In the past ten weeks or so, I've accomplished little that I've set out to, fallen well behind of my goals regarding writing output, allowed myself to become embroiled in a situation I knew would do nothing but drain me mentally, spiritually and phyiscally--and it did that quite effectively--and was incapacitated by illness for a week. That last one also wrought serious havoc with my sleep patterns, the consequences of which I'm still trying to negotiate two weeks later.
What's more, I'm getting sick of making these sorts of posts: I feel driven to push forward just so I won't have to keep explaining why I've not done so, and can talk about more interesting things. At any rate, arse-covering over. Moving on . . .
My hope is for 2014 to be the year in which I transition to my significantly more adventurous life. The key point here is to set out--whether to Japan, directly to Southeast Asia, East via Europe or what have you--this summer. That means more research, planning, saving money, and building up portable sources of income until the departure date. June is looking like a good possibility, though if things went exceedingly well, May wouldn't be out of the question.
I have two hard limits on how early I'd leave, regardless of good fortunes. First, PAX East, which I'm attending with friends, takes place in April, from the 11th through the 13th. The second is getting the injury to my right hand taken care of. My sincere hope is that this is something that will be addressed before PAX, but given the amount of bureaucracy involved in health insurance in the US, one can never be certain.
That being said, I'm looking at 2014 as two distinct blocks of time: the period preceding my departure and the period following. At the moment, I'm still not absolutely sure of the shape of the latter, so in choosing objectives to pursue right now, I'm focusing in on those I can realistically achieve by June. While I have more general ones like 'save money,' 'increase income' and such, I have more personal ones as well, specifically . . .
- Increase prose output to 3,500 words per day, Tuesday through Saturday (17,500/week)
- Migrate all content to a fully-functional version of the mutable (Currently just a test page)
- Adhere to a blend of the 'primal' dietary philosophy and the 'Leangains' protocol for rebuilding my weight in a healthy fashion (Still aiming for 77 kg, having dropped to 68 kg while ill; have only recovered to 69 kg thus far)
- Learn Japanese and Khmer to a conversational level
I have this bad habit, I think, of looking back nostalgically to the period from age 15 to age 17 when I was very productive as a writer, turning out 7,000 words on a typical day, and as many as 10,000. Appreciating that level of output is not wrong in and of itself, but to do so without appreciation for the years of momentum that went into such a thing can be counterproductive. If I had held myself to such a standard when I was a wee lad just starting out, I'd have been crushed by my own expectations.
So, rather than try to pile everything into my day from the start--and acknowledging that things are going to be hectic for a while when I start wandering around--in 2014, I want to try phasing things in bit by bit. Building up my writing output, building my site, getting back into regular exercise, and learning two languages gives me plenty to work with, especially on top of existing work. Focusing in solely on those things right now gives me the space to breathe a bit and adapt more readily to them.
As time goes on, I'll grow more comfortable with certain workloads--writing, language learning, exercise--and other workloads will shrink--the work on the site will become simple upkeep and adjustments when the core functionality is in place, and freelance work will be less and less of a factor as my creative income increases. I'll exercise discretion in determining when to take on new endeavors and what those should be, and continue to phase things in gradually. After all, I have a lifetime.
Still learning,
~L
