Streakhalten

Speaking of daily slogs, at some point I will give up this continuous streak on (I’m “learning” ). I’m currently at 447 days of streak, which sounds impressive, but I’ve burned up many streak repair “tokens” to maintain that (namely, when sick, or traveling, or whatever).

Really, this Duolingo streak thing feels like a death march. I know it’s supposed to keep me on task but, fuck, even school lets out for the summer. I’m burned out. Of all the things in my life I’m also burned out on, Duolingo is the easiest to drop.

I’m at a plateau, a wall (ein Mauer), and I feel like I’m not actually learning a goddamn thing. Ich bin studieren, aber Ich lerne kein Sprache. I’m not fluent at all and an app is not going to help that. I need a real class, not this, what I call “The German Game”.

Once I get to 500 days streak, I’m giving up the daily. can sik Lily on me to passive-aggressively nag at me all it wants, I can just disable notifications. I’m…tired.

Ich bin sehr müde. So, so müde. Und krank. Kann Ich schlafe, bitte?

Always Be Slogging

It’s taken a long time and a lot of work to get here, but I think I’ve finally cultivated a healthy work-WORK balance.

I mean, WTF to people even do with the “Life” part of their balance? Post self care memes on Instagram? I don’t understand.

If I don’t work 7 days a week, it’ll be that much longer before my work project is mature enough to handle itself so I can fly somewhere else for 7 days.

With the shot of perspective I got this week, I’m beginning to wonder about how incorrectly I’m living.

Someday I’ll die, and I wonder if all I’ll have to my name is a thumbdrive half full of photos from the meager handful of vacations I’ve taken in my entire life.

If I give enough of my body to the grinder, maybe they’ll let me turn the crank.

A Project of Life

I had some time today, split between projects at work and home, to think about how I got here. What single inflection point could have contributed the greatest to my current vector? My mother takes some of the credit.

Aside from the standard keep-me-alive stuff, the greatest thing she did for me was give me a soldering iron and an electronics kit on my 11th birthday. I jumped into it and learned early that you don’t solder in your underwear, and over time tore through that 200-in-1 kit manual to build every circuit, not quite understanding what’s going on under the hood. But I knew the utility of each design. I knew that blinkenlights and radio transmitters and music oscillators and digital logic games were hella cool. Took me a long time to grok the concepts, but the interest carried forward into a hobby.

Through fits and starts, that hobby carried forward into work. So now, 40 years later, I’m finally on a good footing in life and can repay her kindness.

I don’t think she saw it as an investment, but it totally was.

You don’t have to give your children soldering irons. But do listen to their requests. Get a sense for their real aptitudes. With any luck and a lot of fostering, their interests may elevate them to a place greater than you could have imagined.

I think my mom got me that stuff just to keep me quiet (as parents do) without consideration for my future in it. But it kept me home, out of trouble, and taught me a lot.

That small gift gave back.

Mumb

Currently in a state of spirit death.

The only thing I do anymore is work, watch video, and try to mollify the pain of existence.

What do I do when I get bored? I log in to work. Nights. Weekends.

If you can make a living doing what you love, you will never work a day in your life!

— Credo of desperate self-employed entrepreneurs with something to sell

Bullshit. You will work every damned day until you fall, because you’ve pushed out everything else.

I’ve pushed out everything else.

Hobbies, friends, passions, loves, dreams. Dead. Spirit death.

Nothing brings anything approaching joy but solving computer problems. And I hate computers. It’s like playing Mahjongg, or Sudoku, or arranging pieces of broken furniture on the floor in regular patterns. The solved puzzle brings a squirt of endorphins, but then you’ve lost the night.

I wonder where to go from here.

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I wish I could live correctly, but instead I find myself spending my free time doing work-work, and the interstitial time wondering where my free time has gone and how to get it back by declaring PTO (paid time off) on my timesheet so I could go out into the world and get an atom of space and perspective.

Because I’m certainly not living correctly.

Also, any clear liquor mixed with orange juice is nothing more than Truth Serum to me. Life is shit.

Also, LAID BACK.