Good morning. It’s 0650hrs. I went to bed at 0000 last night. I did my best to calm my mind, to be in a state of fitful rest. My alarm went off at 0600. I tried to be as clear-headed as I possibly could. My standard routine in such a scenario is to set two alarms- my next alarm I believe is at 0715, and I did set it. What typically happens is that I wake up in a state of mild anxiety and confusion and I go back to sleep. It’s the easiest thing to do in that circumstance. This has been a recurring thing for a long time, since way back when I used to not-do my homework at night. I’d try to wake up early to do it, but I’d typically be too sleepy, and then I’d try to postpone and delay it until finally it was too late, my mum would wake me up and I’d go to school anxious and afraid because I hadn’t done my homework. This was a vicious cycle that perpetuated itself for years, and could be subroutine in my mind that’s had incredible amounts of practice and reinforcement.

2 days ago I met my boss for a 1-1 session. It’s a really cool practice that I think every organization should adopt. All our 1-1 sessions feel incredibly productive. The act of meeting up to “re-sync” is therapeutic for me. It helps me realign my goals, my context and my perspective. At my last 1-1 I felt a greater sense of purpose, relevance and responsibility (with respect to my work) than I had before. I felt a sort of work-related gratitude, and gratitude I find is a practice that always compels you to do work that is important, not just urgent.

The narrative gets messy, though. That night I went home to a bit of a messy situation, and had to deal with more than I could handle. I was overwhelmed and frustrated and frustrated. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I went to bed that night at almost 0300, and the sleep was of poor quality. I went to work sleep-deprived, and the quality of my work suffered. I didn’t have the clarity of mind I needed to focus on what I knew I had to do, and so I procrastinated to an uncomfortable, irresponsible degree. I still met some of my minor minimum-goals-per-day, but I felt like I was doing it in a very reactive, non-deliberate way.

After that I went to watch Man of Steel with the wife (beautiful movie), and on the way home I found myself thinking- wow, I’m really bad at managing my own time. I’m really bad at managing my own energy. These are things that I’m going to have to figure out, things that 20 years down the line might either make me proud or disappointed on hindsight. Sure, on one level it’s important to accept yourself without resentment or frustration, but being kind to yourself works both ways- you have to be kind both backwards and forwards, and I haven’t been very kind looking forward. To use an old heuristic, I haven’t been very kind to Tomorrow-Visa, and that’s not very fair to him, because he’ll probably be kind to me (I can reasonably infer, from how yesterday’s Tomorrow-Visa treats the past Visa.)

Not only did I barely get any quality work done, my commutes were unproductive. (I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to spend my morning and evening commutes to and from work doing word vomits, but the past two days were exceptions- the first because I was figuring out what to do with my 1-1, the next 3 commutes because I was tired, overwhelmed, not in a conducive state of mind.

“Not in a conducive state of mind” is an understandable reason in a given circumstance, but it is my personal responsibility to create that conducive state of mind as much as possible. I have to manage myself and my time in a way that yields my best work. There’s this negative vicious cycle of procrastination and anxiety that emerges when you have a lousy state of mind because you didn’t manage your health, time and emotions properly, and then you can’t do much work, and then your unproductivity further justifies and prolongs the ineffectual, reactive and un-aware state of mind. I become a passive participant in my own life, subject to the forces of both the internal (anxiety, hubris and lizard-brain thoughts) and the external (distractions designed to steal your unsuspecting and unmanaged attention). It’s a little pathetic.

So there’s a need for a reset from time to time, and a better fundamental system over the long run. Feels like I’m talking about broader society or something, but all I can talk about is the complex (but not complicated) system that is my own mind. So the reset was good sleep, and the better fundamental system would be borne out of attentiveness, mindfulness, presence. I am awake and lucid and I am writing. I reminded myself before I slept that I have the best opportunity of my life to do powerful, meaningful work and I’ve been squandering it (by my standards) on frivolous distractions because a part of me is afraid, a part of me wants to justify and validate my own limiting beliefs, because like Seth says, we don’t want to be responsible for massive failures (being responsible for “I didn’t do well because I didn’t study” is more comforting and easy in the short run than “I didn’t do well because I tried my best and still suck.” But in the long run it’s a source of anxiety because it’s simply NOT TRUE.)

There are no profound insights here, I’m just trying to build this newer and more optimal mental subroutine of awareness. I need to remind myself to be grateful to my circumstances, and of the nefariousness of the lizard brain that’s afraid to do real, meaningful and responsible work. And I need to do justice to my future-self, and to the people who that future-self would be able to help if I play my cards right.

I’m not saying anything new here, and again there’s a constant need for repetition. It’s the mental equivalent of practicing a musical passage over and over again until you get it right, until you feel it in your bones and you internalize it and you don’t need to be conscious of it. I built a fitness routine (momentarily disrupted because of my Remedial Training, but I love it and I’m getting right back into it once my RT ends) where I do a little workout when I wake up, and when I get home from work- I tie it to my showers, and it’s something I had to do without having to make the decision over and over again. Decide once, decide deliberately, then trust yourself and execute.

The path of procrastination and anxiety and irresponsibility is built on a foundation that’s unable to trust oneself. It’s almost a rational hedge against deliberate failure. You hope for random value from random pursuits because that seems likelier than the “certain” failure sure to ensue when you know

Nobody taught me how to be responsible. Being punished for being irresponsible never taught me very much, except that maybe I’m an irresponsible person who deserves to disappoint people, to be punished, mocked, embarrassed. But there are people in my life who ARE responsible (Lerp, Ling, Xavier, Brandon, Jade, Dinesh), and I’m hell-fucking-bent on learning from their example. There is no middle-ground or alternative here. This isn’t some magical thing I have to discover in a vaccuum. This is something that, on my good days, I can clearly see and understand. It works. It’s not that complicated. It’s a simple thing that needs to be practiced to the point where I can execute it on my bad days, just as I could exercise even when tired- because it’s so internalized, so natural.

The only good habits I developed were- a love of reading, a love of writing, a habit of resolving conflicts where possible, a habit of calming down quickly in rough/angry situations… I’m sure I can channel this towards being generally responsible. 10 years from now I want to be a goddam responsible person, more so than I want to be “smart” or “witty” or “funny”.

I cannot make projections. But I can commit to today. I’m going to spend some time in my mind reinforcing these emotions, this subroutine. In a few minutes I’m going to wake up the wife and we’re going to the bank to run some errands. And then I’m going to go to work, and I’m going to do some real kickass quality work, because people are counting on me to deliver, and I am person who is responsible.

Motherfuckers.

That’s the first thing on my mind today, the importance of monotasking. (I didn’t charge my phone last night and I’m a little worried that the battery might not last me till I get to work… But no matter, I will do what I can with what I have)

It’s interesting to observe my own mind meander and circle around. It’s really good at doing that. MBTI theory- which I don’t care too much for anymore- would describe it as extraverted intuition. I see links and analogies and parallels everywhere and I can jump from this train to that with great ease. Indeed if you needed somebody to drive something off topic, I’m your man. This can be incredibly useful when the solution to a problem is not immediately apparent.

But it’s just a tool, and if all you have is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail. And you need a range of tools to suck the marrow out of life, you need all the colours on the palette to paint a full painting. My rapid-fire chaingun connection-making mind comes at the expense of a more deliberate, measured sniper rifle sort of deep thinking. Perhaps I am not skilled at the latter because I invested most of all my points in the former. Perhaps I even developed the chaingun mind as a coping mechanism to avoid having to deal with focused, straightforward thinking- the kind that aims deep, sets a target and goes straight through it.

That’s it- sometimes there’s no good way around something and you just have to go straight at it with all your focus and effort and energy. You have to monotask. And I am not equipped to do this, I have not been trained to do this, I am not disposed to do this.

But it is a skillset I must and need to develop. Deep impact comes from deep effort, and skirting around is a parlour trick in comparison. (Well- not always, and I imagine there are people who have the opposite problem, who can’t pivot and change gears- the REAL challenge is to find a happy medium, to know the right tool to use in the right context.)

I firmly believe that in the context of human wellness almost everybody is capable of developing almost any non-extreme skill. Anybody can become a kickass sprinter- you won’t win the Olympics because you’ll be facing the best of the best of the best, but gou can definitely improve by leaps and bounds. Paul Graham said that if you could get somebody to practice drawing deliberately for 20 years you’d be surprised by how far they got. Richard Feynman had an average-ish IQ. The challenge is to apply yourself, which is what I need to learn.

I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of what Elon Musk had to say- solicit negative feedback, especially from friends. Think in terms of: what needs to happen? What’s the business model? Fantastic heuristics to be found all around.

Monotasking. My task here is writing, so even when I get distracted in my train of thought, at least I’m still writing. (I paused there for a second to check my WhatsApp. Lol! That’s the problem with talking about what you shouldn’t do instead of what you should,  because of the suggestion effect… But I only checked it for a second, was mindful of the distraction and came right back here.  Fuck yeah.)

The cool thing about writing is that it’s a record of thoughts, and looking back I get to see the path my mind took. I don’t even really have to explain how my mind works, you can see it for yourself by observing my train of thought, what I choose to focus on, how I express myself.  I tend to repeat myself in several different variations, like an unsure artisr who has to use many strokes to draw something. Contrast this with Lee Kuan Yew or Christopher Langan (Outliers) for instance,  both of whom write and speak  in crisp, clear sentences. Those are deliberate sniper style thinkers (Ni rather than Ne, maybe). They say less but there is more value in what they say.

I think preferences do count, and you shouldn’t force yourself to try to change your personal style altogether. Rather, you experiment with something different then sit back and see how it influences your personal style. I think this is true for all forms of communication and expression.

When I’m doing work- writing posts for poached or my own blog for instance- I’m pretty good at coming up with ideas. I had over 80 drafts on my blog- many of which I combined and published a unsorted thoughts (maybe they’ll be useful to somebody).

I am well aware that my present style is suboptimal. Few people want to read this sort of messy, noisy writing. I don’t.  Even those that claim they’re okay with it would prefer it if it were more consise and punchy (unless the meandering were to serve an explicit purpose). But I stick with it anyway because done is better than perfect and my bullshit perfectionism keeps me from trying.

So this is shitty writing, okay? It’s the shitty writing I have to do to get to the good stuff. I upload it because I’m an exhibitionist, because you never know who’s going to stumble on it and find it relevant to whatever they’re going through.  You never know who’s going to offer you a job, or ask you out, or become a part of your life in a self-selected way- which is the best kind, because then you know more clearly that it isn’t a display of social obligation but a sincere communication of genuine love. (I suppose this might change if a blog gets so popular that the comments section develop into a community- but that is not an issue for me, and it’s not something I have to worry about.

In the meantime I deeply cherish the conversations I have here (or were initiated through contact here) and it is no exaggeration to say that the decision to blog might be the best decision I made in my life. It’s never just a single decision, of course. It’s a series of little ones, day in day out. Sometimes you leave it for an extended period of time. Sometimes it feels like it’s not even in your hands- it comes to you when it will and all you can do is just show up. Be present. Allow it to pass through you, the mortal, the conduit. It’s deeply humbling when you really get into it.

You’re not punished for your ego, you’re punished by your ego. Because it deprives you of the real magnificence of existence, and it burdens you with anxiety to deliver (which keeps you from taking the risks you need to take to do your best work) and a constant need to measure up, to be okay, to avoid failure, to not be mocked, to not be seen with mud on your face. Embrace it! Embrace the suck! Where did this fear and anxiety come from? Why are we scared and cold and shaking? It’s bad for health, in every imaginable sense. We don’t need to be so conflicted. We don’t need to be so torn at being conflicted. Breathe. Breathing is a  privilege.

I wonder where that just came from. Lol. Battery is getting lower. I’m reaching work soon. A little bit tired and sleepy. Need to hydrate. I brought my facewash home and forgot to bring our back. I need to buy a light bulb and plastic bags and take a passport photo and do some credit card paperwork. I can save all of that for later.

Now I need to get to work and I need to monotask. To quickly figure out what my priorities are and what the most optimal tasks are and execute them. No pressure.  I’m entirely capable. Our fear is not that we are weak but powerful beyond measure- there’s a cognitive dissonance there because it means that we might have been wrong all along, that we might have been ‘under-living’. Like the grandma who lifted a car to save her grandson, then wondered how her life might have turned out differently if she had rejected the voice in her head (“You can’t do it!”) earlier.

I experienced the same thing with my writing during my signals course. I wrote so much then, with pen and paper, that it seemed like I had been writing at 10% of my max capacity, or less. What did I do with that knowledge?  Nothing. I wrote it off as a bizzare anomaly. It was too uncomfortable to acknowledge that all I had to do to write more was to do it offline, or to do vomits without editing. It would have meant that I was a bumbling idiot and I didn’t like being a bumbling idiot. So I ignored it. I ignored data that could have greatly accelerated my progress as a writer and thinker, which in turn might be useful to others. So I denied the universe ideas and perspectives (that don’t belong to me) because of my own selfish ego. That’s a pretty sad thought.

Work today. Stuff I’m proud of:

1: I avoided feeding a troll today. I’m typically someone who’s fairly easy to troll. I’m someone who can be rather insecure and easily offended. I also can rarely resist the urge to get into an argument, because I like to think that I’m good at arguments, and it gives me a feeling of busyness. It’s like playing candy crush maybe. The act of argument triggers “low-lying fruit” in my pleasure circuitry (I’m so sorry that my understanding of neuroscience is so horrible but you know what I mean). It becomes something like smoking or masturbating: feels good, achieves little. I avoided that to some degree,  and that felt great. Remember Visa, Elon Musk does not have time to argue with people. He speaks only before broad self-selected audiences, and works on problems in the interim. (That’s part of the problem of Facebook, in my opinion- there’s a slightly negative social outcome when people get roped into discussions they didn’t opt-into. This can be positive or negative depending on the context and it’s remarkably hard to manage.  Anyway I want to be spending progressively less time on Facebook because I want to spend my time doing ‘deep work’- work that emerges from extensive consideration and rumination…

2: I started and completed a blogpost at work within a couple of hours. This is a big deal to me because for some reason my work-related blogposts are slow, laggy, lethargic. I think it has to do with perfectionism borne of being accountable to somebody, which kept me from doing my best… I wonder if there’s a part of me that rather be perceived as lazy than incompetent. Well- lazy IS incompetent. You’re incompetent either way, Visa, so wake the fuck up and get to work.

3: in proud of myself for developing this habit of writing on the trains. This is the 3rd or 4th large vomit that I’m doing on my commute and it feels fucking incredible. It makes me feel like I’m making real progress with myself. I still haven’t practiced meditation yet- not sure why I’m putting it off- but I’m writing. That’s the best part. Writing writing writing everyday.  No excuse not to. Word vomit on the train is an elegant proposition, like squats in the shower or a jug of water in the fridge. Speaking of which,  I need to have some healthy snacks at home. I need to incorporate a ‘cycling’ practice at work- I’ve been meaning to test this idea, that physically changing my location at regular intervals will improve my productivity.

Most important insights… don’t try to do things all at once. Chunk chunk chunk. Baby steps. I haven’t done my poached article yet- what will I write about? I’m such a bloody perfectionist! Seriously need to kill the bugger. Hopefully writing about this day in and day out will make a difference. Sorry if you’re bored. (I’m not doing this to help or entertain you anyway. Why are you even reading this? )

An insight I had that I’m probably repeating- it’s important to schedule stuff in advance because it’s so hard to make good decisions at the end of a work day.

I made an odd call today that I’m not sure what to think of. I was at work and being productive, but it was getting late and I was going to be late for remedial training. But I was on a roll! I decided it was more important to me to keep the productivity going, and I completed the post I was working on. Success!  And yet a kind of pyrrhic victory. I want to reach a stage where I become a responsible, trustworthy person who’s always on time for appointments. Seriously my tardiness is just insulting and disrespectful to everyone and that’s not who I want to be. So I’m commiting to simple things like going to work on time, going to bed on time… 16 year old Visa  would kill me for saying this but I need more structure in my life. Structure will allow me to massively increase my output, which will literally transform the game I’m having.

Heh I just had a funny recursive thought about how I’m repeating myself and I’m sorry for repeating myself and how even that apology is repetitive… I make no apologies for that though. Children learn through repetition, all learning involves repetition and if repeating this plays a role in reshaping my brain then I will do it!

It occurred to me while I was at work that there’s more stuff that can be done than there is time to do it. I know, this technically applies to life itself, but it’s a strange and unfamiliar problem if you’re used to a life of trying to minimize discomfort.

What are the best things I can do? Colonize the acquisition channels. Do some reading. Motivate my peers. Act. 80/20 bro.

(Just caught myself resenting someone for playing candy crush on the train. Why so judgemental visa? Psuedo-psychanalysis: I resent people who remind me of my own negative properties. So if I make a big deal about candy crush it’s because… even though I don’t play it, I recognize it for what it is: a trivial and mundane addiction. This reminds me- I’ve actually had negative reactions to watching friends and loved ones using Facebook. What the fuck! You condescending prick, how hypocritical can you get? I know, I know. I’m sorry.

In random news I just paused to buy some fruitella sweets and I realized that if there’s something called an addict personality or archetype, I probably fit it to some degree and it has some parallels or symbiotic intertwining. What’s the relationship between addiction and general responsibility, if any? Are there people who’re highly responsible in one sphere, but say, substance addicts in another? I imagine it’s possible, and it’s highly complex, and I’m generalizing it in a way that doesn’t do justice to the general picture.

There’s something there, though. Binge eating, drinking, sleeping, smoking, etc. Anybody got any good links to read about these things? Will look them up on my own time otherwise