken as a whole, my Monday routine would require 80-105 minutes. My Wednesday routine, with its lengthy waits between sets, would be about 95-100 minutes, or 140-160 minutes with stretching factored in. Friday's routine would be between 35 and 40 minutes, putting the total at 80-100 minutes.

Now, conveniently, the park is officially opened at 08:00 each morning, so I can be reasonably assured of peace and solitude if I finish my routine before that time, and given that it's helpful to maintain a steady wake time day to day, I don't want to simply sleep in by varying degrees to take advantage of that set end point. Instead, I can calibrate my waking time according to the exercise routine which takes the most time: 160 minutes before 08:00 is 05:20. I can be certain to arrive at the park at or before this time if I wake, change and leave the house at 05:00, so let's have that be my waking time and say 5:15 is my target start time, just to be safe.

I can also use this to determine certain things about my 'movement' day routines. See, while the 'movement' work itself is relatively fluid, my running training is going to follow a defined progression. At its most time-consuming, a full session would take roughly 60 minutes, which ends up being 105-120 when all the stretching is accounted for. Since the 'exercise' time slot each day would be 165 minutes long (05:15 to 08:00), I can allow for 45-60 minutes of pure 'movement' work. Similarly, I can allow for 60-85 minutes of it on Mondays and 65-85 minutes of it on Fridays.

So, okay, sweet, we have the earliest part of my day set in stone:

05:00-05:15 - Wake and prepare for exercise
05:15-08:00 - Exercise

Now, in the previous incarnation of my schedule, the next block of time was for showering and eating, but my fasting until the afternoon makes the latter a non-issue. Even so, the block of time can remain the same to allow for a leisurely shower and any time required for post-shower grooming. Lock in one more time slot.

05:00-05:15 - Wake and prepare for exercise
05:15-08:00 - Exercise
08:00-08:30 - Shower

While I'm feeling the vitality of having just exercised and cleansed myself, I want to channel my best energy and effort into my writing, so following up all that with writing-related work is only logical. First, one hour will be spent on planning and preparatory work, which always helps me greatly. Then, the remaining time until my brief mid-day nap will be spent on actual writing. The nap should end at a late-ish lunch time, when it is suitable for me to break my fast. So, this is fairly easy to figure out.

05:00-05:15 - Wake and prepare
05:15-08:00 - Exercise
08:00-08:30 - Shower
08:30-09:30 - Planning
09:30-12:00 - Writing
12:00-14:00 - Nap
14:00-14:30 - Eat

Of course, this still leaves me with some time before the ideal freelancer hours, and having only turned out 2.5 hours of writing in the day at this point, my goal of 5,000 words per day would be a strain. Having napped and fed myself well, I would be well-positioned to start into another batch of writing. Another meal would be well-positioned right around the end of that.

05:00-05:15 - Wake and prepare

05:15-08:00 - Exercise
08:00-08:30 - Shower
08:30-09:30 - Planning
09:30-12:00 - Writing
12:00-14:00 - Nap
14:00-14:30 - Eat
14:30-16:30 - Writing
16:30-17:00 - Eat

To make ends meet through my freelance efforts at the moment, my daily commitment needs to sit at four hours. Ouch! After this is the last eating period of my day.

05:00-05:15 - Wake and prepare

05:15-08:00 - Exercise
08:00-08:30 - Shower
08:30-09:30 - Planning
09:30-12:00 - Writing
12:00-14:00 - Nap
14:00-14:30 - Eat
14:30-16:30 - Writing
16:30-17:00 - Eat
17:00-21:00 - Freelance
21:00-21:30 - Eat

So that takes care of all my waking obligations. Getting sufficient sleep for my own needs with a wake-up time of 05:00 means throwing in the towel for the day at 00:30, which in turn means 00:00 to 00:30 is best spent reading, which both pleases and relaxes me. All that intervening time, then, is my free time.

05:00-05:15 - Wake and prepare

05:15-08:00 - Exercise
08:00-08:30 - Shower
08:30-09:30 - Planning
09:30-12:00 - Writing
12:00-14:00 - Nap
14:00-14:30 - Eat
14:30-16:30 - Writing
16:30-17:00 - Eat
17:00-21:00 - Freelance
21:00-21:30 - Eat
21:30-00:00 - Free Time
00:00-00:30 - Reading
00:30-05:00 - Sleep

At the moment, then, I'm sitting on 2.5 hours of time each weekday which is not already invested. There are, of course, temporary circumstantial time consumers, as well as outright inefficiencies. As my flexibility, technique and strength improve, I will require less stretching and be able to work more muscles with fewer individual exercises--by my estimate, I could bring my longest exercise routine under two hours. As I re-adjust to my biphasic sleep pattern, the total volume of sleep required will shrink. As I regain my momentum with writing, turning out my desired volume of quality material day-to-day will take less time. As my income from writing increases, my time spent freelancing will shrink.

It seems pretty daunting, the timing very tight at the moment, but there's so much potential for growth. It's exciting. I'm going to make this a good week.

Still learning,
~L

Day 18: Eat A Sandwich and Other Thoughts

It's not Sunday evening, so it's technically not time for me to do a weekly evaluation, but I created this with the intention of getting some things off my mind as they came to me. I'll start with the immediate concern to which I made a titular reference: I am losing weight.

Of course, the standard reply to this complaint is "You suck," "You're so lucky," "What a nice problem to have." I weary of hearing those sorts of response, because at the end of the day, gaining healthy weight while maintaining steady exercise to build one's overall fitness is every bit as complex and difficult a venture as shedding pounds wisely. Just because one problem is more common does not detract from the fact that the other problem's health and aesthetic consequences are just as real. Furthermore, when I find myself losing weight while on a diet that is carefully monitored to minimize intake of detrimental substances . . . it means my food bill is going to increase, and likely significantly, as I cannot just pile on many of the standard sources of cheap calories to solve my problems.

To meet my current objectives, I would guess that I need to aim for between 3000 and 3200 calories/day, between 115 and 135 g of protein/day and 150 g to 200 g carbohydrates/day. Oversimplifying the whole process, we'll just say that proteins and carbs being worth 4 calories to the gram, that accounts for up to 1340 of my calories, leaving me with between 1660 and 1860 calories to get from, well, fats. I'm also going to make more of an effort to round out my micronutrient intake--in particular, I seem to be lacking on the zinc, selenium, folate, vitamin E and vitamin D fronts.

The second matter to occupy my mind this evening is one which I have mentioned before: the matter of how much time it takes me to get my exercise routine squared away. Now, there are some factors here that cannot be circumvented: I want to build strength with minimal size gains, so extended rests between sets are mandatory on my 'strength day.' I also want to build flexibility and reduce risk of injury, so that means a mobility and flexibility routine preceding and following each workout session is unavoidable.

There are, however, factors that can be altered. The time savings most readily within my reach are those to be had on the flexibility front. The flexibility I've started with is poor, though my bodyweight work up to this point has improved it from the truly abysmal state it was in prior. Right now, my dynamic stretching routine takes roughly 35 minutes to get through because A) I'm doing high reps for three sets to build my flexibility, and B) I'm still so unaccustomed to regular stretching that I have to rest longer than I'd like between sets of stretches. That second problem will fall away with two or three more weeks of regular stretching, I hope, while reaching levels of flexibility with which I'm satisfied will allow me to cut down on stretching volume somewhat, to maintenance levels. From what I have read, it looks like I can cut that stretch time down to 15 minutes or so when I reach that point.

Looking ahead to the further future, the concept I touched on many entries ago of building an exercise routine that rolled muscle groups together as much as possible to cut down on the need for separate sets is one I aspire to. Of course, it will require building up the requisite strength and skill for these much more advanced exercises, and 'movement' days are partially intended to facilitate the technical/balance aspects. My main concern is, of course, with my pure strength routine, which presently takes over 90 minutes (stretching not included) because of the waits between sets. My current concept of the 'ideal' format would be like so:

Handstand Press - 4 Sets   (Shoulders, Triceps, Forearms, Core, Back, Legs)
Front Lever Muscle Up - 4 Sets (Back, Biceps, Triceps, Chest, Core, Forearms, Legs)
Planche Pushup - 4 Sets (Chest, Triceps, Core, Back, Forearms, Legs)
Pistol Squats(*) - 4 Sets (Legs, Core)

*I already know at this point that Pistol Squats will not last as a raw strength-builder forever, even if the point when that happens is yet quite distant, but I do not know what the alternative will be. I have some ideas, but that may end up being something that I experiment with on movement days, quite some time in the future.

That would reduce the whole thing down to a roughly 55-minute affair, of which only 48 would be spent waiting. Narrowing it down this much gives me a fairly clear focus.

The third and final thing I've been thinking about is putting some actual concentrated effort into memory training . . . but I'll leave that at that for now, because I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it yet.

Whee.

Still learning,
~L 

Day 17: Real and Fake Motivation

My sister is visiting from out of town today, and we spent much of the evening bowling and playing billiards. Now, my exposure to either of these could readily be classified as 'minimal,' but even relative to many people I've seen who play either game as infrequently as I, my performances are routinely abominable. While failing to put up anything resembling a decent contest, I found myself trying to commit to my turns the same mental energy and concentration I do to most things I choose to have in my life. I found myself dissecting the mechanics of both games and contemplating how much practice I could routinely get to ingrain the execution of these concepts into muscle memory, how far I could take my abilities.

Then, I walked away from the games, and those thoughts immediately evaporated. I have always been the sort where, once something catches my interest, it haunts me; in this case, petty as it was, I only cared about giving over any effort to the game as far as not losing in the moment, and even that was half-hearted at best. I also found myself making excuses in my head for my poor performance, though I had the good sense to keep them to myself until I'd quashed them.

Such motivation is fake, having no bearing on my actual happiness, and it's a part of my egotistical side that needs to die so that I can have the time and energy to focus on the things I actually care about. Instructive!

Still learning,
~L

Day 16: Inspiration; on K. J. Parker

I thought it might be a good idea to write a bit about someone who has been a significant inspiration to me in recent years: K. J. Parker. This author, responsible for such novels as Evil for Evil, The Proof House and The Folding Knife, is something of an enigma. Little is known of Parker's true identity; even gender is a mystery. But while that's lovely speculation fuel, I care about Parker because of what she has written. In particular, The Engineer Trilogy (Devices and Desires, Evil for Evil, The Escapement) stands as one of my favorite bodies of modern fiction, telling the tragic tale of a man, sentenced to death for a petty crime, who escapes and sets a war in motion just to be reunited with his wife and daughter.

There's a lot to love about these books. The setting is well developed, the plot is engaging, the characters widely varied and thoroughly human, and the whole thing is wrapped up in expertly-crafted prose. Finally, there is a remarkable consistency across the three novels--Parker has no doubts about what sort of narrative voice he/she wants to have, and at a more abstract level, one gets the sense that every moment that the reader is shown is not only carefully chosen, but also very deliberately matched to the perspective that gives a scene the most impact. I struggle fiercely with my desire to reveal choice tidbits as my instincts tell me to settle down, recommend the books and let you discover it on your own, but I think I can illustrate my point effectively with an example that doesn't require quite so much in the way of specifics.

There is a scene about two fifths of the way into the first book in which an official of the country that sentenced the (arguably) main character to death is sifting through the man's former belongings, and comes across a book of poetry he wrote himself. He finds the whole thing amusingly bad, and the following wry observation is made:

Psellus rested the book on his desk. So what? Right across the known world, in every country with some measure of literacy, there were millions of otherwise sane, harmless people who were guilty of poetry.

 'Guilty of poetry' cracks me up every time, but this flippancy is not merely to show that a character or the author have a cutting wit (no need to flaunt what is naturally evident in the book as a whole). No, it's a very wise decision in service of a point. If the man who had written said poetry had recalled it, it would have lent the scene a great tenderness in the best case, and a sort of maudlin sentimentality at worst. Instead, seen and criticized through the eyes of a man part of the inescapable political machinery of the world, it becomes a victim of the tragic inertia of a society that treats people like parts and worships the idea of its own perfection. It emphasizes why the sort of man who would write such poems ends up feeling compelled to sacrifices so many lives to oppose the order of a society that had defined his whole world.

I have much to learn from re-reading these books, as I have been doing lately, and I hope to greatly improve my own writing thereby.

Still learning,
~L

Day 15: Foundations

I'm content with how today went, in terms of getting things back in order. I successfully engineered my sleep schedule into something much closer to the shape it used to have--a brief sleep at night followed by a nap at midday. I had a thought on that subject, but I'll get back to that after I finish patting myself on the back. I acquitted myself satisfactorily with my workout this morning, and did not succumb to the temptation to abridge my planned three-minute waits between sets. I kept reminding myself at every turn that I am interested only in functional gains, and I'll let the necessary mass development to facilitate those gains take place, but will indeed avoid anything that will explicitly encourage such growth.

I got a decent amount of work done: not quite as much as I would have liked, but certainly I felt that I had achieved more today than most recent days. I do feel guilty that this blog is boring for its lack of substance, but I hope to fix that very soon with regular updates about cool stuff.

Before I knock off to sleep, let me talk about sleep. While it's certainly true that I have always felt better with less sleep than the recommended amount (between 5 and 6 hours) and that I flourish when that time is broken up into a main sleep and a nap, the troublesome thing about structuring a day around freelance work--and therefore by necessity around the patterns of the average person--is that it conflicts with what my body has always naturally tended towards. If left to my own devices, my sleep schedule will usually drift to a point where I'm going to bed at 06:00, rising between 10:00 and 10:30, and napping from 17:30 to 19:00. It takes considerable effort to push my sleep patterns more into line with the standard circadian rhythm, and even once it is habituated to, unless I keep an alarm set, the slightest problem could cause it all to fall apart, and for me to feel miserably lethargic and addled after waking.

Not that it's particularly feasible at this point in my life, but I do find myself wondering if it might not be a logical choice to allow my sleep to fall into its natural pattern in the future, when my time is strictly my own and my writing is my sole source of income. I do miss that pattern; it made me feel energetic, yet relaxed, and was great for concentration. Ah well, we shall see.

Still learning,
~L

Day 14: Breaking Bad (Form)

I've already blabbed about bad habits that prevent or stymy productivity, but honestly, one of the really fascinating things that you learn about yourself when you take a step back and examine the necessary steps to your goal is the way little imperfections make themselves evident. In fact, as much as the whole of the self-teaching process really excites me, I think it is this element of re-examination, deconstruction and refinement which most motivates me.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's the artistic impulse in me--particularly the part that adores the history and critical theory--that makes it so. Of course, the arts and culture in general tend to undergo periods of dramatic overthrow, where a radical challenge is posed to the status quo and things can never be the same, and these are the turning points most people remember. Fair enough, but to me, the immediate results of that shift are only very rarely the greatest exponents; no, those tend to come from the series of subsequent dialogues which examine the new paradigm, respecting it enough to believe it can withstand having bits taken apart and rearranged.

Though I'm tempted to talk about visual art, architecture and literature here, I imagine the example of contemporary music is more likely to hit a resonant note (hur hur) with my (non-existent) readership. So, then, consider punk rock. Depending on who you ask, they're most likely to tell you that the heyday of punk rock ran from the late 60s to the mid 70s (The Stooges, The Ramones, The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers) or from the late 70s to the mid 80s (Misfits, Black Flag, Minutemen, The Replacements). However, the earliest stirrings of what would become punk lay at the very end of the 50s and start of the 60s, with the formation of The Kingsmen in 1959 and of The Sonics in 1960. Later joined by MC5, The Velvet Underground and others, these bands would infuse a rawness, aggression and minimalist ethos into rock n' roll which laid the foundations for a genre that now has diverse subclassifications, has fused with every from blues to ska to metal to folk, and speaks very powerfully to millions. But though I love the great 'protopunk' bands of yore, and would consider The Sonics among my favorites, I do not think I would consider them the best punk bands.

They are seminal, and entirely necessary in the evolution of punk as we know it, but it is the examination, appropriation and experimentation that followed over the decades that have yielded not only the most beloved punk bands, but all the driving indie post-punk and garage revival stuff that has been taking the world by storm since the 80s. These things are refinements of the revolution, equipped to express certain ideas with a power and precision that their forebears were not.

Similarly, when one is striving to build one's self, some lifestyle changes are dramatic and momentous--committing to regular exercise and dietary control strike me as two examples in my case--and some are more minute. While starting one's pursuit of a goal is arguably the 'most important' step, if you do not stop every now and then to question and evaluate your progress, if you're not willing to tear it down sometimes, you'll likely find that the skill you have developed poorly will need to be unlearned in order to actually let you progress to the next stage.

Finally, and just as importantly, these adjustments are tangible progress, complete with the assurance that you are actually able to improve yourself with concentration, effort and savvy. Never underestimate the value of that psychological component.

Still learning,
~L

Day 13: What Is This I Don't Even

Little by little, the imaginative machinery is starting to pick up steam again. I've been reading books in my leisure time as often as I used to, and the effect on my mental acuity and staying power is salutary. I am reclaiming that precious tool of the artist: concentration. I am starting to remember, revive and rebuild story concepts, and the results are edifying so far.

I did, however, somehow manage to hurt my neck while holding a one-arm plank. Considering I didn't fall or make any sudden movements, I'm not really clear on how that's possible, but okay!

I managed to secure a new client for my freelance work today, and the extra source of income is lovely. My first priority item is a new SSD to replace the crashtastic one my desktop currently uses. Switching to the laptop is no longer as safe an option as I had hoped--it has been acting up on occasion lately, as well. Besides, having to pause every so often while the computer decides if it wants to die or not is not exactly helpful with the whole 'focus' aspect of this grand undertaking.

I'm doing well hitting most of my nutritional goals day to day, though my eating is still spread out too much. I keep brushing up against the limit of my 8-hour eating window. Part of the problem is that I've not been getting all of my cooking done each Sunday, which means I have to take some time every day to cook, so I put that off until I'm comfortable with how much work I've gotten done. This, in turn, leads to a restlessness problem where, when I get the urge to do a little exercise late in the evenings (which happens every evening) I have to keep putting it off because my stomach is full. If I could condense my needs down into two big meals, perhaps, it would make things easier. Extending the fasting period by shrinking the eating period would also make the fasting a bit more effective.

If I seem a bit scatter-brained at the moment, it's because I'm itching to do a little more writing-related work.

So, I will.

Still learning,
~L

Day 12: Signs of Movement

This week, I'm going to be undertaking a fairly drastic reform of my exercise regimen, in the name of movement. Certainly, every exercise one does constitutes a movement, and bodyweight exercises already tend to involve a fair sight more balance, coordination and mobility than weightlifting, but I'm talking about something a bit more fundamental. Challenging the body to produce fluid movements from changing positions in changing circumstances. If it sounds vague, that's because this is all relatively grey to me, as well, and I'll be coming at it with a mindset of experimentation.

I do have certain defined skills I'll be working on, but I'll also be spending my Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays just fiddling around with whatever motions come to mind and seeing how I might benefit from them.

Otherwise, my list of goals to work towards remains the same for this week. I need to really pin down those initial objectives before I bother myself with others. To heap another pursuit on my plate when I'm still too scatterbrained to face what I've got would just be looking down on these endeavors.

Still learning,
~L

Day 11: On Clutter and Other Maladies

A large part of the reason I have taken up this journal was to humble myself. Looking back at the fairly dramatic flourish I began with and comparing it to the sporadic (at best) updating it has received since, I can certainly say I feel humbled by that. Of course, it's only humbling instead of humiliating if one makes the effort to learn from it. I gave it some thought while on my walk today, and a few things came to mind.

1) I have allowed my life to become very cluttered.
2) I have developed the habit of talking too much and writing too little.
3) I have not been giving journalism its due respect as a form of writing.
4) I procrastinate on updating this because I hate the idea of not having anything to say.

Let's unpack that item by item.

First off, 'clutter' might seem an odd thing to say, given the positively ponderous list of goals this whole journal is based around helping me toward. But 'clutter' in this case means specifically those things which take up time and energy in my day but only distract from the things I really want. In my case, clutter comes in the form of menial busy-work and 'fun' distractions. The busy-work is obvious: cleaning, laundry, organizing things. That last one is probably the single biggest culprit, especially given the fairly Byzantine structure my data storage has taken on. With inevitable tasks like cleaning and laundry, the answer is simply to be diligent about getting those tasks done at a given day within a given time every week. Sunday is a lovely day for that purpose, and is also where--as my posted schedule dictates--I can get all my cooking done for the week up front, sparing me having to spend any serious time on it during the week.

Organization, on the other hand, will simply require moment-to-moment thoughtfulness. At some point soon, I will need to dedicate some time to improving the manner in which I organize my data, and I'll also need to start paying more attention to where things get saved or downloaded to. Managing these things as they come will spare me having to devote marathon sessions to sorting them, often pausing to figure out what in the world a given document or bookmarked website is about because I haven't so much as glanced at it in months.

This brings us back to the 'fun' distractions, which I put in quotation marks for a reason. These distractions are never actually fun for me. Some people have vacuous television that, for lack of concentration or motivation, they find themselves watching for a time, but when they walk away from it, they realize none of it stuck with them, or mattered to them at all: I have vacuous reading, for the most part. It is mildly entertaining and requires little-to-no effort on my part, but ultimately is never half as satisfying as actually getting something I care about done.

Second, talking too much and writing too little. I felt it was appropriate to combine these two, because in the course of my life, I think they have always been linked. I was at my most productive when I was at my least talkative. When I was a teenager, I rarely engaged a conversation I did not find mentally stimulating, and when I was in such a situation, I tended to keep quiet and let the other person speak while I thought. As I became more gregarious in my late adolescence, I forced myself to become adept at conversation, but found my time for solitude and reflection diminishing. Worst still, I had worked so hard to drag myself out of my shell and be social that when I had good opportunities to reflect and write and brood, I reflexively refused to. There is no doubt in my mind that my productivity and imagination as an artist has faltered for it, and my demeanor and patience have also suffered. I will not consider the shift a total loss, for I have acquired certain social graces and insights that are of great use in some circumstances, but I need to cut down on social trivialities. I'm more skilled as a writer than as a speaker, at any rate.

Thirdly, this journal has suffered because I have disrespected the art of journal-keeping. To maintain a journal that offers real insight beyond simple lists of daily activities requires just as much focus and drive as writing fiction or essay, and to make it enjoyable for others to read requires great verbal acuity. I've been humbled a great deal recently in the realm of writing by recent experimental efforts I've made to write in ways and areas I've not done before. I feel confident in my prose-craft, though I certainly wish to inject something new into it, but my writing outside the fictional sphere lacks the polish of my writing within it.

Fourth and finally, when, on a day to day basis, I have faltered and failed and idled, I sit and stare at this journal thinking, "Oh no, I'd have to start making things up to have anything worthwhile to say." I will not fret over this longer than to say that the solution here? Actually DO the things I have committed to, so that every day is a day worth writing about. Mind-blowing concept, right!?

Regular updates begin tomorrow, at a scheduled time.

Still learning,
~L

Day 10: No Rest For Those With Old Mattresses

Over the last two weeks, I have definitely noticed the quality of my sleep declining; at this point, I feel confident that the problem is with my mattress, as the title suggests. I'm not sure what would have changed to make things get worse so suddenly, but I have had my grievances with the mattress for a while. It is on the old side, and like most spring mattresses, has developed its own peculiar array of dips, hills and variations in firmness over the years.

But lately, I wake with far less energy than usual, often wishing simply to roll over and claim enough sleep to compensate. This has led to more than a few unusually late mornings, and those spent somewhat listlessly. I struggle to focus and be productive. Where I am usually quite able for 18 to 19 hours in a given day, I have found myself weary after only 15. My nutrition steadily improves, exercise has made my body stronger, and I am comparatively free of stress, so I'm inclined to rule out those factors. However, regardless of how I feel when I go to sleep, I wake with stiffness and soreness in my neck, shoulders and back. So, yeah. Hopefully I can set aside some money for a new mattress relatively soon.

In addition, my desktop's drive is doing its level best to die on me before the replacement part I desire is in stock. You will also notice that this blog, when I do update it, which is not regularly enough, is being updated in a somewhat token fashion. This really isn't the great start I had hoped for with this sort of undertaking, and saying that this kind of laxity and inconsistency speaks to the need for this blog to exist seems almost insultingly flippant. Tomorrow, crappy mattress or not, I will adhere to the schedule I have set for myself, including updating this when I've said I would, with the attention it merits.

Still learning,
~L