Since I have been giving EOD reports this review will focus on “how I’ve changed” rather than “the flow of events.”
The week began with two stern conversations. The first conversation addressed my laziness and how I lied to myself and subsequently to diana_coman about the hours spent doing my hobbies. The line from the first conversation that hit me the hardest was the last one in this exchange:
whaack: diana_coman: as to laziness I know i should not be ‘that fucking lazy’ but I don’t see how it will click and my ‘real life’ of a man of discipline will begin
diana_coman: jfw: do you know by any chance if dorion is out with the fairies or something? he was meant to pong the pings but dunno if too much excitement lately or what.
jfw: Let me check.
diana_coman: whaack: hm, you know it but you don’t want it, lol.
I had the urge to respond, “no diana_coman, I do want it!” But I checked the impulse, because clearly if I both knew I had a problem and wanted to fix it, I would just…try to fix it.
The second conversation, ignited by my admission of doing halfhearted manual backups of my blog, discussed how I let ongoing problems continue. For example prior to a few days ago I had done nothing to follow up with my original plan of obtaining backup electricity and internet.
So the question is, why does my conscious understanding of the cost of my laziness not manifest itself into action? It’s because it remains just that – a conscious understanding – rather than a visceral disgust of my surroundings. I have it “good enough” to ignore my problems with my coconut water, glassy waves, beautiful sunsets et all.
But from Tuesday onwards I followed item number 4 in the pageboy’s pledge by trying to deeply imagine how I would act and feel if I were diana_coman in my situation. And through that exercise I became repulsed my surroundings. I noticed the dead light bulb, the holes left from the dismounted TV, the lack of a drying rack, the lack of coat hangers, the lack of hot water, ((A common lack in CR, but that’s not a reason it should continue for me.)) the lack of sufficient hand towels. The list goes on and I will spare all the details.
The disgust I felt moved me to address the issues. Doing this gave me two pleasures, one expected and one surprising. The first expected pleasure was the relief/rewards of fixing ongoing problems. The second unexpected pleasure was the enjoyment of solving the puzzles the issues presented. Some issues are simple and left undone only because I don’t give them time. But many of them are complex and require tools as well as a serenity of mind ((
To grapple effectually with even purely material problems requires more serenity of mind and more lofty courage than people generally imagine. No two beings could have been more unfitted for such a struggle. Society, not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs, had taken care of those two men, forbidding them all independent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; and forbidding it under pain of death. They could only live on condition of being machines. And now, released from the fostering care of men with pens behind the ears, or of men with gold lace on the sleeves, they were like those lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years, do not know what use to make of their freedom. They did not know what use to make of their faculties, being both, through want of practice, incapable of independent thought.
Joseph Conrad, An Outpost of Progress. )) to overcome. Coming to a solution via researching the general problem, figuring out the appropriate tools for the task, and using creativity to deal with the difficulties specific to your situation is immensely rewarding.
The disgust I now feel from lingering issues and the satisfaction I get from solving them has taken away my inclination to derp off throughout the week. I hope to god this sticks. As diana_coman said my problem is not that I have “leaks” (in a grand castle) but rather that I live in a mud and stick hut. So once I address all the problems I see around me – the problems specific to a person in a shack – I will have only free’d up time that needs to be used to get myself into a better position. In other words, my fix-it attitude cannot be something that I hold temporarily until my immediate problems are addressed. It needs to stay with me for the rest of my life.