Embracing the universe like a blazing star

(or: Spreading myself incredibly thin as a precursor to spreading myself thick on exciting new surfaces)

I have been so busy throwing myself into implementing my plans and goals for 2024 that I haven't even gotten a spare moment until just now - and, frankly, I'm just forcing a spare moment into existence by sheer force of will slash discounting the future to justify the opportunity cost - to actually sit down and tell you what those plans and goals are. Which is probably fine, because in all likelihood you don't care terribly much, but I'm going to inflict it on you anyway.

I am going to be much busier than usual this whole year long, on multiple fronts, doing everything I can to cross items off a long, inter-connected TODO list with the ultimate goal of making substantial progress on the following inter-connected aims. Fair warning, the list is real, the items on it are concrete, I know full well the direction I am steaming in, but a concise and fully internally consistent written formulation of the whole shebang for public consumption is something I'm going to try to formulate on the fly right here right now, so it's not gonna be perfect, but again, that doesn't matter.

The overarching plot point is something like this. I have been intellectual, emotionally, spiritually, whateverly prepared for probably a good two years now to start really seriously walking the walk on a bunch of stuff I have been talking about for even longer, with regard to removing computing and the internet in particular from the centre of my life. Not completely stopping either, but doing both less, and doing that less both via different means and toward different ends, doing both more conscientiously and becoming less invested in them so it will be easy to continue moving away them, Zeno paradox style, forever, because I think that's the inevitable future. Parts of making this shift happen include levelling up on non-computery or less-computery things to fill the gap left behind by less computing, systematically changing the computing stuff I don't leave behind to be more in line with my principles, gracefully wrapping up and winding down stuff that I don't want to put much more energy into but which other people have a reasonable expectation of not being abruptly abandoned, both just as part of being a responsible netizen but also so that the reduced time I continue to spend online is not consumed largely by things that fall in the "duties and obligations" category but are things I really genuinely want to do. I desperately want to be able to spend more of my reduced computer time emailing friends and writing gemlog/phlog posts without a sense of guilt that I should be doing something else. Moving forward I intend to try to be a lot more careful and conscientious about starting any kind of new project. Not saying I won't do it, but I won't do it on a whim, either. All of this goes not only for stuff that you are aware of as mine under the "solderpunk" moniker but stuff in "real life", too.

Some concrete steps/goals on the "compute less/wind down/wrap up" part of this quest include but are not limited to:















So far I've already:









On the "levelling up non-computery things" path I've already:




On the one hand I am pleased and maybe even proud of all this progress in the first quarter of the year. If I can maintain this pace I really will put a substantial dent in my aspirations and I can look forward to entering 2025 with something resembling a clear plate, or at least a plate not so overfull that there's more food on the table cloth than on the plate. On the other hand, I won't lie, at times it has been pretty miserable. This whole big getting stuff done project is not really "me". I am not an organised person, I am not a disciplined person, I am forgetful and I suck at scheduling, both setting them realistically and sticking to them. I think having a Gantt chart for your personal projects, even if it's a vague one, is a sign of a sick mind. I am gritting my teeth and putting on an act and pretending otherwise in an attempt to clean up the mess of seven or so enthusiastic and hyperactive years of being this way. At times it has felt like I've given myself a second job to come home to from my actual job and I've despaired.

Then again, it's not as if I was unconditionally joyous prior to this effort, either. I've kind of described this whole undertaking squarely in terms of retreating from computing practices I don't agree with and throwing off the yoke of obligations, but the truth is that's just part of it. It's a big part of it, for sure, it's the easiest part to explain, it's the part people reading this will appreciate and relate to the most, probably. I am also just trying to live a more balanced and mentally/emotionally healthy life. I tend to get really obsessively interested in obscure solitary things and that makes me perceive every little social commitment, every little household chore, every little family obligation, every moment not spent productively working toward whatever weirdo tings I'm currently living and breathing as some kind of horrible imposition that is crushing my soul. That makes me miserable and I'm sure as hell it must also make me miserable to live with or be close to as well. Obviously I need to work on that some how, and hope to, but I'm also trying for a kind of "defense-in-depth" strategy where, expecting that I'll always be at least a little like this, I redirect my obsessive interests toward things which are either less solitary or are solitary but are more tolerant of being put down and picked up, and trying to make a practice of not announcing or sharing things until they are already finished or close to it, so I don't have to worry about keeping up the appearance of progress for an imaginary audience, or things like that. I want to do more projects which can *be* finished, more easily.

There's an aspect of low-key midlife crisis to all this, too. I will turn forty way too soon. My late thirties have been a time of great change, both inward and outward. My worldview, my values, my priorities, have shifted so much that my twenty year old self wouldn't recognise me, would brand me a "hippy" and disown me, ashamed, look forward to looking down and shaking his fist at me from somewhere higher up on the Kardashev ladder. I'm fine with that. The world has also, frankly, started visibly ending; climatologically, ecologically, geopolitically, medio-informationally, and more. I'm sure not happy about that but I'm also strangely at peace with it, at least for now. I don't mean that in a way which implies numbness or fatalism or resolved-to-inaction-ness. I'm not sure how to describe exactly how I do mean it. Like, it's no longer something I worry is maybe coming soon, it's no longer something I suspect is here now but am afraid to acknowledge it to myself, it's just become my default everyday framing of reality, at least within the confines of my own head and now in this post here, publically for the first time. I received the courage to say this openly and matter of factly after seeing other geminauts go before me. It's strangely liberating. Maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe I have read YKK too much and absorbed its vibe too deeply even though its world is in no way a reasonable model for our own future (if this reference means nothing to you, stay loosely tuned for the inevitable future day when I finally write something about it).

I guess I'm just trying to set the stage for a change of course, a partial fresh start. I don't know exactly where I'm going, but acknowledging the change and deliberately and carefully leaving some stuff behind and tidying up after me seems like an important part of it. I'm trying not to overthink this post too much and won't proofread and frantically tweak it as much as I usually do. I don't know how I'm coming across here. This isn't any kind of goodbye to the smolnet, it's not any kind of cry for help, despite what some details here might sound like I am overall feeling pretty positive. I guess it's largely a sort of apology in advance for probably writing less and being even worse than usual at email this year, a request for patience, a promise that some of you can maybe look forward to stuff you've been waiting for a long time finally happening. Maybe a self-motivational tool, too, because now I'll look silly if I don't do a least some of all this...

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