I didn’t finish yesterday’s post. Ended up sleeping until the sun came up. Oh well! I suppose I could write extra today, but I’m not going to push myself unless it feels right.

Today’s goal is to simply respect Pomodoro technique. I have a timer going right now. The excellent Pomodoro app, Good Time.

I have caught myself in a bad habit of distracting myself while I write. I’ll write about a topic that I read about recently, so I’ll go find a link to that topic. Or I’ll mention a good book I like, so I’ll jump over to the eBay partner network and generate an affiliate link. All these side quests take time. All these side quests involve network requests and lengthy load times. I find myself distracting myself from the load times as I switch tabs and check hackernews or my e-mail.

Distraction is a real problem!

Today I’m writing in WordPress with no distractions allowed. If I want to link to something external, or embed content, I will just put an @TODO tag in it’s place. After I’m completely done writing, I can come back to the todo tags and insert the desired content.

I’m only going to write about what I already know about, I’m not going to allow myself to interrupt my flow and go off and research something to write about, or insert an affiliate link that will sit unused for 2 years.

Yeah, that’s kinda crazy. I’m inserting affiliate links that I know won’t be clicked on for 2 years, because the articles I post aren’t going to get published until then. Am I mad? I think I was doing it because that’s the habit I want to form. If I publish articles right away, as I have been doing every so often, I usually want to monetize it somehow.

Maybe I should monetize the posts right before they go live. At this time, I don’t even know if I am going to publish them at all, when their scheduled post time occurs. I might be dead or incapacitated. I might change my mind and not want to release my inner thoughts. I don’t know what I’m going to feel in 2 years!

So maybe it’s the job of future Chris to monetize the blog posts. Perhaps I should play editor and proofread the articles before they go live. Perhaps it’s the editor’s job to monetize the posts.

I also have to keep in mind that I may learn a better way of monetizing posts by the time my daily journal gets published. eBay partner network might be a laughable way of monetizing then, and I’d have to spend hours stripping those links out of old posts.

There could be a revolutionary Patreon/Flattr/BAT blockchain p2p crypto solution that blows everything else out of the water, and results in consumer and content creators grinning ear to ear. Who the fuck knows?! 2 years is a lot of time in the information age.

Ok then, I think that’s a rational solution. It’s the job of the future editor Chris to monetize the shit out of the content. The Chris right now is writer Chris. The Chris right now is responsible for pouring his soul into his writing, and nothing else.

Yesterday was Wintergatan Wednesday.

Martin talked about dopamine detox. I think this is a powerful concept, and one I have been working on without really having a name for it.

I used to not be able to stand my own noisy thoughts. I would exercise, but only with music blasting in my ears. I would step away from the computer to prepare food, but only if there was a podcast to keep me company.

I had to switch what I was doing every few minutes and watch a youtube video because I needed that dopamine hit. I learned about mindfulness and meditation and that all started to change.

I think I’ve reduced the amount of dopamine I need to function properly. I play less video games. I watch less youtube. I am able to focus on things just a little bit better.

I want to find the book Martin was talking about. I am thinking of selling Prometheus Rising once I finish it, to help fund the purchase of another book. I was thinking of getting a Brene Brown book, but my sister A. got me one for my birthday. I was surprised that she knew I wanted a book, but apparently I mentioned it in a text a while back. I know I misspelled Brene Brown. I don’t know how to make the accented e on my keyboard, and I’m not allowing myself to leave WordPress, so I guess I’ll put an @TODO tag. And I’m probably not going to remove this sentence, so this just got META!

I’ve got 2 packages stuck at Buyee. EMS and a few other options are suspended until Japan Post is able to adapt to the suspension of flights due to COVID-19. I tried a second time to get one of the packages shipped out, but apparently not even DHL is available at this time. I’m not sure if that’s Buyee’s choice, or Japan Post not accepting packages destined to the USA. Whatever it is, I’m pretty bummed because I was looking forward to sorting and listing those cards.

I’m extra excited because I moved up the ladder to sealed product! I bought a bunch of booster boxes and starter decks, promotional booster packs and standard booster packs. Really sought after and difficult to acquire stuff in the USA!

I was looking forward to getting those items and getting them listed, because I’ve got several hundred dollars tied up in them at the moment.

My biggest fear is that the packages will remain at Buyee for more than 30 days, at which Buyee will begin to charge me a fee for having to hold my packages for an extended period of time.

Just had a nice break. I sat on one of my birthday gifts– a bed of nails! It might be counter-intuitive, but that acupressure pad does wonders for my tense muscles. It hurts for like 2 seconds, after which I can feel my glutes and leg muscles start to relax. It feels incredibly good to relax, when normal for me is pure tension.

Now one thing that doesn’t hurt temporarily is stretches. I wonder if there is anything I can do about that. I have been taking occasional pomodoro breaks to do yoga. I would like to get better at folding over and putting my hands on the floor. My thigh muscles are not very flexible and it is very painful to do that stretch. I have been doing this every few days and I think I’m seeing a little improvement, but I’m not very satisfied. I think I need another tool for gaining range in that stretch.

I watched a youtube video probably years ago that explained some sort of method for stretching which also involved some sort of release. I can’t remember the term. Basically the physical therapist in the video was explaining the benefit of using form rollers in conjunction with stretches. At one point he demonstrated using a standard tennis ball to focus energy on the muscle in question. He put his weight on the tennis ball and rolled against it as he stretched. I think this made the stretch more effective because the ball is loosening up muscle tissue which is used to staying stuck in one position.

I think I need to put some research into that area. My stretches are not effective! They’re just painful.

I want hugs! I’m reminded of that Daft Punk song.

Touch. I remember touch.

Those are the only lyrics I can remember.

Goddamn, I’m sleepy again. I’ve only been up for like 2 hours, and I’m ready for another nap. This polyphasic sleep schedule is really demanding! I don’t think I can nap before my call with my therapist this morning. I am not so sure that I would sleep lightly enough to wake up to a timer or the sound of my phone ringing. I’d probably be fine.. I’m not so tired where I would be lights out for 3 hours. I’m not feeling like risking it though. Perhaps I will lay down and do a guided meditation before the call. I haven’t done one of those in awhile.

I haven’t done much meditation the past few days, If I think about it. I’ve been really focused on doing things. Shipping packages. Playing video games. Setting up Nextcloud.

Oh yeah, I got a nextcloud instance up and running. I didn’t do the installation myself, I just used the premade Nextcloud app on Vultr. I had to do a lot of research on how to get it working how I intended it to work, though!

The whole reason I set up a nextcloud is so I can share files with my friends. We’ve been using send.firefox.com for awhile, which is a great service. We ran into the problem, however, that one of the videos we shared was too large! I figure I could have set up a ftp server or something like that, which we can use for sharing whatever large files we want to send. Now that I have my own unlimited LTE internet connection which greatly surpasses my parent’s home internet in terms of stability and bandwidth, I’d like to put it to use and experience a richer internet experience!

I set up my nextcloud instance with SSL using a certificate from letsencrypt. I got a free subdomain from afraid.org. I racked my brain trying to figure out how this Dropbox inspired, “flat permissions” thing works. All I wanted was a folder that everyone in my group of friends can see and upload files to! It took a lot of trial and error, but I finally got it working once I disabled Nextcloud’s encryption module. Turns out the group folder app doesn’t support encryption as of now. A price to pay for the convenience of a ftp-like file sharing experience. We may not have encryption on disk but at least we have encryption on transit via SSL.

I don’t fully understand the threat vector that disk encryption is supposed to defend against. I suppose a hacker could make a disk image dump, and they’d immediately have access to all the files we stored on there. With encryption, they’d have an extra step of having to crack the encryption before they could read the files.

I suppose we should simply leave sensitive information off of the Nextcloud instance, to defend against the possible scenario of a hacker gaining access to the virtual machine. I think I could do a little hardening of the server as well, things such as removing SSH password authentication, and disabling Ubuntu Cockpit management web UI. Cockpit was preinstalled, but I don’t need it to manage the server. SSH is all I need.

I’m watching 28 Weeks Later. Crazy movie. I appreciate the reactions of the military commanders who have a look of shame and guilt on their faces when they decide to turn the city into a fireball. It’s sad to see it. It’s sad to know that this is human mentality with deadly infectious disease. This is the kind of thing that could be occuring in China right now. People could be getting killed by their government because they had the misfortune of getting SARS-CoV-2. I don’t know if that was a real story, or just a jest at the totalitarian nature of Chinese government.

People turn to rumors when they lack reliable data. I think that’s what I just did there.

Damn, 28 Weeks Later is pulling at my heart strings. People just try’na survive. People failing miserably.

I do know one thing. Seeing the helicopter flying around makes me want to fly video game helicopters. I love that sense of freedom and the agility.

Ok so the virus breached containment in 28 days later. So the boy carried out of containment? Is the moral of the story that compassion means nothing to viruses? Is the moral of the story that viruses are the enemy? Maybe it’s up to the viewer to decide.

I’m grateful for my health and my comfortable life. I suppose that is what my moral is. I don’t have to decide whether to sacrifice myself in order to save someone. We have enough wealth in our lives to where those choices aren’t a part of our everyday culture.

I’m grateful for the plethora of things I can do as a healthy, wealthy person. I say wealth not with the image of finances in my mind, but with the image of well being and prosperity. I can go outside and take a walk to the store. I can walk in the backyard. I can call my friends and play video games. I have an endless source of entertainment– the WWW.

I’m grateful for the birthday cake I received from my mom. I’m grateful that I matter in people’s lives. I’m grateful that I love myself enough to keep living, and I’m grateful that alone I feel worthy enough to grow that love.

78. I am stronger than my worries.
79. I am not the only one who struggles; I choose to be kind to everyone I meet.
80. Yesterday was a bad day, not a bad life. Today will be better.