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Entries tagged 'cat:Life'

There Are So Many Things And Too Many Options!

There are calendars with only pictures of black-furred dogs, bottle openers for the left-handed, overviews of lists of lists of things in the Wikipedia, 9 different USB connectors (plus extensions, plus rare proprietary connectors, times 2 for male and female), there are more human languages and dialects than any one person has even heard of, there are clocks with inverse hours markings, clocks with more than three hands, humans with more than two hands, apples with more than one colour, child safety locks designed to be so weak that they are useless while technically implementing the requirements that they need to have in order to legally be allowed to be called child safety locks, there are programs for children to prevent drug addictions in the future, there are commercial efforts to anchor behaviour in children that makes them more likely to become addicted to certain drugs in the future, there are safety shoes that look like sports shoes. There are ingenious ideas that never go anywhere because the person who had it is not listened to, there are thoughts that come to you after they could and should have come to you. (Like the one that just came to me: This first paragraph looks like it was inspired by a song by Funny van Dannen that I and probably most of the readers of this blog know. I don't think it was.) Anyway. There are soo many things, is what I'm trying to say.

When it comes to living ones life as a human in the 2020s, there is a notably large amount of options, which I herewith declare as too large. I mean options in many different areas. But I'll only name one area here, because it happens to bother me right now and I'm not really in a writing mood today. (You may also see it as an example of too many things: Too many examples to name here.)

There are too many ways to fill your time. There are so many parameters that play a role in deciding what to do at any given time that I find it impossible to choose the right thing simply because it would take, well, probably the rest of my life, to find out what the right decision would be. It would definitely take so long that what the right decision would be would change multiple times in the meantime.

Let's leave out work. If you're employed and have to work certain hours, I think I can make the case that those hours should be treated differently. Let's say you are lucky enough to always know what your job is and what you should do at work and maintain a barrier between work life and private life that allows for such disregarding.

Then, what do you want to do after work, before work, inbetween work? Some broad categories would be to do something to work towards certain goals, like to improve the state and wellbeing of society, your town, your country, the world, do something for friends or family, socialise for personal development and gaining experiences, improve your own health or life, just relax or have fun for now, and so on.

Let's just choose the last one because it's probably the simplest to explore in the context of this text and because hedonistic endeavours are an easy choice and close to my thinking if in doubt.

So, what do you do to relax from work, from the stress that comes with living a modern life and to have a good time?

I took a break from writing this text and was distracted for too long. I've lost my train of thoughts now. Don't expect a continuation. (I will jump on the train and continue this text if/when I get the same thought again.) I guess this entry ends now before my main thought has been expressed.

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I feel like I'm wasting my life but when I ask myself what I really want in life, I want to waste it even more.

As an adolescent I always assumed I'd end up homeless and without a stable job. It was actually my goal to travel alone, interacting with society as little as necessary. I do have a need for interpersonal communication. But it's very small and I mostly wish I could be left alone more. But things turned out differently and although the boy who kind of captured me into society is long married and gone from my life, I'm still leading this life inside society that I never wanted. One thing lead to another and now I actually have a job that's not that bad (turns out I'm actually reasonably good at some things). I never tried to get a good job. But now that I already have this life, I'm wondering whether I want to keep living it.

People keep telling me being able to programme like I am is an outstanding skill and I could make double the money I'm making now if I'd get a job in IT. But I don't see it. I'm actually a pretty bad coder. I really struggle taking the time to write good code. I've never written anything worth publishing. I can write code that is working most of the time. But in professional standards, my code would not be taken seriously. As a professional skill it's more embarrassing than useful. It's just the fact that I was taught as a child that's unusual at my age. People didn't have computers at home at the time I started to use one. I've assisted at coding courses for children at a hackerspace a few times. There's never been an 8 year-old who didn't immedietly grasp what was necessary to write a useful computer programme. I wish people would stop acting as if it's so special that I know how to code anything. That alone won't give ne an automatic successful IT career.

So, now that my job stopped being fun (It really was, initially, even though I hardly remember it anymore.), what am I going to do? I still want to pack a bag and leave this society behind for a not pre-determinded period of time. That dream never completely vanished from my mind. When I ask myself what it is that I really want, that is now back at the top of my answer. So, try to get a better paying or otherwise more fun job to make this goal more viable through a genarous financial backup? Or live the dream as one should, according to famous proverbs?

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When I was working half-time I was making and doing fun things and hobbies were hobbies. Now - working full-time - I spend too much time being annoyed that I don't have more free time. Accepting that this is life is the most cowardly thing I've done. Good thing I notices in time.

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Some Thoughts on Hoarding

Here are in short my tips to reduce hoarding of stuff you think you may need some day but almost certainly won't. If you're not really a hoarder - as in the worst examples that TV likes to portrait - but do have a problem throwing things away despite not having space to store all that clutter, this may help to clean out your storage. (I'm assuming it may because it does for me.)

  1. Be aware that you are keeping stuff that you don't actually need or use reularly. Make yourself aware that your reasons to keep things may not be as good as you feel they are.
  2. Weed out things that you didn't use for a long time. Maybe plan an afternoon or sorting every six months or make a rule on how long you have to not use something in order to declare something unused. Use that time also to reflect on your reason to keep things. Is it really important to keep an object related to a good memory? How sure are you you will build that project some day that you've started to gather parts for?
  3. Sort unused things in three catagories, like: "Definitely still need it for a good reason", "Don't currently need or use it, but...", Don't actually need it". Then as move many things as possible from the second to the third catagory. Find reasons for doing so (be honest, you know the reasons) until you only have two catagories left.
  4. Ask a friend for a favour: Give them everything from the "don't need it" catagory and ask them to throw it away for you because you don't have the heart to do it. Chances are they can at least somewhat relate to your problem but have no problem throwing things away they've never seen before. IF they decide to keep some of it then it's their problem now. Feel free to donate valuable or really useful things or give them to a give-away store before throwing away the rest. Don't keep things because you want to seel them for money unless you do it right now and get rid of the things immediately.
  5. Forget about all that stuff so you don't feel bad when the day comes where you actually could have used one of the things you gave away.

If you have too much money you then buying storage or land to store things without having them clutter up your house is an alternative. But it's not really worth it. It's just paying money so you can keep that warmish feelng of still having access to everything but you'll also keep your problem. I mean unless you're really collecting something valuable or you become "that guy" for your town with large property where everybody goes before buying anything other than foot. Some towns have such a guy who stores avery piece of wood and metal they see so others can browse for their DIY projects. I like these guys. But you don't have the property for such a stock, do you? So don't try to be that guy for you town, for your friends or just for yourself. It takes the same amount of space in either case.

Being a digital hoarder myself, I'm hypocritical enough to have a different opiniont about data hoarding. But I'll write about that another time.

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