I’ve been putting something off for awhile because it’s uncomfortable and the thought makes me uneasy. I have to tell my dad that I need to detach from him financially. I don’t want to take any more projects from him. It’s my time to blaze my own trail and it’s necessary I do so if I am to retain and improve my mental health.

I’m Chris and I’m a codependent. That’s what I’m going to tell the room when I feel ready to talk about my codependency at Codependents Anonymous.

When I first started working for my dad, I did so telling him that I didn’t want to do so long term. It’s become long term at this point. Regardless of hours worked per week, I am in a boss/employee relationship with my dad.

I haven’t felt in control of my future for a long time. I haven’t felt worthy of saying no to a work request. Now with therapy and lots of reading, I’m starting to realize that I do have control of my future. I am worthy of saying no. I don’t have to work for my dad at all. I don’t even have to mow the lawn. All these jobs that I’ve done for him in the past are something someone else can do. I’m not the only person capable, in fact, there are lots of people capable of those jobs.

I don’t have to cut down trees or improve my parent’s nature trail. I don’t have to spray weeds or prune trees. I don’t have to do any of that anymore, and it’s time I stop doing all those things that I don’t want to do.

I can pay rent and live here. Or I can go to school and waive having to pay rent.

Working for my parents does not guarantee the future I want. The one thing that working for my parents guarantees is that I’ll get more work from my parents. There is no escape by working a little harder and getting a little more money. The escape is to say no to any further requests to do work for them.

There’s this sort of non-defined, hazy contract between my dad and I. I work for him, and I don’t have to pay rent. But the wages I get from him are so few and far between that there’s no happy end to this predicament. I work for my dad, and in return I get to work for my dad.

This is a vicious cycle that gets me nowhere near my goals. This is a viscous cycle that leaves me feeling inferior, and a subject to the will of my parents.

Luckily I’m getting fired up about other employment opportunities. eBay, and various websites and/or services which I can provide for people. I’ll probably have to take a part time job soon, until I can make eBay more efficient and more profitable.

That’s okay. A part time job other than the one working with my parents will only increase my social aptitude. I hate the idea. Fuck, I really hate the idea.

Maybe day labor would be okay. Like I go in on Saturdays or some shit. I think one day a week would be tolerable.

I’m still stoked about turning a profit with my home business. That’s what gets me excited to go to work every day.

Flipping cell phones. Flipping thrift store electronics. That’s something I can tolerate, and it gets me out of the house and into mildly social settings.

I just need to condense the above and explain the relevant parts to my dad. Or don’t explain anything. That’s part of the Codependency No More book’s advice, just say no and then stop.

I don’t want to be here.

I found myself shouting that line during my latest psilocybin trip. It’s a feeling that extends past my conscious mind and into my subconscious.

That’s the silver lining of eBay. I sell more junk, and I end up with less junk. I guess that’s the theory anyway. Right now I’m acquiring quite a lot of junk from Thrift Stores, and that’s gotta be kept to a minimum so I can actually cut down on the clutter and clean house.

Clean house. That’s a goal. Spring cleaning time. I’m taking little sections one day at a time, and cleaning that section. Yesterday was the kitchenette from the sink to the rightmost countertop. Today is ??? I’ll figure something out.

Tomorrow I have therapy. I’m feeling happy(3) about it. I’m not anxious about it. If anything, I’m excited. I wonder my therapist will be surprised that I did mushrooms. Probably not, lots of people do mushrooms.

I keep rehearsing how I’m going to talk about it. The experience was so profound and multi-faceted that I could explain it several ways. I could talk about how I met God. I could talk about how I felt dead. I could talk about how I desperately wanted to get back to my body so I could continue living as Chris with all his imperfections and health problems and parent issues.

I could talk about how it lifted my mood or how it reset my mind and my equilibrium has been off ever since, or how I vomited and pissed myself…

It’s an illegal activity so I might not be welcomed to share. How fucked up is it, that psychedelic mushrooms are illegal? It’s pretty damn funny if I think about it. I wonder why they and LSD were made illegal to begin with?

It matters not. I’ll do it even if it’s illegal. I have zero regrets about it, and I feel no remorse. Good people ignore bad laws. Psychedelics have more medicinal value than recreational value. I would prefer to go to therapy and be provided with acid every now and again. That would probably get to the bottom of all my issues a lot faster.

I haven’t taken acid. I wonder what that’s like. Anyway, acid can be taken orally, and I think the trip doesn’t last long. Or does it? IDK. DMT is probably what behavioral therapists would want to administer. When smoked, DMT has a nearly similar experience as edible mushrooms, but only lasts like 10 minutes.

10 minutes is perfect for a 1 hour therapy session. Come in, smoke some DMT, trip balls while a clinician monitors your vitals, sober up, discuss with your licensed therapist.

Eh, that might be too sterile, too rushed for a good experience. It’s important to be in a comfortable setting. Therapy is getting kinda comfortable for me now, but if I’m tripping balls, I don’t know if I’d want to be in a therapy office.

Maybe there’s a middle ground. I dunno, don’t care. That’s something for a fresh new industry to figure out. My experience of pissing myself and puking was pretty terrible but it was overall good. I think a lot of people could benefit from psychedelics, especially people who are considering suicide.

I’ve also heard psychedelics can be beneficial for people who are terminally ill. A trip on mushrooms or DMT can alleviate people’s fear of death. After this trip I had, I get it.

I hope that psychedelics become legal in Oregon soon. I hear they’re leading the pack in doing so. I dunno if it’s just for medicinal use or also for recreation, but it’s a good move. I hope the vendor I have bought from twice now becomes an established public vendor at some point, and doesn’t have to continue to operate in secrecy. Their liquid mushrooms product is really well produced and packaged.

It would be cool to see their lab. For them to produce as many vials as I think they do, they must have a huge grow room.

Today for Jamuary I’m planning on challenging myself in a new way. I’m going to write lyrics before I make any sort of melody or bassline. I think that may differ from conventional songwriting, but I want to give it a try because I haven’t written any lyrics since day 6 I believe. I liked the lyrics in day4 and day6 and I haven’t done any lyrical creations after that. Day 14 had Miku singing, “lalalalalala” but that doesn’t count!

I want Miku to sing for me again. That’s my real reason for wanting to write lyrics!

I found a software package called AppImageLauncher. I think it should be built into PopOS! and Ubuntu. That might already be the case, but the version of PopOS! I’m running didn’t seem to have it by default. A lot of software vendors are distributing their applications as AppImages instead of .deb files or snap images or any of the other distribution formats.

AppImages operate a lot like .exe files where everything is self contained, including dependencies. This makes it easy to download an application, and run it on a Linux machine. The problem comes from the Operating System not knowing how to integrate that .AppImage file with the application launcher menus, filetype associations, etc.

Thanks to AppImageLauncher, now I can just double click on an AppImage, and AppImageLauncher asks me if I want to run it once, or run it and integrate that AppImage with the system.

A big painpoint I’ve had with LMMS is that their latest versions are distributed as AppImages. Every time I wanted to launch LMMS, I’d have to navigate to a folder I created called ~/bin, and double click on lmms-1.2.1-linux-x86_64_1dd8df79ef70f3b0822d8185475899fe.AppImage.

I don’t have to do that anymore. Now I can just launch LMMS like I launch Firefox. I hit my meta key, and type, “LMMS.” LMMS pops up as a match, and I press enter. Or I can right click on the LMMS icon and add it to my favorite apps launcher which appears on the left side of my screen.

I don’t even need to worry about where to store AppImages anymore. AppImageLauncher copies them to ~/Applications the first time I run them.

Pretty cool, pretty convenient. AppImages are now a first class citizen on my PC!

I guess they can’t quite be first class citizens. There’s the whole issue of updates. First class systems on Ubuntu-derivative OS’s have better update mechanisms. Updates for first-class citizen applications occur via the System’s package manager. This makes updating all software on the PC really easy because all updates, including system updates, happen via the same program, apt.

Unfortunately, AppImages are outside of the apt ecosystem. This makes updating AppImage software an extra step from updating other software. Instead of running apt update or whatever to update LMMS, I would have to go to lmms.io/download and get the latest AppImage.

It’s a compromise. apt has problems of it’s own. For example, the LMMS package in apt is really outdated. I don’t know if that’s apt’s fault, or the LMMS apt package maintainer’s, but AppImages just subvert that whole middleman junglegym and I suppose that’s okay too.

Whatever it takes for me to get the latest more-or-less stable version of LMMS, I’ma do it.

This has been a good journal entry. I didn’t just log what I did, I expressed my goals, thoughts, and emotions. I’m pleased(6) about this.

I’ll finish today in my regular way, by writing down some words of gratitude. I’m grateful that all of my immediate family members are alive and well. I’m grateful that I get to spend time with them, in person. I’m grateful that I have never gone to prison or even jail. I’m grateful that I get to live in the most peaceful period of human history. I’m grateful that I have struggles that challenge me to be a better person.

I’m grateful for the many different lifestyles I can choose from. I’m grateful that I feel a great sense of freedom in my daily activities. I’m grateful for the clinicians in my life who really care about the people they work with, and really want to see them get better and live fulfilling lives.