On Paper

First Published: 2025 June 10

Draft 2: 10 June 2025

I think about most things more than most people I know. I don’t know why this is, but part of becoming the best version of myself¹ is not denying realities, and instead actively acknowledging them. So, what is my relationship to paper?

I love paper. There’s something so inherently wonderful about the feel of my pen gliding across the fibers. I love the way that different qualities and kinds of paper feel differently in my hands. I like the way that a bright white page seems so much dimmer when filled with ink. I love the tactile feeling of fully embodying my writing: I try to write from my shoulder, and so half of my body is in active focus as I stroke across the page.

I like paper for more than that, though. When I type, my thoughts come out in an ordered progression. Line breaks happen by the sentence, and double line breaks by the paragraph. Paragraphs, visible on the page, rarely last more than a few sentences. In analog, the page fills with my writing.

Even outside of writing, though, I love paper for what I can do with it. I’m sure that it’s no surprise to know that I had an origami phase in high school. Even as I have always enjoyed the feeling of nice paper, I’ve also hated the idea of being limited by the quality of my equipment. And, perhaps, I’ve felt guilty “wasting” high quality supplies when lower quality supplies would suffice. So, throughout high school, I must have made hundreds if not thousands of boxes and flowers.

Much as I love paper, I do also find that I feel very differently about fresh and used paper.

I love having loose paper around me, because I like the freedom it embraces. It can be anything, and any number of things. When bound in a journal, the pages share a narrative thread, even if I do not intend for that to be the case.

Draft 1: 10 June 2025

I don’t have a ton of energy or mental space today, so my goal is an easy win with an easy folly. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship I have with paper.

For as long as I can remember, at least through early high school, I’ve loved having loose paper with me. Then, I did much more origami and paper folding generally.² For a while, I was also into doodling and drawing of different sorts.

I’m not entirely sure why I stopped doodling and drawing, and I don’t really know how I feel about it. Even just a few weeks ago, I was doing penmanship exercises, and that was really fun.

Anyways, recently I was out with friends and excitedly showing off my then-current³ plan for organizing my life: a number of report binders⁴. Someone commented that it seemed incredibly disorganized and chaotic. Another friend commented that my default is otherwise to just put loose pages in my backpack.

I didn’t think that this was true; I very rarely, in my mind, at least, just have random sheets of paper floating in my backpack. Looking for affirmation of this identity, I queried my group mates and friends over the next few days. To my utter shock, nearly all agreed with the statement that I was someone who kept loose paper in a backpack. I do, I realize, at least now.

It’s inconvenient when I need to write something to hand someone or just like draw something and not have paper for it. Books, being the sacred objects they are⁵, feel horrible to tear into. The benefit of the report binders is that I can take pages in and out. However, even that takes time, and sometimes I just want the sheet in front of me. Also, I want clean pages in the binders. I have a lot of things that I’ve used one side for something but not the other. I like being able to use all of a sheet of paper, and especially when all that I was attempting to do is read a page, it feels wrong to then throw it away.

So, loose paper is great.

What was the point of this folly? I think that’s a great question.

Daily Reflection

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

   Kind of? I wrote two sentences because I did not really feel like writing this morning/that my mind is empty any more.

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

   Kind of? Yesterday I lay in bed for an hour after waking up. Other than that, though, almost not at all.

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

   Generally! I did try assigning transitions while listening to an audiobook yesterday because data assignment is boring. I also tried multitasking while playing a game and listening to an audiobook. It did not go well, probably because the game required more reading than I was able to give.

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

   Eh, kind of!

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

   As evidenced by the fact that my legs always want to twist, it’s my hips. Other than that, I think that my shoulders are. I have an interview today at 1000, so I might try stretching before/after it depending on how timing goes.

6. Comments on sleep?

   I’ve been needing more the past few days, but I think that might be more due to below than anything real.

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

   Yesterday I had a handful of rice (then cooked), two sausages, a slice of cake, and four romaine hearts. The day before I had a slice of pizza, a breakfast sandwich, and a hot dog. I don’t think that either of these is the correct amount of calories, and so going forward I do want to really focus on getting through the number of calories I know that I need. Might have to redownload a calorie tracker?

   Also water, not doing anywhere near enough, which is also not a thing that I’m happy about. Then again, that’s also part of life, I think.

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

   Nope! I listened to last week’s album, wrote a reflection about it, and chose this week’s album. Other than that, I offered to come home to help with meal prep, but was rejected, and have brother call tonight. 

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

   I bought far too many lemons, which means that my priority needs to be turning them into oleo saccharum and citrum. That’s also the action item. I also just bought yeast, which means that I should pitch it sooner than later. There we go.

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

    I need to finish the apparatus chapter, and I need to write the introduction. I also need to be working on the data analysis as it comes in. So far I haven’t had data which converged to extant assignments, but which still produced something potentially meaningful??

    Anyways obstacles are just apathy. I will not do the data analysis today because it will take as long as I give it, and I don’t want to give it that much time when I also need to be writing. I said yesterday that I thought hand writing would be the right move. I still think that is true, so will do that.⁶

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

    The task today is apparatus, which I hate. Task for next up is the remainder of the introduction, which I will also do.

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?⁷

    Have interview! Cannot focus on two things at once. Next Tuesday, however, I also have an application due, and so will apply to that hopefully.

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

    Yeah! This weekend was filled with interactions and yesterday I worked in the office.

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

    No, and I feel kind of guilty about it. But, when people just make assumptions about me that I wish were true, it is really hard for me to correct them.

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

    Didn’t do it yesterday, am doing today!

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

    As with the above. What is in the way? I think partially that I told myself I’d do it yesterday in the evening and knew even as I said that it was a lie. Outside of that, the general apathy and low energy I’ve had the past few days⁸ means that it’s hard to do anything, writing follies included.

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

    They aren’t! I wrote one on Sunday, and that was fun. Outside of that, I think that I didn’t say all that I wanted to say.

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

    I wrote some on Sunday. It mostly focused on belonging and sense of self, which is always lighthearted and never emotionally laden.

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

    Sang prayer on Friday and Saturday, sang Mass and a concert Sunday.

20. Web novel?

    Nope!

On Faith right now

First Published: 2025 June 7

Draft 4: 7 June 2025

I’m realizing right now that each draft is becoming not so much a draft as a background or full folly itself. Because I want to explore the entire issue today, though, the 1500 words I wrote to get to what I think it means to sin (Draft 3, and the sin bit is only the last 50 words. Draft 2 led to Draft 3), and the words in Draft 1 where I explore the motivation here of this post (finding the things that I believe at the deepest level) are nothing more than prior drafts. So, let’s state the goal of this folly: I do not know if I can be a Catholic any longer. To be a Catholic, I must agree with the Church. The Church claims that the goal of all humanity is to get to heaven, and that means that all actions are either sin or love (see Draft 3). So far we’re good, but this is where we break from pure philosophy and theology into the real world, where the Church teaches that some actions are inherently love or sin.

Within Church teaching, there are still a number of different ways to approach something. There’s the common question of level of binding authority: if a priest says something, that means less than a bishop, means less than a pope, means less than the current pope, means less than a full ecumenical council. There are obviously shades to the binding, but generally the framework is the more that the Holy Spirit prevents error in the teaching, the more we must believe the teaching. In addition to how binding a teaching is, there is also the question of interpretation. It is dogmatically taught that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven. Whether that happened before she died or after she died, or even while she died, the Church has not  Finally, there is the question of interpretation. The world is a fundamentally different place than it was even a decade ago, let alone the two millenia that the Church has existed. I don’t know if I can believe that words themselves are binding, only that the ideas they contain are binding. Different cultures will require different interpretations of the same truth.

From Fides et Ratio, and probably other sources, we know that truth cannot disagree with truth. Science and Faith are not just not contradictory, they are actively complimentary. The Church can speak on matters which science cannot: salvation, eternity, the non-physical. Science can lead us to the Church by predisposing us to truth. Also, like not being hungry or sick is good, and science is really good at making food and medicine, and especially when we need it to continue. Multiplying loaves and fishes fed the crowd for a day, synthetic ammonia feeds half the world every single day.

So, part of what I’m going to do here, and what I feel comfortable doing, is calling out places where what we teach as theology is actually an empirical fact. If we can measure it with science, then science can give us the answer to the question. If this disagrees with the Church, then we must remember that all on earth are fallible, and there is no perfect communication between others. As I once explained to a friend, I trust G-d absolutely; if He tells me to do something I (as a correct moral agent) do it without hesitation. If I do not know without a doubt that it’s G-d, though, I have to consider how reliable my experience of reality is, and what I understand that I am being told to do.¹

If someone tells me that G-d told them something, there’s yet another place for mistruth to come in: there is no perfect way to transmit knowledge. Someone telling me a Divine commandment means that I must trust that the person is correct in hearing the divine and also my interpretation of the words that the person gives, which are themselves an interpretation of what they believe the Divine said to them. There is the fun binary scaling we can start to do: did G-d speak (yes/no), did human agent understand correctly (y/n), did human agent attempt to communicate this correctly (y/n), did human agent communicate what they attempted to communicate effectively (y/n) (repeat those three for as many layers as needed), did I understand what they were trying to communicate? This is nice because even as it leaves many spaces for truth to die, it also gives space for the Holy Spirit. At any point, someone can try to intentionally mislead, but the interpretation might still end up being the truth.

Anyways, what do I dislike about the Church?

Ever since learning about the Jesuits’ history, I’ve felt uncomfortable with a large aspect of my faith. The more that I look into the historic Jew-hatred of the Church, the worse that it gets. There have been binding prohibitions against Christians associating with Jews, and the Council of Florence expressly teaches the dangers of the Old Covenant.

Both as a Jew and as a believer, I find these problematic.

One of the really really really important things about covenants with G-d is that they are eternal. We do not need to fear the world drowning because He covenanted not to flood the world. We can hope for salvation because Christ covenanted with us, taking all our sins on himself.

However it is very clear that the Church does not want Catholics to follow the Covenant with the Jews. I understand this in the case of Gentiles, those who were never bound by the Covenant between Abraham and G-d. In the case of those like me, though, who were born into Abraham’s physical, not just spiritual, line, what am I supposed to do?² The Early Church saw themselves as Jews.

Peter said that others were not bound to join the Covenant not because it was wrong, but because it was a yoke which is too hard to bear. From a footnote in the previous draft, I know that I must always act in the interest of my own salvation. It is a commandment that I, who has been introduced into the Covenant of Abraham, bring my own children into the fold. On the other hand, as Peter points out, that makes it harder for them to be saved.

This is really where my issue comes into play. Every other covenant with the Lord that we have seen in the Bible treats them as eternal. Why is this, the inarguably most impactful one in terms of individual actions, somehow the one which is discarded? I know the Catholic answer, which is that the new covenant supercedes the old, but even that is only partially true.

Non-Christians often complain about Levitical law, and especially Christian interpretations of it, because we do not take everything. Catholics often reply with the idea of three forms of law under the Covenant: those which bound the Jews, those which bound the State of Israel, and those which were “moral” law, and therefore bound all of humanity. I do not take issue with this idea, nor do I even have an issue with saying that the Church has the authority to say which is which. I have no issue with the idea that what laws bind Jews, not the Israelites³ could have been amended in the New Covenant. I have no issue with the idea that the New Covenant allows people to be bound only by the new version, rather than both Christ’s and Abraham’s. I just cannot think that the laws which bound Jews as G-d’s people can be discarded wholesale.

I suppose that there is also the question of what it means for G-d to make a covenant with the nation-state of Israel in addition to the Jewish people. It is obvious, I feel, that any covenant with the Lord would not prescribe⁴ actions which are sinful; sin is definitionally breaking relation with Him. It makes sense that there are moral truths which may not be obvious to an outsider but which are good to all people in the covenant:⁵ all humans share in Adam and Eve’s responsibility to tend to the world. It makes sense that there are rules which do not bind the rest of the world but do bind His Chosen People: “to whom much is given, much is expected” and also just like that’s the whole point of making something sacred, you set it aside and treat it differently than the norm.

How do I draw the line between what commandments G-d gave to the Jewish people and the Jewish nation, though? What is the difference between the two?

I get to the issue of borders and immigration here, much as I didn’t realize that one of my current and acute complaints with the Church was related. Many top people in the current administration claim to be Catholics.⁶ Recently, one of them claimed that the Church supported closed borders, or something similar. In response, the bishops of America, including my own local bishop, drafted a letter where they pushed ever so slightly against that claim. In the letter I received, we were told that “The Church opposes both completely open borders and completely closed borders.”

This is not, so far as I have been able to find in any source, true.

The Church absolutely and emphatically has rejected closed borders. The Church has said that nations have a right to monitor their borders to maintain the safety and well-being of their people. That is not the same as saying that they have an obligation to, nor is it even saying that nations are themselves good. A completely open border is the same as saying that there is not a border, I would argue. The Church is generally pretty clear that any divisions between humanity⁷ are fundamentally wrong, or at least not ideal. I assumed that the Church’s stance on borders was like its stance on property: in an ideal world we would not have private property⁸, but we must be able to choose to share what we have.⁹ It would be correct to say that the Church rejects communism and socialism as concepts, because both explicitly require their citizens to own no property. It would not be correct to say that the Church rejects communal living, where no one has property of their own. After all, in heaven we have no property.

The letter really feels like a great example of the issue I have with the current princes of the Church, especially in America. In what is a very clear example of explicitly anti-Catholic teaching (taking immigrants from Catholic Churches during Mass), they were unable to unequivocally call the action bad. Instead, in addition to the above statement, they also said “Immigration policy must achieve a proper balance between migrant rights and sovereign rights.” and “secure borders help everyone”. This is fine, but is not a strong enough statement. Much as I find it inherently wrong when someone says “why are you complaining about X atrocity when Y is also occurring?”, it is wrong to say such things as “our U.S. immigration system has been broken for decades, no matter which party holds power.” That’s true, sure, but it is not both parties creating and posting on official government channels videos which glorify the pain of deportation.

They go on to say “Distinctions must be made between immigrants who present genuine risks and dangers to society and therefore may be lawfully expelled, and those who have been here for years, have no criminal record, and have lived peacefully and contributed to the common good.” There is a huge gulf between these two options. What about those who have a criminal record because there is no way to feed a family when you cannot legally work? Living totally peacefully, contributing to the common good, and presenting no genuine risk or danger to society is not in any way contrary to having a criminal record. Even more than that, though, the Church explicitly preaches forgiveness.

We have always said that there is no sin which precludes holiness. Why, then, do we now believe that there is no forgiveness for crimes? Is crime fundamentally damning in some way that sin is not? Is serving the prison sentence that our nation decided was fair¹⁰ not enough to say that you have repaid the debt? Why is it that we believe there are actions that cannot be atoned for, despite the fact that we preach the reverse.

Our last Holy Father was clear that we are obligated to support the environment, the migrant, and the poor. Our last President professed being Catholic. There were a number of bishops who said that he, by virtue of being willing to sign into law a bill which would ensure that a woman struggling through the pain of a sudden loss of child could not suddenly face punishment for that¹¹, was fundamentally unfit to receive communion. There have been none who have said the same about our administration, despite these people literally and explicitly calling the Pope wrong and saying they don’t have to listen to him.

Regardless of how I feel about any Church teaching, deference of intellect and will means that I cannot, in any way, shape or form, explicitly call the Church wrong as a faithful Catholic. I can say that my own formation did not lead me there, or that I think that the Church is not interpreting the teaching correctly. I cannot, however, publicly and directly disagree with the Pope and call myself a good Catholic.

The Church claims to stand above the culture, and yet we are caught up within it.

Ok so returning to the people of Abraham, if covenants are eternal, the Jewish people are who G-d covenanted with, and they still exist¹², then how is there a distinction between the laws of the Jews and the laws of the Jewish nation? The nation is the people.

I understand from a practical level how this works: clearly many of the banned actions explicitly referred to other nations which no longer exist. This does not mean the law no longer binds, only that the binding no longer comes into play. Just as I am in no way bound by the restrictions on those with children right now, that does not mean that the restrictions do not exist. Still, I suppose that it is helpful to note that some of the covenant is not practically binding, because it is no longer workable. Also, like any portion of the covenant involving the Temple is impossible right now, since there has not been a temple in centuries. I guess referring to the nation’s laws like that is workable. Ok so that’s no longer an issue, great.

I have traveled so far that this post is almost unfollowable to me. Still, I think that I’m at the point right now where I accept that what I have issue with is the teachers of the Church, not really or necessarily the teachings of the Church. As I reconnect with my Jewish heritage, it is possible that I will disagree with the teachings, but until such a time, I feel that I can call myself Catholic. I may disagree with the interpretations of the bishops, but I cannot say that my take is the Catholic one. I am willing to stand against the Church Militant because it is not inerrant. It is, however, still the Church.

Tl;dr: I am mad that our bishops are embroiled in the culture war and I still don’t know how I, a Jew in the eyes of the Church, should and do exist in the world.

One of the reasons that it’s been really hard for me to know that the Jesuits, until incredibly recently, would not have let me join is that I am so drawn not just to Ignatian spirituality in theory, but also Jesuits in practice. There is no way to know the bounds of our faith except by knowing what is outside of it. Science is a way to know G-d’s creation, and knowing the creation helps us to see the Creator. Of the big three spiritualities, Franciscans are focused on service, Dominicans on teaching the normative faith¹³, and Jesuits on the way that non-theological knowledge can lead us to salvation.

I am soon to be a doctor.¹⁴ I cannot view the world except through the knowledge that the beauty of creation is there for us because our G-d loves us so. What does it mean that the part of the Church who teaches this only recently would let me join? If I were but a few decades older, it is impossible that I would have been called to join them, I suppose. The Church is meant to stand outside culture, leading all of humanity to heaven.

The Church is its members. The Church Militant, and many of its leaders, have done atrocious things. In the same way that I am comfortable with the idea that saying “this country did something awful” and “the leader of this nation did something awful in his official role as the leader of the nation” are generally interchangeable.¹⁵ When the princes of the Church actively harm the most vulnerable among us, when they will not make clear stances against evil, and when the institutions they maintain, create, and endorse do evil, how can I in good conscience say that every single person in the world is best served by joining the Catholic Church on earth. Do I believe that all in heaven are part of the Church Triumphant?

Yes.

Do I believe that all are given the choice to join it at death?

Yes.

Do I believe that living a moral life helps prepare us to make that choice?

Yes.

Do I believe that living according to the teachings of the Church is the generally best way to live a moral life?

I don’t know any more.

Draft 3: 7 June 2025

Lately I have been struggling with my faith. There are a lot of things that the Church teaches which are generally good for belief. However, there is much theology that is good or bad based on the individual. There are a number of works which have received a nihil obstat¹⁶, which says that there is nothing contained that is expressly contrary to faith and morals but which do not receive an imprimatur¹⁷ which says that the content is good for the development of the Catholic faithful. That makes sense to me, and I don’t really feel a need to justify it right now. As a Catholic, my goal is the salvation of the world, but explicitly the goal of my life is to end up in heaven for an eternity with the Father of Creation.¹⁸

So, what is the absolute minimum that, as a Catholic, I believe is necessary to believe for salvation? Note that this is a distinct question from what is necessary for salvation. Just as it is not necessary to know how internal combustion works to drive a car, there are bound to be a number of truths which I do not need to believe in order to be saved, and there are a greater number of things which if I truly believe what is necessary for salvation, I would believe by virtue of being a thinking and semi-logical being.

It’s very clear in Catholic theology, especially since Luther, that we do not earn our place in heaven. It is only Christ’s unmerited and infinite love that lets us in. From this, I’ve always understood the answer to what gets us into heaven is that at the end of our mortal existence, we are given the choice between eternity with G-d and eternity without Him. I’ve also seen framings of it as eternal bliss or eternal torment. In either case, there is the transitory state known as purgatory, where we go if there are worldy attachments which keep us from fully saying Yes to the Almighty.

So, what are these worldy attachments?

The Church often distinguishes the Secular and the Sacred. Secular is literally just meaning “of the age”. I’ve understood this, especially in light of what else I know¹⁹ to mean that Heaven is that which is eternal, and the process of Purgatory is where we burn away our attachments to anything which is not permanent. That’s fine with me in principle, and I absolutely agree with some of the ways the Church, when asked, expressly teaches this. G-d is Love, so love is always good insofar as it leads to Him. However, it is absolutely possible to love G-d less because of attachment to a spouse or parent or child or etc.. I even think that this can go further.

In the first draft, I talked about hydrogen emission. Even this is a transitory thing. There has not always been hydrogen, and there will come again a time when there is no hydrogen. Even though it is something we take as foundational in science, our attachment to this cannot be eternal.

Ok so to get to heaven I need to say Yes to G-d, which means releasing my attachments to anything transitory. What is eternal?

Paul, for all that I have my qualms with a lot of his writings, is one of the major authors in the Bible. His teachings are well accepted by the Church, especially when taken with proper context. To the best of my knowledge, First Corinthians 13:13 is not one of these verses that can be taken out of context. Depending on the translation, three things are eternal: faith, hope, and either love or charity, which is the greatest of the three. Here there’s the fun sermon priests love about “in Greek there are many words for love. In English there is just one.” Talking to a dear friend once, she reminded me that English is a language that expressly constructs multiword meaning. Just like we don’t have a one word infinitive but still have infinitive verbs, we do not have one word for eros, but can say erotic or sexual love.

Ok so to get to Heaven, we can only be attached to faith, hope, and love, especially love for others. That’s totally cool with me. If I’m thinking of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent Creator, I would hope that Love is essential. Exactly what Faith and Hope mean here, I’m sure has meaning, but I don’t know what they do in the practical.

This was a circuitous²⁰ way of getting to something my mother really impressed on me: all theology needs to start and remain focused in Love. I’m glad that I got there kind of on my own, even if it was one of those “I knew on some level the answer that I was getting to, and so the logic trail led me there”.

So, all theology must be rooted in love. Is Church teaching rooted in love?

What Church teaching do I disagree with?

What is my crisis of faith?

Honestly, I think that I might need to restart from there, rather than continue here. I feel comfortable with: heaven exists, heaven is union with the Divine, union with Divinity requires separation from that which is not Divine, anything which is Divine must be eternal and anything eternal must be Divine²¹, and so to go to heaven we must be removed from anything which is not eternal. Of things on earth, Love is one of the few eternals, and so all actions which are carried out in love bring us closer to the Divine, and all actions which are carried out in absence of love pull us away. Great.

Now let’s get into the meat: what are the things that the Church teaches are inherently actions with and without love? Oh yeah that’s absolutely what the issue is: Sin, the Church teaches, is that which separates us from G-d. Love, as I showed above, is what brings us to G-d. Therefore Sin is what is not Love and vice versa. Is  it reductive to say that all actions are either Love or Sin?

Maybe?

I guess that we get to principle of double effect: is the primary goal of an action I take love or sin? If Love, then good, if sin, then bad. Grey areas exist, but I can get to them when I do. The Church teaches many things as fundamentally good and fundamentally bad, and so I can explore whether I agree with those, how binding the teaching is, and how open to interpretation the teaching is.²²

Draft 2: 7 June 2025

As an important preface, this post is me actively figuring out how and what I think as I write. It will jump as my thoughts do. My goal is to see whether I am, in fact, a Catholic.

A theologian I recently read claimed that Aquinas²³ said that if a Catholic truly and honestly finds that they cannot believe in the Church, it is a mortal sin to claim to believe what he does not, and only a venial sin to apostatize. I’ve never been super cool with the idea of mortal and venial sin as an important distinction, which I think is also somewhat of an Orthodox thing. Anyways, it is from this and something my mother raised me with that I come to this post. My mother always taught me that, as a Catholic, I have two moral options: complete obedience and complete freedom.

Complete obedience is, on the face of it, the easier option by far. The Church gives us leaders in the form of priests, bishops, and the pope. If you are willing to believe exactly what your ecclesial authority²⁴ claim for morality, any sin you fall into as a result of incorrect theology is not on your soul. This is where we remember the whole “millstone around the neck” that is better for bad teachers than misleading. Of course, you do not get to pick and choose. You can’t go “Fr. So and so says this thing I like, and Fr. So and so this one, and this Bishop said this, and etc.”

If you want to, on the other hand, make choices,²⁵ any sin is solely on you. When you see the Lord at the end of your mortal life, you have full responsibilities for your actions, because you are a moral agent. Developing your conscience, then, is essential. Even more than that, though, constantly evaluating your conscience is also essential. There is a famous thing about walking: people cannot do it in a straight line. No matter what you try to do, when walking without an external method to maintain straightness, you will veer and curve. Likewise, without interrogating your beliefs, it is easy to slip into what is easy, rather than what is true.

So, let’s go through and see what this means for me and the Church.

The Church claims that the end destination for all humanity is heaven: eternal union with the Almighty, a personal agent who created everything and lovingly holds all of reality, constantly sustaining it. I’m not going to get into the theology²⁶ here, but instead hone in on the Salvation. As a Catholic, what is essential to believe to enter Heaven?

If I can agree with everything essential, then there is no issue with me remaining Catholic. If I cannot, then I do owe the Church deference: I must do everything in my power to try to believe Her answer, even if it is hard. If I am unable to do so, though, then I cannot be a Catholic.

So, what is essential?²⁷

I don’t honestly know. So far as I understand it, we do not earn our place in Heaven. It is only Christ’s unmerited and infinite Mercy and Love which brings us there. We accept or reject this Love, and that determines Heaven or Hell. There’s also purgatory, for those of us who cannot choose Love in full, but would eventually be able to.

I’m not entirely sure if we are obligated to believe that Hell is eternal. As far as I can tell, Hell will be ended at a point in time. Heaven and Hell, by contrast, exist atemporally. Is this relevant to my belief? Maybe!

There is an idea that I have sen and really like, even if I don’t know that I believe it, that Heaven and Hell are not, in fact, different places. Instead, the same omnipresence and full knowledge of this presence of the Lord is either something lovely or unbearable. Those who find it lovely are in Heaven, and those who cannot stand it are in Hell. This makes purgatory work really well too! A lot of theology talks about how faith is process of refining by fire, and there’s a lot of metaphor of burning.²⁸ When you fully accept the Lord, there is nothing in you which needs to be burned away. When you reject him, you are constantly being consumed. And, when you have the last few things separating you from Him, purgatory burns that away.

Honestly, I think that I might be best served restarting with this. Let’s try it. I know that it makes no objective difference whether the next words come here or above in a new draft, but it mentally feels very different.²⁹

Draft 1: 7 June 2025

I’m just going to preface this with the full knowledge that I am aware this post is almost certainly going to meander not so much like a creek, but more like a laser beam sent into broken glass. Expect a number of hard pivots, soft transitions, and everything in between. With this disclaimer out of the way, let’s think about faith.

I’ve talked a lot about faith on this blog, and I think that makes sense. Faith is an important part of my identity, and I do try to have my beliefs shape my actions. Since October, though, I’ve been finding my faith harder and harder. This is not that surprising: my mother was the one who grew me in the faith, and so much of the way I believe and believed is based on her. Without her, there’s a gap and that’s not great.

So, as of right now I am a professed Catholic. I believe all that is required to believe, and I generally keep normative opinions. I offer deference to the Church, and where she and I disagree, I try my best to believe what the authorities tell me. Is this going to be true at the end of the post? We shall see.

I’ve been listening to a philosophy channel more and more lately, if only because he puts out a lot of content and it’s generally interesting. I’ve also been reading not no philosophy, and that’s been really cool too. Something I think about a lot is the semi-modern³⁰ idea that there must always be some truth you hold deeper than the rest. Mathematicians might know this from Godel, who showed that there are infinite truths that cannot be proven within any self-consistent system. That is, in order to find any truth, you have to start with foundational assumptions that cannot be questioned.

What are mine?

I don’t know, honestly. I try my best to remain open to the idea that I could be wrong, and try to hold ideas as lightly as they deserve. If I cannot effect a change based on an ideal, then there is no point in being dogmatic about it. I guess that both of these, the openness and lightness, are foundational, but I have certainly been more dogmatic in the past. Yesterday someone expressed that they would love to have a child like me and I tried to say that I was a bad child because I followed rules badly.³¹

Why do I say that I am Catholic?

That’s an easier question, certainly. I’ve taken the Sacrament of Confirmation, where I pledged myself to the Church. Even though there is nothing technically requiring me to of full knowledge accept the faith, the cultural understanding of the Sacrament remains. That’s certainly sufficient when I don’t have questions, but.

I often talk about some of the reasons that I find the Church to be the best faith option. What reasons do I give?

I want to live in a world with fundamental meaning. This is not something which can be empirically tested or derived, but is something I do deeply hold. What is that meaning? Great question, no idea. I include in this that there are truths which are universal, and that morality is not something culturally constructed, but rather an absolute set of laws that we may or may not follow.³²

So, whatever worldview I take needs to have reality.

I don’t couple this with my next point, even though most do: I want to live in a world that is self-consistent. That is, I need to believe that reality is measurable³³ and the same. If I measure the speed of light today, it will be the same tomorrow. If I measure it here, it will be the same elsewhere.

On my last drive home, my mind, lulled into peace and contemplation by the endless rolling hills, started thinking about this question. I realized that, much as I have historically talked about Truth and truth as distinct things, I don’t entirely know what I mean by these. There was a rhetorical idea that seemed interesting, and I will try it going forward: capitalization is reserved for those things which are, under my philosophy, non-dependent truths.

what do i mean by this?

take the classic astronomy benchmark: the hydrogen 21 centimeter transition.³⁴ what does this truth rely on? i’m not going to go completely pedantic and say that it requires the definition of the centimeter: regardless of the units used to measure the transition, it is consistent across time, so far as we know. i am also not going to really get into the fact that it is an abstraction at best: there is red and blue shifts which make the line change energy, and there is an inherent linewidth to the transition, regardless of how low pressure and temperature the hydrogen is. however, the transition does require the existence of hydrogen.

is hydrogen an independent truth? also no. models of the universe claim that in the beginning there was no hydrogen, and in the end there will also be no hydrogen. where there is hydrogen, i feel comfortable claiming that its hyperfine transition will occur³⁵ at the energy expressed with photons of 21 centimeter light. i just do not feel comfortable claiming that the universe requires hydrogen.

i’ve gotten somewhat off track, but i think that the normal things i use for why i believe in the church are that i want a faith system with certain characteristics: unique claim to truth, universality, objective system of morality, and coherence with other forms of knowledge.

the unique claim to truth, to me, at least, is the idea that, given our universe with true things that we may only have approximate knowledge of, i want my faith to be the one which is closest to the truth. in a perfect version, there would be a special relationship with the creator.³⁶

oh shoot, no i usually start with the idea that G-d³⁷ is love, and that love is good. goodness is inherent to love. what if we search around here?

looking at the notes i made, something that i was really thinking about it starting with full belief in the church and working backwards, rather than starting from what i want³⁸ to believe and seeing if i end up at the church. since, as the start of this draft says, i am a Catholic, that may be the right way to approach my faith. from here on, if it is something that i take as a given in the current moral framework, it’s going to get a capitalization.³⁹

so, under the Church, what is the goal of humanity? our goal is to bring creation to Salvation; this is best achieved through spreading the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.⁴⁰ from the footnote, something that often bothers ex-catholics, potential future Catholics, and those Catholics who try to understand their Faith more deeply is the idea of Tradition.

Catholic scholars often differentiate Tradition from tradition. Tradition, they say, is that which we know to be true because the Church has passed it on as Divinely revealed.⁴¹ tradition, on the other hand, is merely that which we have carried down through the ages, and does not necessarily bind us morally. as one of the ex-catholic podcasts i have started listening to⁴² points out, though, that is often used as a bait and switch or at least is completely subjectively defined.

as an example, take the question of what acts a Married couple is allowed to partake in. there are a number of different claims which range from “only that which results in Procreation” to “anything goes so long as at some point in the relationship there is an openness to Life”. which of these is correct, and how sinful is being wrong?

ope, ok sorry getting distracted again.

i think that this might be a good time to start a new draft, this time focusing on the whole “Salvation” aspect.

Daily Reflection 6/7

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

   Not for the last two days, yesterday because I forgot my pens at home/⁴³ knew what I wanted to do right away. Today I didn’t journal because I got sucked into my phone and am now at a coffee shop doing writing.

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

   Not really. I guess that I spent a little time, but mostly last night I enjoyed my new bean bag chair and played a game. Oh! I did intentionally not bring headphones to an event yesterday, and then got somewhat lost, so ended up with a nice five or so minute walk without distractions.

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

   In general! Last night after the event, though, I did listen to a podcast⁴⁴ while playing the new game I’ve become obsessed with.⁴⁵

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

   Not a ton, but more than none! I’m hopeful about continuing to improve that. Right now I’m working in a comfy chair, where I am just slightly too large, an the laptop I write on is being aptly named, both of which aren’t great for the posture. I guess I can make the active effort for breath, though.

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

   Absolutely my hips. I’m crossing my legs when I lie down an insane amount. I also think my lower back, but that’s just because the fascia there is always tight when I look.⁴⁶ I can fix it by dedicating the time that I have to stretching this afternoon. I will do so this afternoon, immediately after clearing space to stretch. Part of me wonders about shifting the bed again so that there is space on one side of it for stretching...

   Anyways, all things to consider. I think that there is bound to be something I want to listen to, if only because I saw that two of the podcast YT channels I follow put out new podcasts.

6. Comments on sleep?

   I feel like it’s been going decently. Last night and the day before I didn’t get enough of a nap in, which is a shame. Today I woke up on my own a full hour after when the alarm was supposed to have been going off, which is kind of strange. Anyways, sleeping in that extra hour felt great, and now I feel really well rested and ready to take on the day. I do still think that I will try to push waking up back yet another fifteen minutes this week, because if worst comes to worst I can just get into triphasic sleep.⁴⁷

   Generally I feel like the naps and the sleeps have more of a soft drift off, rather than immediately falling asleep upon hitting the mattress. I am at the wrong level of wakefullness during the night, as evidenced by me sending a completely garbled text to a friend at around 1am today.

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

   Eating has been fine-ish. Yesterday I had oats for breakfast, a few chunks of mystery meat⁴⁸ for lunch, two tacos for pre-dinner⁴⁹ and a large slice of NY style pizza and a smallish slice of cheesecake for dessert. Then I went home and had some rice and beans.

   This morning I had some more rice and beans and am currently consuming an espresso with whipped cream. I’m sure I’ll eat lunch and dinner at some point.

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

   Made my brothers reschedule our weekly call, which I don’t feel great about.

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

   Right now the biggest priority needs to be clearing out the yoga mat so that I can and will stretch again. After that, I want to get the kitchen to a space where I can make brewing possible, which probably means starting with the table.

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

    Writing apparatus chapter, I think. The presentation went well which is nice, even if I felt like it was pretty horrible.

    Apparatus block is just apathy, and so I will make time to work on it tomorrow before Mass?⁵⁰

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

    Data analysis: the many many⁵¹ jobs need to run and I need to decide what the data analysis pipeline will be.

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?⁵²

    Did a skills assessment and personality test yesterday.

    There is also a lecturer position at my current institution that’s open right now, so I should really get some teaching philosophy statements going

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

    Yeah! I am writing with a friend right now, went to Shabbat last night, and am going to Havdalah tonight. In between, I’m also going to a bar with a friend.

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

    Yeah! Well, no, but I also think that the fact that I’m being open and honest and chatting with people using the words I want to use is probably good. I’m also not really interacting in places where easy large-scale miscommunications can happen.

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

    Didn’t do them yesterday. Today I do them again. Why didn’t I do them yesterday? The same reason I didn’t journal, more or less.

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

    Missed Thursday and Friday. Thursday I wanted to be productive in the morning and then didn’t make time for it at end of day. Yesterday just flew by, between group meeting, skills assessment, giving a presentation, and Shabbat. Today I’m going to do it, though.

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

    About to write the big one, because now is the appropriate time to have my potential crisis of faith.

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

    ...SHOOT.

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

    Not a ton. I’ve been listening to more which is nice, but something inside of me doesn’t really want to pick up the guitar or sing right now. I did sing in choir on Thursday, sing along with the prayer as I was able to last night, and will be singing at Mass and a concert tomorrow, so I guess generally I am making music, even if not self-directedly.

20. Web novel?

    I wrote a short short story and posted it yesterday. Generally being well-received!

Daily Reflection 6/5

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

   I did, and I don’t really feel like there’s anything too stormy today, which is really nice. It’s great to have a routine, even if the routine isn’t particularly active.

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

   Kind of. I didn’t make time for it, but I did like take deep breaths a few times. I probably could / should have done so this morning instead of scrolling instagram, but that’s the nature of life.

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

   Not entirely, but generally yeah! It’s nice to not be always trying to optimize. It’s a little frustrating trying to get work done at home without wireless, but I think that it might end up being for the best for me.

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

   I keep catching myself not doing it, and that’s no fun at all. When I do, though, it’s easy enough to fix again.

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

   Yesterday I realized that my neck was really tense, and that wasn’t great. I think that I got some stretching/ massaging on it which is great. Now I think my jaw is still tense, and otherwise just my hips. To fix these, I can massage my jaw and do some more hip stretches.

   In an ideal world, this would also mean that I am stretching this evening at least once, but we’ll see if that happens. One downside of the rearranging I am doing at home right now is that my stretching area(s) are all filled. I think that I have solutions to most of the issues, but I’m not totally sure if they will work. There’s only one way to find out, and so that’s another goal for the day.

6. Comments on sleep?

   I think that I basically slept through the night last night. I was out until 11, which meant that I didn’t take the time for an end of day routine. I think that the end of night routine is really important to me getting sleep, so I might have to force myself to do it even when I am tired. The nap felt great, and my new blanket was great.

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

   I did not end up being hungry for lunch yesterday, and so I just had a single bite of the sandwich. Other than that, I had burgers for dinner. That’s not fantastic, but I will be eating some cherry coffee cake this morning and other than that probably the sandwich for lunch and in a perfect world I would also eat diner of some sort. I think that is absolutely doable though.

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

   Nope! I listened to the album yesterday and even took notes, which is really cool.

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

   Much as I wish that it was something else, the biggest priority right now is absolutely getting space for the stretching

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

    I realized yesterday while doing data analysis that I had a block of code that was not indented when it should have been, and since I write in Python, where whitespace is important, that means that I had a whole section of conditionals that didn’t get used. Whoops.

    Fixed and resubmitted that.⁵³

    I need to finish the presentation that I’m giving tomorrow, do the literature review for group meeting, and write the next chapter I have due. That’s all that I have to do.

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

    Next task is writing the chapter for the week, which is really a lot more than I want it to be. That’s all that I have to do for now, I think, but probably not.

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?⁵⁴

    I’m taking some skill assessments for a job application tonight(?). Maybe this afternoon. Presumably sometime after the rest of the group has gone away because I need to be alone for three hours. I guess that I could do that in the library in my cage, and honestly, that might be the move.

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

    Yeah! I forgot that I had signed up to go to a Shabbat this week, so that’s going to be really fun. I went to board games last night, and I wrote with a friend today.

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

    Generally! I don’t think that I had any places for miscommunication since the last time that I thought about it.

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

    Yeah!

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

    Forgot to post yesterday’s but that’s really it. Will give it that quick read through and then post.

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

    Have not touched. I still feel like they’re more existentially pulling me down.

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

    I have not been, and it might be part of why I’m not sleeping as well.

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

    I moved my guitar to the other side of my bed, and I’ve played a little bit on it last night and this morning.

20. Web novel?

    That will hopefully be happening today!

On Networking

First Published: 2025 June 7¹

Draft 1: 4 June 2025

I don’t think that I’ve reflected here about networking, which is kind of strange. I go to a lot of events where I end up interacting with others and trying to make an impression on them, and did so even in the first iteration of this site. I guess I probably used to reflect more on the event itself rather than the metanarrative, though.

Last night I was part of a small choir that sang at a reception at the governor’s home. It was really fun, and I found out while warming up that we were also guests at the event.² That meant that, in the two hour event, other than the ten or so minutes of a speech and us singing, my job was to mingle.

It was a great time in general, and I think that part of it is that the location and event were meant for mingling. People there were generally expecting conversation with strangers, and I was doing my best to not stand in a corner awkwardly. I chatted with one person about a potential job and otherwise just met a lot of great people from the surrounding area.

In general, I find that networking is such a hard thing to do, though. Part of it is that I am terrible with faces and mediocre with names; when I meet someone at an event, I may not recognize them a few minutes later. I don’t remember the names well enough afterwards to do the b-school thing of finding an email and writing them. However, I have always looked at least fairly distinct. This works in my favor, because it means others are more able to remember me. Also, because networking events tend to be filled with people who are trying to network, they often remember me and are able to do the “following up with our conversation” messages. But, I then get to the part that truly makes me struggle with networking: the mercenary nature.

As far as I have ever been able to tell, one of the major points of networking is meeting people who you can help in their careers and who will help you in yours. I don’t like seeing people as professional objects, and so that makes me uncomfortable. Also, like I like talking to people. The goal of a networking event for me is meeting interesting people who do interesting things; it is also nice to be able to go “A, meet B. You two do the same thing”, though.

Why am I writing about networking now? I think that it’s primarily because I am hitting the point in my professional life where networking has to start taking a much larger role. I am actively on the job³ market, and the way to fix that is to find people with positions to fill

This is a much shorter post than usual, in large part because I don’t really think that I have much to say. It’s nice to talk to people, I wish there were more spaces to do it, and I love being able to see the web of interacting humanity that’s so common in those sorts of spaces.

Daily Reflection

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

   I did, and I think so!

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

   Not really, I didn’t really have a place where it felt appropriate yesterday.

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

   I think generally! I did multitask a little last night while talking with a friend, but that was almost exclusively mindless work⁴.

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

   Not as much as I should be, but generally somewhat. I find that right now my shoulders seem to have three positions: rounded forward⁵, slightly rounded forward or neutral, not sure which⁶, and what looks like straight⁷

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

   Neck, shoulders, hips I think. I can stretch my neck and shoulders, and I can generally make the time I need to do a full stretch today.⁸

6. Comments on sleep?

   I went to bed about an hour past when I meant to last night.⁹ I then reset my alarm to give me about an extra hour of sleep this morning, and generally feel ok.

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

   I had the lemon cake yesterday, and then ate a sandwich for lunch and had dinner-adjacent food at the reception I attended.¹⁰ In general the food at the reception seemed about normal processed, and this morning I had a day old pastry, which had peach and I think lemon curd. I’m assuming pretty heavily processed, all things considered. I have a lunch packed: sandwich.

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

   Nope! I even started to listen to the album of the week.

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

   It’s a toss up between making space for the chairs I now own and making space for brewing. Since I will be traveling through most of the rest of the month, though, it probably makes the most sense to do make space for chairs. A part of me is wondering if the ideal might be starting as far away the entrance to my home as possible and slowly working my way forward. I can then make the piles of recycling, trash, gifts, things I want to keep but somewhere else, and things which are in their proper place. That might work better for me, because that way as things get closer to clean the mess gets moved further from my bed¹¹ and closer to the entrance to my apartment.¹² I’ll see how that works out for me.

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

    Yesterday I finished the plan for writing and made an outline of the apparatus chapter. I don’t really want to write that right now, and I also have a presentation I must give on Friday. The presentation feels like a higher priority, and right now what’s stopping me from finishing is the fact that I don’t know what I want it to say.

    I can fix that by making a better draft of the presentation and testing it out to see if it’s good.

    I’m also continuing to monitor the computational jobs I have running. 71 down, 829 remaining. At this rate I might be done by the end of the week!

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

    If the jobs are fully monitored, I need to do the data analysis. I think that the plan will be “this is where the fit I have predicts line locations, this is where it was assigned, this is what the error was in each of the inputs”. I guess that I can make that table now. How do I want to do that, though?

    I have fifteen interlacing windows, and two variants on each of those. Maybe just have a plot for that one? Like amount of data covered and how well it fit? Hmm If they’re al overlapping, it feels like there should be a good way to visualize that.

    This also ties into the presentation, which means that I get to count it as a thing to do.

    I also have the apparatus draft due ASAP and plotting out the next chapter (Introduction) because that’s due as written for next week.

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?¹³

    I don’t entirely know, honestly. I signed up for a phone interview yesterday, and honestly feel like it’s ok for me to take the day off from the job search. Last night I did so much networking that my professional battery is completely drained.

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

    Yeah! I went to a nice reception last night and I wrote with a friend today. I’m going to a friend’s house for games tonight.

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

    Yeah! I had a great call with a college friend last night, and we clarified a miscommunication we had almost a decade ago that I hadn’t realized was coloring my interactions since. That was really great! Other than that, I have not had a lot of places for miscommunications to occur.

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

    I am!

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

    Yeah! I think that I might want to find a different time for them, though, because the morning is a great time for work and getting the thousands of words in my head on this page, while helpful, are also words that are not being put in my dissertation.

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

    They aren’t. On the call last night with the friend I mentioned that I really need to write it, because I am pretty sure that I might be having a crisis of faith. It’s nice that I can schedule that, though.

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

    I did not do it last night because the phone call was 3 great hours.

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

    I sang last night! Other than that, I feel like I ran out of time.

20. Web novel?

    Nope. That’s on my due list for the week, though.

Lemon Wine 2025

First Published: 2025 June 3

Draft 1: 3 June 2025

I’ve written twice before about my experiences making a lemon country wine. It’s been a while since I did any brewing, and it is something that I would really like to get back into. With that in mind, I think that a nice lemon wine would go really well with my thesis defense, especially if I can make nice labels.¹

Apparently sugar is about 45 points per pound per gallon, which means that a five gallon recipe with about 5 pounds of sugar should start out at about 1.045. If that ferments to full, ends up around 5 percent, which is good to know.

So plan is:

1. Purchase sugar and lemons, maybe water (grocery store)

2. Purchase yeast, bentonite, yeast nutrient (Fermaid?), and anything else that looks fun (homebrewing store, make sure that the ingredients are kosher)

3. Clean and sanitize everything (this is obvious but)

4. Pour about four gallons of water into the fermenter

5. Boil about 5 pounds of sugar with about a gallon of water and some acid to help break the molecule down for yeast. Once boiled, add in the yeast nutrient (calculate how much to use or trust the box) Also add in hops as appropriate.

6. Add the mixture to the large pot of water, ensure that the yeast won’t die.

7. Add yeast, stir vigorously, MEASURE DENSITY and temperature, cover, walk away

8. Check regularly.

   When at about 30 percent fermented away, add known volume of sugar water with known density, measure new density, use that to figure out current ABV

9. Repeat until satisfied

10. Stabilize the wine. I think that’s bentonite, but that might actually be for defogging...

11. When stable, back sweeten and acidize and otherwise balance.

12. Bottle and cork and label

What do I need to do adjacent to this:

• Hop trials: how long should I boil how much hop for use in lemonade?² Make like a quart at a time, and try a small matrix of boil time and hop percentage. I might need to also do something with wait time: how long between adding the hop and tasting?

  Oh shoot: hops are often not recommended in the preferment because their flavors blow off

  I guess that means that I should plan on dry hopping or adding hops to the liquid during the backsweetening/acidifing phase. Hmm are hops acid stable? I wonder if making an oleo saccharum or citrum from hops might be something workable. I’ll try it if my hops are still here.

  I guess this means that I need to get a more precise scale as well.

• Make the oleos.

  Get good quality lemons, clean vigorously, allow to dry.³ Peel, crunch with citric acid and/or sugar and/or other acids of choice. Seal in container, allow to rest for a while. Consider boiling after straining? to stabilize and whatnot?

  If I put in glass jars, I can can it, I guess. Canning feels like a LOT though. I guess a pseudo can⁴ still feels close enough. I will check if I have any glass containers, and if so, might just put in the jar, seal, and then boil for a bit to try to make it a little more shelf stable. I guess i could also freeze them?

  For hops, grind hops with citric acid? sugar? both? something else? I guess I’ll try full acid, full sugar, and a fifty fifty blend of the two.

  Hmmm, if I do just sugar, then presumably the sugary hop liquid will be much much less sugar than I need to get all the appropriate hop flavor. The same may not be true in terms of acid: I really don’t know if the lemon liquid will have the right ratio of lemon to acid. I might do like a 60/40 acid sugar ratio? Maybe 70/30?

  The goal is something that’s really lemony, but also acidic. I need to extract all of the oil I can, and so whichever base I use will probably end up being the only contributor that I need. Unfortunately, I don’t know the relative ratios of hop to lemon to use for an ideal solution.

  I guess one option is to make multiple versions of each, but that feels excessive in a number of ways. Still, I don’t know if I have an issue with doing one acid and one sugar for both hop and lemon peel.

  Great, so that’s sorted.

• Buy the bottles and corks/make sure i know where the corker I own went

• Figure out how to make labels and do so.

Great, that’s all that I really feel like needs to be done. I’m excited to get started, so might try to hit the supermarket after work today? Hmm, to consider I guess. This is, of course, yet another motivation to get the home cleaned: I want sufficient space for brewing.

Draft 0.6: 3 June 2025 (Diverts into Math)

I have written twice before about my experiences making a lemon country wine. It’s been almost two years since the last post, and an equivalent amount of time since the last time I did any brewing. With that in mind, I think that I would really, honestly and truly, like to make lemon wine in time for my defense. If I get done soon enough, I would even love to have it as a thing at the post-celebration or to gift to my committee.⁵

So, what do I want to plan on for the recipe?

8 pounds of sugar has historically fermented somewhat sweet, which is a problem if I end up doing an oleo saccharum of lemon⁶. If, instead, I do an oleo citrate⁷, I end up with something that I can mix to exactly my specifications, but it would then mean that I would be unable to just add the remaining mixture to my drinks through the summer and onwards, because it would be horribly sour.⁸

Ok so that sounds like I’ll try to make an oleo citrate. I have a bunch of citric acid, so that’s not a problem. I think that when I was optimistic, I bought ascorbic and tannic acids, so might mix a little of them in water to see what they taste like.

I’ll do the quick math for how much sugar I should add to make the water at the appropriate level for my yeast.⁹ I think that I’m going to go for a 71-B again, because that’s always been a reliable yeast for me. It can easily handle 10 percent, and so I want to shoot for a starting density somewhere in the 1.08 range. That’s apparently around 208 grams of sugar per liter, which is about 800 grams per gallon, which is about a pound a gallon.¹⁰

In previous years, I used about 8 pounds, and that ended up giving me¹¹ about 10 percent, and the notes there suggest that I would need about 8 pounds to make it work. Ok, so I’ll just plan on using the full ten pounds of sugar, boiling it with some acid to hopefully turn the sucrose into its constituent fructose and glucose, which will hopefully make the yeast work better, happier and faster. There is, of course, something to be said about step feeding, which makes the yeast happier in the short and long terms. The only issue is that I need to be able to measure the density at all points.

Let’s see, can I do a density calculation with some unknown volumes?

Say I know that I have a fermenter full of liquid with standard gravity 1.03¹². If I add in a known quart of liquid with standard gravity 1.1¹³, and get new standard gravity 1.033, then...¹⁴

Ok so the goal is to find alcohol by volume. In general, if I know starting and ending densities, it’s given to me by some constant times the difference.¹⁵ Of course, I do not know the starting volume well. When adding in the second draft of sugar, I know the current density, the volume of sugar water being added, and the density of the sugar water. From this, we can find that the initial volume was the new volume times the amount the sugar water’s density decreases divided by the amount the base’s density increases. That’s nice. From there, since we know the initial ABV and we have the initial volume, we can find the raw amount of EtOH in the solution. As the liquid ferments, it becomes another change in density problem, but we add the starting ethanol content. Only at the very end, when I am sweetening, do I really care that much about the overall ABV, and rough guides are probably fine, so I could also say that the amount of ethanol in solution is only slightly decreasing, and treat it as fixed¹⁶ and just do constant delta density.

Eh, step feeding seems like the winner for now. Let’s look at the usual advice for that.

Huh wild, most people only step feed when they really want to hit incredibly high ABV. I wonder why that is.

Well, guess I don’t really need to do that. Let’s still try for it, though, because I want to make sure that it ferments dry. We’ll eyeball about four or five pounds of sugar¹⁷, dilute to about five gallons, introduce the yeast and nutrient, then monitor for the next three days. Every time density drops by a third to a half, add new sugar water as needed.¹⁸

Hmm, do I need to get nice water for this? If spring water is cheap, it does save a bit of effort. Eh, we’ll see if there’s readily and cheaply available water¹⁹ when I go to get sugar. This draft is also not great, because it’s just me figuring out that I want to step feed, and some of the math therein.

Draft 0.5 3 June 2025 (deciding that sugar is my friend)

I have written twice before about my experiences making a lemon country wine. It’s been more than a year since the last one²⁰ and I think that it’s even been that long since my last brewing. I officially have a day and time set up for my defense, which is fantastic, but means that I’m now reminded of the many things that I wanted to have done before the defense. I really want to be able to share my homemade lemon wine with people at the thesis defense, and so that means that I really need to get on it.

Honestly, I don’t love the fact that it’s a sugar wash, because that feels wrong somehow. Mostly it’s that sugar doesn’t add anything to the final product. By its very nature, it is either taken up by the yeast or left as flavor at the end.

It’s not that I am some sort of purist who thinks that everything needs to have extra ingredients for the sake of being complicated. I love munching on a whole head of lettuce, after all. However, I have to wonder if making kilju²¹ is really the best bet. An advantage is that I know exactly how much sugar is in it, because sugar is 1:1 sugar by weight. Another advantage is that it does really let both the yeast profile and the other flavors I add into it²² shine. And, of course, it is dirt cheap. I’m nearly positive that sugar is the cheapest source of sugar²³.

By using sugar, the bottles that I want to get²⁴ are significantly more costly than the ingredients inside of them. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because again, spending for the sake of spending is not ever my goal. So why am I so opposed to using sugar?

Partially I am just embarrassed when people ask me how to make the lemon wine, because it is fundamentally just add sugar to water, add yeast, then treat like regular lemonade. If I did some berries, that would make it far more of a berry lemonade than a pure lemonade, and I worry that the flavors will get muddied. Ok, I feel comfortable with my decision to do a sugar base again. Yay!

Daily Reflection

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

   I did! The only stormy questions are the blog posts that I absolutely need to get on the page.²⁵

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

   For a little bit! This links moreso²⁶ to the below, but I did do the silent sitting after posting yesterday, and I do really feel markedly better for having done so. Other than that, though, I guess that I wasn’t doing a ton of stillness, but that’s less because there was a constant rush and more because I completely lost track of time.

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

   I generally wasn’t multitasking yesterday. There were a few things I had at once, like making sure that my code didn’t crash while I was reading, and when I was playing a dumb game, listening to some audio that I wanted to get through. Otherwise, though, I wasn’t even able to listen to a book over the walk home, and wanted to spend time just not doing anything. I did scroll through instagram on the entire walk home, though, which is less than great.

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

   Generally. I can always do a better job, but each day that I stand with good posture, everything feels better more generally. It’s also really nice to be able to feel the way my breath feels when I hold it or move the body in different ways. My default is always a stomach-led breath, but I’m more and more learning to love the way that my ribcage can expand if I let it.

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

   I think that I need to be more aware of just how much tension in my body is interlinked. Yesterday while stretching my neck, I felt my entire lower back start to release as well. That being said, I still feel like my shoulders are wanting to hunch forward, but that’s more posture than tension. Because I’m focusing on that, though, that is the place I hold tension. Maybe I should look for more shoulder stretches.

   I also haven’t been able to straighten my arms since at least high school. Apparently that’s something I can fix primarily by literally just trying to straighten them for a few minutes at a time. It really hits the tendons just below my triceps, which I suppose makes sense.

   So, I can fix the shoulder tension by stretching the shoulders and by looking up more shoulder stretches. I can fix the arms not straightening by straightening my arms.

6. Comments on sleep?

   Not really. I slept in an extra hour today, but I think that might be more a lack of motivation than an active need for more sleep. A part of me is thinking about whether more shorter sleep sessions might be better? Eh I’ll try to stick with this routine for at least a little longer before really messing it up. It sounds like my cult of personality is in its uprise²⁷, because someone is tempted to try out the routine after simply knowing that it’s not not working for me.

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

   Eating wasn’t great yesterday. I ended up with a bowl of oats²⁸, a bunch of peanuts²⁹, a couple packs of instant ramen³⁰, and some gushers.³¹

   Today I’ve had some coffee³², and a slice of lemon pound cake. After this writing session I might go grocery shopping? Or at some point today maybe. What do I need from the store, though? I know that there was something I was thinking of, but I can no longer remember it.

   If I cook more beans, I can eat more beans, and beans are a great food for a variety of reasons.

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

   Not really! I’m planning on doing the walk and song time today, because I need something away from computer that is not away from devices.

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

   Biggest priority right now: I don’t really know. Lots of things are bothering me, but since I think that I’m getting a new chair today and/or tomorrow, I guess that the highest priority is getting the space for it/them cleared. That’s also the next action item.

   Once the chair has home, it’s probably good to look at my entire home again and think about what is where, what I don’t need and can donate/gift/throw away, and what I need to find space for. I don’t love keeping my instruments in my apartment over the summer when it’s humid and hot, so I might once again occupy space. That might also motivate me to play them more, and also go to work in the office more. I don’t know if either of those is a real perk, though.

   Hmm, when can I dedicate time to just do a deep dive on my apartment? I’d like to be able to have friends over, if only one at a time, because there are a few games I have that would be fun for two.

   Oh! I also wanted to have homemade lemon wine for my defense. Now that it’s scheduled, I do really need to get that prepped and ready.³³

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

    Right now the current task is monitoring the runs to make sure they are not crashing, check the output of the jobs from yesterday, and making figures. This ties really closely in to working through the presentation I am giving on Friday.

    Ope! I stand corrected.³⁴ My current task is making the list of where my thesis currently stands and an updated timeline. That can happen in parallel with monitoring jobs! 27 down, 873 to go!³⁵

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

    Finishing the presentation for Friday. Realistically I just need to dedicate time to that. I could listen to the book on presenting more and actually start doing the exercises it contains.³⁶ Early on in the book it pointed out the importance of speaking presentations, and chunking in thoughts, not lines or sentences. Anyways, we’ll see what ends up happening.

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?³⁷

    I made my USjobs account, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, there were no jobs that were even slightly related to what I do. With this in mind, I found a cool outreach position in Germany, and so I will start on that app.³⁸

    Nooooo, the job closed! I swore it said it closed end of June, not end of May. Oh well, more jobs will come in time.

    Huh wild, FBI jobs are not on the regular USjobs website. I wonder if the same is true for other things. I’ll apply to one of the jobs at my current university that’s posted, and know that I’ll be rejected from that too.

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

    Yeah! Well, at the very least I’m writing with a dear friend now and attempted to schedule a lunch with someone yesterday.³⁹ I should reach out to someone else I care about now.

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

    No, but I think that right now all of the unclarity⁴⁰ that I have is good, if not actively healthy.⁴¹

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

    Yes! Look at this monster.⁴² I’m wondering if doing this by hand might be better, but I am absolutely finding that the way I think while typing and hand-writing are fundamentally different, which is interesting in and of itself.

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

    Yeah! Today I even got a new inspiration halfway through my daily reflection.

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

    I have yet to start, and right now I honestly don’t think that I’m being weighed down, which is really nice. I do still really want to start, though.

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

    I wrote not a full page, but a full song last night.

    Biggest takeaway: my default way to write a song is ballad form⁴³, and if I just let myself iterate over the exact same poem, each attempt becomes markedly better.

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

    No. I still haven’t moved my guitar and I just don’t really want to make music right now. Not so sure why, but I do feel the mental block.

20. Web novel?

    No, but I’m hopeful to make time for it today.

On Trusting Myself

First Published: 2025 June 2

Draft 2: 2 June 2025

I’d like to think that I trust myself. More than that, though, I would like to trust that I can trust myself. That is, my concern with trusting my body, mind, past and future self is that I don’t know if I believe them.

My mind frequently tells me incorrect things, as a number of musings here have demonstrated. The fact that I can do a task knowing that it will trick my mined into moving in a productive direction shows how ridiculous the concept is. My mind knows what can trick itself and is able to pull a trick there. I’ve often heard that you cannot tickle yourself,¹ so it’s strange to me that this would work.

Ok, but just because I cannot trust every single thing does not mean that I should not trust my mind in general. I have a lot of people that I trust on some issues but not every issue. I guess when I think of trusting myself, I don’t so much think of learning what parts of me tend to be trustworthy and what parts tend to deceive me.

Trusting the me of the past and future, on the other hand, feels so utterly impossible. I should know what I am going to want tomorrow, and whenever I make a prediction, I tend to be correct. However, my own motivation is always far lower than I think that it will be; there must be a way for me to recognize that motivation is always retroactive.

Finally, and completely unrelatedly, recently I talked about trying to divorce myself from concepts of linear time. I realize that’s not true in many regards: I’m now actively scheduling my sleep, and I set up appointments with people at set times. Today I’m even trying to chronicle where my time goes.²

But, it still feels emotionally true that I’m not letting linear time define me. Why?

First, even though I’m scheduling the wake time in the morning, I’m not scheduling the bed time quite as heavily.³ I’m also taking a two hour nap in the middle of the day, which is not at all culturally normative.⁴ I used to have the boundary of no work at home, before 7 am, or after 8 pm. I no longer have these boundaries, because I have found that it’s healthier for me to instead set such reasonable boundaries as “when I say I’m done, I am.”

Huh, I guess that I do trust myself, at least in terms of when I should and should not be working.

The final reason that I’m feeling less constrained by linear time is that the work schedule I’m attempting right now simply has me generate potential action items. Each day I get three attempts to go through them, and in theory I will cut myself off at a certain point. Is this just how normal people structure their day, except with the layer of three blocks? Possibly.

So, do I trust myself?

I think that I trust myself more than I thought that I did. Horrifying, I can’t even trust my own sense of trust in self.⁵

Draft 1: 2 June 2025

This post went to the wrong places

Daily Reflection

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

   I think so! I unfortunately did spend about two hours at work trying to solve a twenty minute question, so that wasn’t great.⁶ I don’t entirely know what’s going on in my head right now, but there is something for sure.

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

   Not really so far. I did turn off my audiobook when I started cleaning my pen and working. In general, though, this morning hasn’t had still time.  When can I schedule that? Maybe after I finish this folly I’ll take five to just sit down. There are some nice chairs here that look really good for a meditation sentence.

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

   I was listening to the new audiobook on my walk to work, and at one point I did start one handed juggling. Other than that, generally! Though I am just now finishing a pair of conversations that were happening concurrent with this writing, which is not fair to any of the tasks.

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

   Yeah! It feels really nice to be sitting marginally better, and I do find that I feel more attractive, present, and emotionally comfortable when I stand and sit with my shoulders held back. In general breathing deeply, though it is taking some extra thought.⁷

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

   Right now the tension is mostly in my neck and upper shoulders, and i think that neck rolls would help to fix it. I’ll do that during the five minutes of silence.⁸

   Oh also I keep wanting to cross my legs, which is not great. I don’t know if that’s habit or hips.

6. Comments on sleep?

   Not really. I had my alarm fifteen minutes earlier this morning, woke up eight minutes before the alarm, and then struggled to leave the bed for five minutes. Now that I’m up, I feel slightly less awake, though I wonder if that might be resolved by naptime. I also only woke up once that I remember, but it did last much longer than normal. Two hour nap for today.

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

   Eating is not really going. I remembered to have something before leaving home this morning, but something was just a protein shake.⁹ When I get back to the office¹⁰, I’ll make sure to make my bowl of oats. There are also cookies in the lounge near me, so I might go for that.

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

   Nope! Helping my brothers where needed.

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

   Biggest priority remains the front of house. Next task is still just throw away and hide. I’ll try to do that after nap time today.

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

    Currently I need to get the many jobs running. What’s preventing me from finishing is that the code to send it on the cluster isn’t working, and I’m not entirely sure that I am putting in the right options. I’ll take a step back, and look at the full input file and set of input file creation to ensure that I’m getting things done correctly. Once the jobs are set up, I will monitor them at least a few times, just to make sure that nothing catastrophic is happening.

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

    Next task will be analyzing the data from the time checks I did last week. I have the data on a jump drive¹¹, and I think that I’ve ported it onto my computer. The goal of this set of trials was to see whether RebelFit runs at different speeds depending on the kind of data going in, so I put in an experimental spectrum, blank spectrum, noise, and noise times a large number all with the same steps. I then had it call the catalog loader a bunch of times for each version.

    I’ll need to do the following:

    • Find median, mean, and standard deviation of times for each run

    • Make a table of the information and put it in the paper, at least for now

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?¹²

    Right now my goal is going to be getting my resume on USjobs.

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

    Yeah! I just finished my morning writing pair, and I intentionally put us where I was told there was another group of people I knew writing. They are not, however, here. Maybe I misread or misheard them.

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

    Not an issue so far! Thankfully I have clearly communicated my intentions. I am meeting with my advisor today to make sure we’re not talking past each other, and I’m about to try to schedule a meeting with someone to see if we’re interacting the way I think that we are.

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

    Look at this! Two in a row.

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

    Presumably I’ll be able to write and then post this one today. If not, it’s because I’m struggling to get thoughts.

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

    Haven’t started. I do absolutely feel like the faith one is weighing me down, but I think that spending time on it before end of day will consume the rest of my day, so I want to make sure that, at the very least, the computational jobs I have are submitted and ready to run.

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

    I wrote poetry last night. In general, I write a lot of sad lyric, especially about feeling as though I wear a mask. Last night, though, I got called to write some love lyric, which is always nice. I’m drifting further away from strict meter and rhyme with every passing day, but that’s not necessarily an issue.

    Sing-songy words aren’t actually a plus in modern music writing, and it’s really difficult to get highly metered prose to sound natural. Still, metered and natural sounding prose is absolutely stunning, and it did bother me an inordinate amount when the album I was listening to absolutely mangled word emphasis and sentence cadence.

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

    No, I think that the guitar might be in the wrong place. I’m also not writing music because it’s been less than twelve hours since my last musing, and most of the remaining time has been spent sleeping or working.

20. Web novel?

    Nope. I don’t think that I’m even going to plan on it today, because I really want to try to unload the long-form folly.

Monthly Reflection

First Published: 2025 June 1

Draft 1

As I said last month, wow what a whirlwind.

Last month was great, and I’m really excited for this coming month as well. Let’s see what we were excited for!

• Today I TA for the last time, I think ever.

  It was a really weird feeling, I’m not going to lie. It didn’t really sink in for me for at least another few days.

• I have a one week intensive writing camp for my dissertation, which will be fun.

  Interestingly, I had a footnote that said I also wanted to figure out what the difference between a thesis and a dissertation was. I failed on that regard. I really enjoyed my time at camp!

• Giving the opening talk for the set of summer science outreach and communication program that I’m part of. That is, the university partners with state parks to give talks about space over the summer (I know I’ve talked about this before). I’m giving the first of the year (even though it isn’t in a state park, technically).

  The talk at the preserve ended up being cancelled, but luckily, I was still able to do the first two talks of the season. It was really fun!

• Being able to dedicate entire days to a single project, rather than having to always split my attention.

  As it turns out, I still have two tasks, and at any given day I feel myself pulled in infinite directions.

• I’m going on a pilgrimage this weekend! That should be really fun!

  It was really fun! I don’t think that I mused about that at all, so that’s a potential future choice!

Five quantizedfrom last month:

• Finish solid drafts of at least three chapters of my thesis.

  Oof! I did not get anything close to this. I think that if I add the various sections together I end up with something resembling three chapters, though. Very few citations, however.

• Write at least one in depth exploration of some theological topic I’ve been wrestling with.

  I don’t think that I did this. I was thinking about it again today, so might make more of an effort to get some words on the page tomorrow.

• Do more than 50 greater than 5 minute stretching periods. Right now I have a computer alarm set for the last five minutes of every work hour reminding me to do so, so that should help.

  I did 32 in total, which is actually far more than I thought I would have. I did also make a point of doing more stretching, even when I did not explicitly log it.

• Write and post at least 20 follies, including this one.

  Five is so close to 20. This month I can hopefully do better!

• Apply to five jobs.

  I think that I ended up with four full applications last month.

Five amorphous ideals from last month:

• Prayer and mindfulness. Figure out what difference, if any, there is between them to me and work to do both more.

  I don’t really know that I made any progress towards figuring out the difference between them, and regardless, I did not really do either.

• I’ve started tracking my things to do and whatnot with sticky notes. Either continue with that, or figure out a better way to track my time and, importantly, track myself and keep myself accountable and productive. I guess this is kind of two, since productivity and organization are not inherently linked, but they sure feel like they are to me.

  I ended up going for other things, but I still don’t know if I’ve found an ideal system. I’ll see if my three block schedule works out tomorrow, even if I’m not too optimistic.

• Self care. Make sure that I am eating, sleeping, moving, drinking water, and the other things which I need to be the healthiest version of myself. This relates a lot to the top goal, but I guess here I’m saying physical self care rather than spiritual and mental.

  I generally did better last month than this month!

• Reading. I want to get through more of the backlog. Yesterday I went to a bar and read the last few chapters of the science book I’d been working through. In general set aside more blocks of time to simply disconnect, sit, and read a book. This will help inspire me, give the creative part of myself a rest, and help me to be better at knowing what all is known and thought.

  I didn’t really get through most of the books, but I did absolutely make progress in the sense that I now feel comfortable giving up on a book if it doesn’t have the material that I want.

• Romance. Make efforts towards finding a life partner and generally try to be more open to more forms of love, not just the friendships I have and deeply treasure.

  I’m going to say that I did as well with this goal as I could have

I like to think of five things about the previous month that I hadn’t known would happen that were also positive:

• Watched the first US pope be elected. That was such a strange situation

• Wrote multiple almost entirely distinct resumes for submission to different jobs.

• Had two fantastic choir concerts

• Tried out a new sleep schedule that’s so far treating me really well

• Reconnected with an old friend!¹

Alright, let’s look forward to this coming month in light of the previous. In general, I did not do as well with my goals as I wanted. The month ended up feeling much rougher than I had expected, which I think is fair, but hopefully will not be true again next month. Something I adapted from the dissertation camp and gave as advice to someone else is to make three levels of to-do lists: the bare minimum needed, the amount you think you can do, and the amount you want to do. Before I get through those, let’s think about five things that I am looking forward to this month:

• Seeing a close family friend’s wedding

• Visiting a friend²

• Presenting my research at a conference

• Singing in a few more concert-like events.

• It happened today, but going to a friend’s³ baby shower! It was so nice to celebrate with them.

Ok so I think that it’s important for me to be realistic with what I can do, and also realistic with what I want to do. The daily reflections from last month are generally decent, but I want to make sure that they still serve me.

At a bare minimum, this month I absolutely need to:

• Finish the presentation that I’m giving on Friday and then again at the end of the month

• Continue applying to next steps

• Make progress on my thesis

That’s only three things, and most of them are vague enough to be incredibly doable. The presentation might end up not being as good as I would like, and that’s the nature of life sometimes.

What do I think that I can reasonably do this month?

• Make an actual list of everything that needs to happen before I can submit the paper

• Do all of those things

• Finish the presentation and make it good

• Finish the chapter of my thesis on the program

• Rewrite the chapter of my thesis on the apparatus I used⁴

• Keep up on my web novel

• Keep up on this site

• Do music

• Take care of myself.

ope. Survive needs to go in the top category, but in the interest of respecting the spirit⁵ of the site, I’m putting it here instead.

And, what would I do in the ideal month of June? Or, at least, what is the most that I think is what I can do if all goes well

• Finish the Paper

• Write a full outline⁶ of the rest of my thesis.⁷

• Writing a folly a day

• Getting a backlog of chapters ready for the web novel

• Finish the presentations that I’m going to be giving in July.⁸

• Get the video series done

• Record the new song I wrote

• Write a few more songs

• Record a few more songs

• Jam with other people

• Find my next steps

• Once again become comfortable with silence

• Spend the time I need to confront the faith issue that’s been boiling in the background for a few months now.

• Learn shorthand and start writing it with my left hand

My priorities last month were:

• Sleep, food, family, movement, and spirituality.

• Thesis work and love

• Things adjacent to those and applying to jobs

• Cleaning, other obligations

• Keeping up on hobbies

• Fixing/improving my penmanship

Does that still feel good? I think so, but I think that the questions are going to need to change at least a little. I’m going to try to spitball some, and we’ll see what all shakes out as ok.⁹

1. Family, Health, Cleaning¹⁰

2. Thesis, Future Career, Love

3. This site, music

4. Other

That seems reasonable enough. I think that the family question remains simply as am I keeping up with the obligations. What are better health questions though? Let’s iterate:

• Eating appropriately?

  I don’t know if I need to get through the three meals a day, and I think that part of the goal for this also needs to include what I’m eating. I’ve gotten back into the habit of consuming food, so now I can maybe get back into eating well. I’d like to try at least vaguely tracking to make sure that I’m hitting a few important bits (protein, vegetable)

• Sleeping appropriately?

  Since I think that the biphasic schedule is working for me, it will be interesting to see if my current hypothesis¹¹ bears out. Other than that, I think that moving the bed and spending more time lying on the ground has been good for me.

• Attempting to sit in silence?

  Honestly, I don’t quite know what to do with this one. I think that it’s really a few things masking as a single issue. The first is that I worry that I can’t slow down or stop. I can barely let myself do a single task at a time¹², let alone intentionally do nothing. When I do just sit without other things, though, I find my mind going all over the place. As I know, when I don’t physically journal, I suffer for that, so morning journal might need to be a must do each day. Otherwise, I think that just setting a timer for five minutes to start, where I will simply try to meditate, might be the best thing for me. Once I can make it through five, we can try ten and so on.

• Cleaning:

  This past weekend I went home and helped clean the house. I know that with marginal amounts of effort, I can make significant progress cleaning. I just need to be more comfortable with throwing things away and actively deciding what things belong where. This month I’d like to get more cleaning done

Let’s see how this feels:

1. Must Do:

   • Attempt to sit still for five minutes

   • Hand write in the journal until the thoughts slow down

   • Clean the home, at least for 10 minutes, or as long as you procrastinate

   • How’s the sleep?

   • How’s protein?

   • How’s minimally processed eating going?

   • How’s not multitasking going?¹³ The fact that this actively made me anxious while typing is probably a good sign that I need to be doing it.

   • Stretching? In particular: shoulders, hips, neck?

   • Familial Obligations?

Great, on to the second set of priorities.

Thesis:

I think that what I should have here is whatever the next task I have is. Also, obviously, the current task. If I do not make the appropriate progress on those, then I can at least track that. It does mean that I might need to spend some time tomorrow morning figuring out exactly what I want to get done when.¹⁴ At this point, I know what I need to put in each section, and just need to actually do that.

Career:

At the bare minimum, I think that I can submit a job application a day, assuming that I don’t need to actively redo my entire resume. Making a new version of the resume can count for that, though.

Love:

This one is hard, because by its nature I cannot do it alone. However, there are absolutely things that I can do. At the bare minimum, I would like to be seeing people more often than I am, and regardless of if that’s in platonic or romantic settings, it seems like a good goal. Also, though, clarifying intentions is always good, and I would like to do that more as well. I should also do more social activities, because I forgot how isolated I feel until I went to dissertation camp and had a group for the week.

• Current Thesis Task?

• Next Thesis Task?

• Job app?

• Each week, pick one social activity and go to it¹⁵ ope no, as the footnote suggests, that’s not workable. Do not spend more than four days in a row without having a meet up or social event with others, excluding when with family.

• Clarify intentions

This site is relatively easy to consider: I just have to ask myself two questions:

Am I writing it?

Am I working through the big questions I have for myself? Hmm this might actually be part of the first bit: am I taking care of the big mental loads in my head? Eh, if it comes up in journalling then it comes up in the journal.

Music can mean a lot of things, but I think that primarily I want to focus on:

• Finish the new song

• Practice guitar so that the wedding piece feels natural

• Get back into writing four part string settings, because they’re nice work background music and good practice

• Listen to the book on being a better talker and use the info in that to make sure that I’m using my voice appropriately.¹⁶

With this being said, though, I don’t really want to force myself to write the music daily. Writing poetry daily might be a good thing to do, though. I think that I can fill a page with poetry every single day, and so from here on out, let’s try to do that. Poetry has a way of connecting to journaling, I find at least.¹⁷

With this in mind, the new reflection:

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

6. Comments on sleep?

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?¹⁸

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

These are slightly more freeform than last month’s and my thought is both that I want to spend more time intentionally reflecting on each every day, because I want to center myself, and because I think that looking at the broader scale is more important. This month’s reflection and planning came out a little different than in months and years past, but I don’t know if it’s really for the worse. Let’s do the reflection, then head to finish the night.

1. Did you journal by hand, and do you feel like the stormy questions in your mind got on the page?

   I did a little bit of journaling in the margins of the music I was writing. It was almost entirely focused on what I wanted to do today. I got through nearly everything on the list.

2. Did you do your best to sit in still silence?

   Nope! I’ve been reading through most of the night, though I have at least been generally limiting myself to one form of distraction at a time.

3. Are you making sure that each task is given your full attention, not just because the task deserves it, but because you deserve the luxury of doing a single thing at a time?

   Not at all. I intentionally sought out videos for cleaning, and was reading during stretches.

4. Are you focusing on your posture and breath?

   Yes. I like the feeling of sitting with my shoulders held straight. It really does so much to make me feel better.

5. What in your body is holding tension right now? How can you fix it? When will you fix it?

   I think that it’s my shoulders right now. I’m going to do slow shoulder rolls, and do so as soon as I finish this reflection.

6. Comments on sleep?

   Not so much. It’s been going well so I’m going to try to pull off fifteen minutes on the back end.

7. How’s eating going? In particular, how are you doing with eating plants and unprocessed food?

   Not great. I had a romaine heart and an apple today, but that’s basically it in terms of not highly processed food. I want to pack a lunch for tomorrow, I think?

8. Are you neglecting any of your familial obligations? If so, how can you rectify this?

   I didn’t listen to the album as much as I had wanted to last week. This week I will make more of a point to do so. Since it was explicitly to be coupled with movement, I will do so.

9. Cleaning: what is the biggest priority you have right now, and what is the next action item for it?

   My biggest priority right now is clearing the walkway. Next action item is going to be grabbing a trash bag and throwing out anything that I do not want. Everything else will be tossed further back in the home.

10. Thesis: current task. What’s preventing you from finishing it? How will you remove that obstacle?

    I just submitted a section, so the task I have next is running the many jobs. I don’t want to put them on the cluster because it seems to keep breaking, and so will do them on our lab computer instead. Tomorrow morning I will go into the office and start the jobs.

11. Thesis: next task. What will you need to be able to do it?

    I need to finish the presentation for the conference¹⁹. I mostly just need to figure out what the framing is, and that’s basically all doing it.

12. What’s the next job you’re applying to?²⁰

    I’ve got a bunch of jobs saved in LinkedIn, more than a few of which are through the federal job portal, so I should make my account there.

13. Are you intentionally trying to spend time with others?

    Somewhat! I saw friends at the shower today.

14. Are you doing your absolute best to ensure that you and those you interact with view the interactions in the same light? Are you sure?

    Right now yes.

15. Are you keeping up on this daily set of reflection questions?

    Look at this!

16. Are you keeping up on writing the follies? If not, what’s in the way?

    Wow, writing the folly today.

17. How are the long form follies coming? Do you feel like they’re weighing you down right now?

    I haven’t started it. I really feel like about half the mental storm I face right now comes down to the faith folly I’m going to write.

18. Are you writing poetry? When, and what were your takeaways from the previous day’s writing?

    Nope! Ok so after this post finishes I’m going to head over to the writing corner and write a page of poetry.

19. Are you making music? If not, what is in the way?

    I sang in choir today. I’m otherwise too tired to play guitar right now, which is unfair because I still have at least 20 minutes of wakefulness scheduled.

20. Web Novel?

    Multiple people asked me about it this past weekend, so that’s really a sign that I need to get back on the train. As much as I enjoy the short stories set in the world, I would also really like to get back into the main content.

And with that, I’m officially ready to face the coming month. The only way out is through, the only way through is forward.

Daily Reflection

1. Top Priorities:

   • Sleep:

     • Keeping sleep time sacred?

       Generally! I’m trying a siesta style sleep schedule, and it works well, but unfortunately I cannot always disappear for 2 hours starting at 2pm.

     • Good sleep hygiene?

       Yeah! I am actually really only going to my bed to sleep which is a pretty new experience for me, honestly.

     • Sleeping enough?

       I think so? I generally feel well rested and wake up a few minutes before my alarms and make it through the day!

     • How well rested do I feel?

       Generally well rested, and as mentioned above, I do not struggle to get out of bed in the morning or afternoon. Also, I’ve been drinking less caffeine, so a part of me is legitimately²¹ surprised that I remain awake. Then again, I tend to find that caffeine makes me calm and alert, which ends up meaning focused.

   • Feed myself:

     • Did I eat breakfast?

       It’s been a few days, but I think that most days I have been.

     • Did I eat a second meal?

       I think that I’ve been averaging a breakfast and a dinner most days. Yesterday I for sure had lunch, and today I ate a second meal at like noon. That may or may not end up being dinner, depending on how I feel.

     • Did I eat dinner?

       Generally!

     • Water?

       Nowhere near enough. I’m actually going to go ahead and fill the bottle right now because I was actively thirsty much of today. I’m also going to take that time to take a few minutes and clean.

   • Family:

     • Am I neglecting any familial obligations?

       Nope! I went home because it was requested, helped clean, and am ready for the brother call.  Ope wait need to finish the weekly album shoot.

   • Movement:

     • Am I stretching at least 5 minutes per hour of computer time?

       Nope. Yesterday I did no stretching and thus far today the same is true.

     • Am I generally making efforts to be limber?

       I notice when I don’t stretch now, so very much so a thing I want to do more, and try to make time for.

   • Spirituality:

     • Time for prayer?

       Not so much, especially because silence remains hard.

     • Prayer?

       Not a lot, but I’m trying more.

     • Time for sacred silence?

       Not so much, see the time for prayer.

     • Deep breaths?

       Yeah! I started listening to a new audiobook which is about exercises to better connect body and speech. One of the things he mentioned off hand was what it means to take a full breath, and I hadn’t realized how few I’ve been taking lately.

2. Secondary Priorities:

   • Thesis/ Ph.D. work:

     • Keeping up on the writing deadlines?

       I think so! I was hoping to finish revisions on the paper by this weekend, but the program broke for some reason.  If I were 10 percent more motivated, I would go into the office tonight and start the jobs running. However, I am not that motivated right now, and I don’t think that delaying 12 hours will markedly affect anything.

     • Reading the necessary things?

       Nothing remains necessary.

     • Making graphs?

       • Visual depiction of Latin Hypercube

       • Visual depiction of Loomis-Wood Diagrams

       • Visual depiction of Spectral Stacking

       • Visual depiction of how the fitness of the spectral stacks is really reliant on the graphs being the right height

       • Plots from the actual results of the runs, to make sure that it worked out.²².

         Turns out most jobs crashed. So, it’s now time to rerun the jobs, which is kind of frustrating.

       • Visual depiction of Grid Search

       • Visual depiction of random search

       • I guess that the stuff for intro to quantum video counts here.

     • Organizing citations?

       Nope, but haven’t really been in a situation where it’s feeling needful.

   • Love:

     • Taking risks?

       Kind of? The absolute least risky ones possible, but that’s still not nothing.

     • Making efforts?

       Yeah! I have actively been making efforts, and I’m proud of myself for that.

     • Showing affection?

       Generally!

     • Being honest?

       Mostly! Luckily I’m not being grilled about anything.

     • Being open?

       See above.

     • Being appropriately vulnerable?

       I think so! I do still default to not vulnerable enough, and I still don’t really know if some people know my mom died, which makes it hard when I haven’t seen them in a few months.²³ They ask how I’ve been, and sometimes allude to not having seen me since July. I kind of just go “at the grind!”

3. Adjacent to Primary and Secondary:

   • Typing Practice?

     Not at all. I did just get a new keyboard, so I am excited to try that out tomorrow.

   • Applying to jobs?

     I officially got rejected from the first one this weekend. I will hopefully finish the applications I saved this past week, though.

   • Reading the things I think could be good?

     I started the new audiobook, so I’m excited to see how that goes!

   • Making manim videos?

     Nope!

4. Cleaning?

   • Office

     Haven’t been there in a bit.

   • Home

     I went to home home and helped there!

   • Car

     Not really, but hasn’t needed a ton.

   • Computer

     Nope! Actively downloaded new games, in fact.

   • Other as needed

5. External Obligations:

   • Guitar for wedding?

     Oop.

   • Travel plans?

     Just planned some travel for July 4!

   • Other requested talks?

     I still have more than a month!

   • Talks for conferences?

     That is the main goal for this week!

6. Tertiary Goals:²⁴

   • Blogging?

     Oop.

   • Reading?

     Yeah! I think, at least. Oh hm, I guess maybe not. What did I do yesterday and today? Wow time like sand is constantly falling through my fingers.

   • Web Noveling?

     I posted a chapter on Friday, which is the usual goal.

   • Guitar?

     Nope, at least this weekend.

   • Other hobbies?

     Listened to some albums at friend recommendations this weekend! They were fun and very different than what I normally listen to these days.

7. Quaternary Goals:

   • Letter writing

     eh.

   • Handwriting/penmanship

     I decided i might want to start holding the pen like artists do? If only because ink sometimes gets on the pen top and I’m tired of having inky hands.

   • Picking a new signature

     Nope

On Dissertation Writing Camp

First Published: 2025 May 29

Draft 1: 29 May 2025

Last week I had the really nice opportunity to take part in a university-sponsored dissertation writing camp. Earlier iterations of this site spent much more time reflecting on the things I experienced, rather than just thinking about things, and so it feels reasonable to do so now. It ran from Monday to Friday, 9am to 430ish pm except for Friday which ended around 1300.

Each morning started with a fifteen to twenty minute presentation about some important part of the dissertation process, reminders for the camp in general, goal setting time. Because I respect the idea that copying wholesale is never appreciation, I’m not going to list every activity we did or every presentation’s content.¹ Goal setting was, despite how ridiculous it felt to me every day, really helpful, if only because it let me set my mind at ease knowing that I had things to do. It also helped me realize that what I set as a minimum goal is really almost always about what the actual amount of work I’ll do in a day. I’m sure that there is a lot I could say about how² I consider my level of work always the minimum. I did slowly lower my expectations over the week, which was also probably good.

Something I found really interesting was just how much I not only knew a lot of the writing advice, but how much I had internalized it. I no longer write a first draft with any expectation of it having anything but potentially the content that I want in the final version.³ I know that habit is important in writing, and I know that like passive voice generally bad, unless trying to distance self from the project.

I also found it really interesting how different my reality is from those around me. I mentioned that my goal each day was usually in the 2000 to 4000 range and got a lot of shocked looks. When I said that I absolutely hit that goal every day, they definitely did not look at me like I was fully human. For some, this made sense. Especially if I was working on a later draft of one of the chapters, there’s no way that I could get that many words out. As someone who was literally just vomiting words on the paper because I can’t edit an empty page, though, it felt strange to know that they were writing so little.⁴ I do know a number of people were reading literature or otherwise gathering knowledge, and I’m sure that some are of the team that like it’s important to get the final words on at a time, which is a totally valid take.⁵

It was really interesting to see that so much of what I find hard about the thesis⁶ process is shared not just between fields, but between like the entire graduate school. I’m very glad not to be a literary studies candidate, because I absolutely could not write hundreds of pages of text without many pictures, and the fact that they do is so impressive. In general, though, every time that I wanted to start playing a game instead of working, the fact that I would look around and see my explicit peers working hard meant that I did not. I did get up for a lot of walks, but like that’s so fine.

The lunchtime seminars were also cool. On Monday we kind of just went over the most normative writing advice⁷. Tuesday was something similar. Wednesday was an absolutely incredible seminar about mental health.⁸ Thursday we learned about the absolute requirements from the graduate school about our thesis⁹.

The closing sessions were often something similar, though tended to also have some element of interactivity. I liked them, in general. It was nice chatting with people and reflecting on the goals I had.

On Wednesday of camp, we were all hitting the midweek slump. I suggested a rousing “one, two, three, team!” to wake us up, and people semi-begrudgingly participated. As we closed for the night someone shyly raised their hand and asked if we could do it again. I felt so seen then.

Really, that reflected the broader takeaway I had from the camp experience: I wanted more camp. I, for one, think that an overnight writing lock-in would be really productive for me. More than that¹⁰, though, one of the explicit goals of the camp was that we bond with one another. Camp-like activities¹¹ are a great way for people to bond. People seemed generally receptive to the idea, but no one really seemed to want to put in into practice.

The camp coordinators were also fantastic. All three are members of the writing center during the regular day, and they set up fifteen minute slots for us to talk about whatever was going on with our thesis. I’m not sure if I used those correctly, because in general I kind of just went and said “I think this” and got told “yeah, sure”. That reflects far more on me, though, because I did not have a clear goal for what I wanted in the conversations, and I do know the low hanging fruit that applies to all people.

All in all, I really loved the week, would absolutely do another one if ever given the chance, and recommend anyone else to do one as well.¹²

Daily Reflection 29 May 2025

1. Top Priorities:

   • Sleep:

     • Keeping sleep time sacred?

       Yeah! I’m trying a new sleep schedule, and today at least it felt really good! I’m not sure if it’s just the thrill of trying something new, but despite the folly yesterday, I am absolutely currently setting my sleep schedule based on the idea of waking and sleeping on set time tables. There’s a question I have about whether the real best sleep schedule might just be sleeping until well rested twice a day, but the big issue with that is that I do absolutely oversleep when given the chance.

     • Good sleep hygiene?

       Decent! I moved my bed, like I have been thinking about doing for almost five years now¹³. I tried to not spend time in bed when I wasn’t doing sleep tasks, and wow do I need a beanbag chair I think.¹⁴ Maybe I just need another mattress? Something to lie on on the ground that’s also comfortable but not meant for sleep. I’m sure that there exist answers, but.

     • Sleeping enough?

       I think so! New sleep schedule doing great things for me today. Part of the new schedule was not going to bed before a certain time, and it’s really weird to me just how much time there is in a day. I ended up needing to make a list of just like “here are things that take time that you generally want to do. What if you tried that?” because I saw that I had an extra three hours. It was really cool to be able to just dedicate 45 minutes to reading a book, which is something I’m always wanting to do more and never actually doing! I also got a nice workout in, which was really cool and fun.

     • How well rested do I feel?

       Honestly really good. Much as I loathe the linear clock, I do have to admit that saying “this is get up time and so I must arise” is much more effective in me than most of the other systems I’ve tried, at least for today.

   • Feed myself:

     • Did I eat breakfast?

       Yesterday I did! Today I had an apple.

     • Did I eat a second meal?

       Yesterday I had two second meals! I ate something at 11ish and at 1400/1600¹⁵.

     • Did I eat dinner?

       I had two dinners! Because first dinner was right after finishing the snack¹⁶, I think that I ended up being hungry again before it was time for bed. Staying up an extra few hours probably contributed to that as well, and so I had second dinner too! It’s wild how good I feel when I eat real food, is really what I think that I’m getting at.

     • Water?

       Generally! I found myself wanting to drink water again, which was really cool.

   • Family:

     • Am I neglecting any familial obligations?

       Not really. I could listen to the album more, but that’s usually true. Might try to do that in the gym today, or else during a walk.

   • Movement:

     • Am I stretching at least 5 minutes per hour of computer time?

       I did not so much explicitly yesterday, and I did muse about that in the folly. In general, I think that it is probably better for me, even if worse for my immediate productivity, to do so, so I think we’re going to shoot for it again. I did, however, stretch a bunch yesterday, and so might average out to once per hour.

     • Am I generally making efforts to be limber?

       Kind of! I forgot to stretch before leaving for work today, but I can do that at the first hour break.¹⁷

   • Spirituality:

     • Time for prayer?

       This is absolutely something that I can add in since I absolutely have been wanting to find more things to do. Prayer is important, even if silence is actively aggressive to me these days.

     • Prayer?

       See above.

     • Time for sacred silence?

       See above. Then again, I have been spending the last little bit before bed in silence and the first little bit in the morning, just because I leave the electronics in another room before sleeping, and it does really feel nice.

     • Deep breaths?

       More than before, at least.

2. Secondary Priorities:

   • Thesis/ Ph.D. work:

     • Keeping up on the writing deadlines?

       Eh. Yesterday I wrote a draft of the my conference presentation and finished rewriting some pieces of the code that had broken from a good idea I had. I’m trying to resubmit some jobs, but I apparently had a bunch of jobs half-fail at the start of the month and just completely forgot to check up on them, which I feel bad about.¹⁸

       Today’s goals are revising the paper and making the plots for it, with some more thesis work later down.

     • Reading the necessary things?

       Nothing is necessary, to this day.

     • Making graphs?

       Nope, but we’re going to do that now. Wild that I didn’t ever pay attention to the majority of the jobs breaking down.

       • Visual depiction of Latin Hypercube

       • Visual depiction of Loomis-Wood Diagrams

       • Visual depiction of Spectral Stacking

       • Visual depiction of how the fitness of the spectral stacks is really reliant on the graphs being the right height

       • Plots from the actual results of the runs, to make sure that it worked out.¹⁹.

       • Visual depiction of Grid Search

       • Visual depiction of random search

       • I guess that the stuff for intro to quantum video counts here.

     • Organizing citations?

       I don’t think that I need to do this.

   • Love:

     • Taking risks?

       Not a ton, but some very marginal ones.

     • Making efforts?

       Kind of! At the absolute minimum I’m reading the book on relationships.

     • Showing affection?

       Decently! I don’t know if I was really interacting with others in person, so maybe it’s important to do more digital shows of affection.

     • Being honest?

       Yeah, I think so. At the very least not being dishonest!

     • Being open?

       Generally! Luckily even if I’m an open book, that does not immediately mean people are going to read.

     • Being appropriately vulnerable?

       Sure!

3. Adjacent to Primary and Secondary:

   • Typing Practice?

     Forgot yesterday, and today I’m planning to use it as a semi break if I don’t feel like working through the list.

   • Applying to jobs?

     Forgot to apply yesterday, have it on the list for today.

   • Reading the things I think could be good?

     Eh, I gave up on one book because I realized that I didn’t care about the remainder of its content, and wow that was such a freeing realization.²⁰

   • Making manim videos?

     No, but also on the list²¹

4. Cleaning?

   • Office

     Nope

   • Home

     A lot actually. I don’t think that it’s made a huge difference yet, but I think that it will soon show fruit.²²

   • Car

     No but doing that today

   • Computer

     No

   • Other as needed

     Generally tried to clean my mind yesterday. If the folly wasn’t enough of a sign, I realized that I really need to be journaling more.

5. External Obligations:

   • Guitar for wedding?

     Not a ton.

   • Travel plans?

     I realized that I haven’t made them! That doesn’t mean that I’m making them, though.

   • Talks for parks?

     Honestly, I’m happy with the talk I have, so I’m just going to take this off the daily reflection

   • Other requested talks?

     Nope! But I also don’t think that it’s the largest priority right now.

   • Talks for conferences?

     Made a draft yesterday, and it’s rough, but I think that it will rapidly take shape as I add back in more things.

6. Tertiary Goals:²³

   • Blogging?

     Yesterday.

      And!

      Today.

   • Reading?

     I read for like 45 minutes yesterday and I spent another lot of time listening to audiobook, which felt nice.

   • Web Noveling?

     Nope, which I just realized somehow didn’t make it form unordered to ordered list of tasks. It’s on there now.

   • Guitar?

     Not a ton.

   • Other hobbies?

     I realize that journal is a bit of a hobby, and I remembered that I have a fun fitness-adjacent set of games, so spent some time with them yesterday.

7. Quaternary Goals:

   • Letter writing

     It’s on the list, even if it’s at the bottom of the list. Hmm should I make a full list of things again somewhere accessible so that I can make ordered lists each day? Probably soon, even if not right now because that’s absolutely a form of productive procrastination.

   • Handwriting/penmanship

     I filled like five pages yesterday with lines and circles, and I think that I’m getting slightly better at making them good. It’s definitely not a fast process, and I have to imagine I’m already well into diminishing returns.

   • Picking a new signature

     Nope. Putting it on the list though.

On Self Help

First Published: 2025 May 28

Draft 6: 28 May 2025

Something I’ve noticed in my writing is that early drafts hardly matter at all. I don’t know if those I interact with are the same way, but I need to write at least a full draft before I even know what I want to say in a given piece. This is true especially in this folly; I still don’t entirely know what I want it to say, but I am going to declare here that this draft will entirely just be my relationship to the self-help genre.

Self improvement is a laudable ideal. No one is perfect, and we can always strive towards betterment. In a literate society, then, it is perhaps unsurprising that self-help is such a large and profitable area to write and publish. I have read more than my fair share of self help literature, even if many of the authors I read would actively object to the label.

This past year, and these months in particular, has really changed the way I interact with the world. Part of it is obvious; I lost the fundamental touchstone of my mother. I also think that age is part of it; I am older now, and so my thoughts are better. And, I’m coming to the end of my plans; I had never really thought about what I wanted to do with my life post-being a doctor.

Despite feeling like a swimmer adrift, I am not reaching out for the lifelines of self help literature. At this point, I do not know if any self-help book can address the problems I’m facing, and that really comes down to the fact that the issues I face right now are so intrinsically personal. I cannot imagine that there are enough twenty-six year old graduate students about to finish a degree who have just lost their mother, a first-generation student who encouraged them to study for passion. Among those, I don’t know how many love to write so much, and love to love and interact so much as well.

Self-help as a concept is laudable, even though it often obscures the structural issues at play. Of course, very few people can directly change the structure of society, and so learning to work within the given system is understandable. Self-help books seem to me to struggle from the same issue as every form of education that does not take place in The Academy: impersonalization. We have known for almost 50 years now that a median student with a tutor will start to outperform ninety seven percent of their peers. I’m sure there’s literature suggesting why, but fundamentally I think it is because a one-on-one interaction with a tutor makes it far harder to ignore what you don’t know.

In short, I am grateful for the self-help books I have read, because many come with advice that, even if not helpful to me, is life-changing to someone I love. At a certain point, however, they stop being useful for self-improvement, because they cannot define the goals of my life. General career advice is great, but I would hope that me entering the job market with a Ph.D. is a very different process than someone entering the job market as a fresh college graduate. At a certain point in reading, the most helpful books shift from practical to philosophical. I’ve passed that point, and that’s ok.

Nice! Good draft me.

Draft 5: 28 May 2025

Self-help and adjacent genres all suffer from the same fundamental issue as society at large; they treat each person as interchangeable pieces in a great machine. Books I’ve read about productivity always assume that certain events can be automated away: rather than cook a meal each day, meal prep for a week in advance. No attention is paid to the more structural questions: why are you living alone, is there no one else who you can divide the labor with and why not, does cooking not have intrinsic beauty to it, why do you feel as though you need to do more? Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that a number of authors in the mindfulness and wellness spaces do not like being lumped in with self-help. After all, most of them focus on feeling enough.

And yet, even these books which can discuss social structures that limit the effectiveness of any given advice, like “you can’t self-care yourself out of oppression”, do not speak to everyone’s lived and living experience. No one is totally normative, and everyone interacts with the world differently. This is beautiful and true and good, but means that the more one sees the world differently, the more important it is that one ignore much self-help advice.

Awareness of the passage of time terrifies me at a fundamental level, and I do not hit my productive strides until I am able to fully dive into the water of a given problem or idea. The pomodoro method, which I have to assume can only work for those whose labor does not require holding large ideas while working, is therefore counter to what I do.

Obsession is my tendency: if I measure it, I will smother it in affection and attention. When coupled with the societal tendencies I’ve inherited towards certain forms of addiction and disorder, I should not track every calorie that I eat.

As someone who has read a lot of self help, I absolutely agree that it does a lot of good for a lot of people. As someone who is so different from so many others¹, I absolutely need to stop trusting the advice of strangers over my own lived experience. When authors cite studies, and do so correctly, their claims tend to be much more logic based: “assuming X, literature suggests Y.” If the assumption is wrong, it’s easy to toss it aside.

I’m not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that even the cringiest and objectively awful self-help books I’ve read have something to teach me. I just also think that at a certain point, we need to acknowledge that the field is only helpful in so much as it helps.

Was this just another ramble? Let’s read it and find out. If not, calling it here. If so, only allowed to revise.

Draft 4: 28 May 2025

Metaphor is powerful, and the superstructures of society impose metaphors on us. In today’s day and age, almost everyone I know can tell you the time to the minute with almost no effort, and has the capability to show the time to any desired degree of precision. Some people function well as cogs: the rotation of the earth for a 24 hour day, regardless of season, can be broken into externalized blocks of time. This is not meant to denigrate the cog-people². In the society we inhabit, being able to function according to an external clock makes you happier in a very real sense: life is happier when less frictive, and not rubbing against the constraints of our societal cages keeps the sores from forming.

If I could choose to be a coglet, I would.

Unfortunately, my relationship to time is not so mechanized. Knowing I have an appointment at 11, my day is blocked for at least 40 minutes leading up to it. Because I know that I do not relate well to time, I budget an extra half hour for any drive over fifteen minutes. Look at that, even when writing, I cannot escape the capitalist metaphor for time: budgeting implies spending implies that saving can happen. I arrive places early, because I am terrified of being late.

But, the cogless³ suffer in other ways as well. Nearly every self-betterment routine assumes that blocks of time exist as interchangeable units. If I have dance for an hour before lunch, I can move that to the hour just after lunch so that there’s the extra morning hour of work, or so the claim goes. And, when dealing with external factors, this may well be true: the class lasts as long as the class-runner makes it.

When working alone, though, this is far from true. More than just my productivity at different hours of the day or days of the year, my need to use time changes as well. If I hold each stretch for thirty seconds, I don’t stretch some muscles enough, but I stretch others more than enough; it all depends on what is tight on a given day at a given time.

If I construct a schedule for myself that implies tasks take fixed times, I am attempting to slot myself into being a cog. Advice for those who struggle with time blindness is often tasked around finding the level of scheduling where every minute that goes by was spent well.⁴ As someone who knows that some of my best memories come from the untracked hours I spent talking with friends, any linear awareness of time passing prevents me from fully experiencing the moment.

I don’t quite know how to make this work for me, though. If I don’t do things hourly, I will often not do them at all; I have been known to sit at a computer unmoving for hours on end. If I stop each hour to stretch, though, a part of me is looking at the clock, counting down how much more time I have until my next motion. The world around me conforms to linear time, and so if I want to interact with the world, I have to meet it on society’s terms. When scheduling for myself, though, I think that what is most important is that I set a minimum bar of effort: if after X words or pages or stretches or scales or etc. I still don’t feel like doing a task, then I can put it off for my next set.

It was suggested to me that I try a block scheduling for my life, affirming three periods of work with meals and movement after each. I think that this might work for me, especially if I am able to spend a few minutes each day determining what my priority list is. If I spend an entire day on one task, for instance, then I spent the entire day on it. If I cycle through every task and none feel good, then I know that I absolutely need to stop and interact with the world around me somehow, especially through movement. Will this new scheduling method work for me? Maybe.

Did this get completely off topic? Yeah... Final attempt?

Draft 3: 28 May 2025

Metaphor is powerful.

The 2008 financial crisis came because mortgages were compared to human lifetimes. When I say that there is a well I pull from to write, I tell myself that waiting to recover for days is the appropriate method to stall burnout.

Self-knowledge does not mean self-mastery.

I know that I struggle to start tasks; each new occasion marks another leap into an unknown and unlit chasm. I know that I struggle to finish tasks; a phantasm of death comes to collect each time I end something. Neither of these is a moral failing, or even really a failing at all. However, I need to schedule my life with the full knowledge that I will always have to force the first drops out.

If I had to distill the entirety of useful self-help literature I’ve read into just a few pieces, I think that these are the most resonant right now. However, in most of the other drafts, I’ve ignored another key question: what is the point of self-help literature? In short, I’d argue that self-help as a genre is about noticing areas of life dissatisfaction and removing that feeling. Depending on the book, that might present as learning to accept life as it is, or it might mean taking on new hobbies and routines.

Regardless of what advice one follows, though, there’s a point that I know to be important and true even though nothing inside of me resonates with the fact: there are twenty four hours per calendar day. We cannot save the time, and it will pass regardless of how it is used. It is not spending in any real sense, as spending implies the option to save.

Every last moment of every last day is used. If I am trying to add anything to the day, that means by definition something else needs to be removed. Sometimes that’s fairly easy: I don’t like eating lunch as a break meal, and so can afford to spend an extra few minutes reading during the night. Other times it’s incredibly difficult: I want to exercise more, but going to the gym alone is a ten to twenty minute round trip. Changing into clothes is another five or so⁵ in each direction, and showering is another impulse of time. At the very least then, if I want to work out in the gym, I need to budget, at the absolute minimum, thirty minutes more than the amount of time I want to work out.

So, how does this help me with self-help?

Realistically, it means that I more and more am in the camp of those who believe that the goal should be self-acceptance over self-improvement. I could log my time, it is true. However, logging my time is then a task of itself, and also like I refuse to see myself as solely a cog in a machine. Scheduling, even “practice for half an hour”, implicitly says that the linear relationship with time is the correct one and that there is some fundamental ordering to reality.

Oof this got away from me a little bit. Still, I’m curious where we’re going!

I’ve written before about scheduling my life. Try as I might, I have yet to find a method that works for more than a few days. There are, however, a number of things that I know absolutely do not work for me.

I should not go days on end without just sitting down and hand-writing whatever is on my mind. In no way must what I write be even slightly coherent, the importance is solely in physicalizing the thought. I cannot ever rely on motivation: even going to a friend’s party feels hard when in the midst of any other task. I should not have any games downloaded on my computer or phone: even when I promise myself it will just be a single game, ten minutes stretches into four hours far too easily. If there’s a barrier to a task, it will go undone: if my guitar is not reachable without moving from my bed, I play it far less than if I can literally pluck it without needing to sit up.⁶

What else what else? I think that I might just try this again but in the form of rejecting time as authority.

Draft 2: 28 May 2025

Metaphors are powerful.

I often forget just how true this is for myself. I have spoken many times before about how my ideas and words come from a well of writing. Wells run dry, and the correct response to a well running dry is to let it refill. Therefore, when I feel as though writing is hard and the words are gone, I should stop and wait for new words to appear inside me.

This is perhaps true in some very very local sense for me, and only then. When I write more, I am more able to write even more. I refill myself by doing other forms of writing, not by avoiding writing altogether.

Metaphors are powerful, and the stories we tell are as well.

I believe that in general I am the biggest limiting factor to my success. In part, this is because I have managed to structure my life in such a way that it can tend to be true. I no longer do experimental work, and so if my calculations do not run or a paper is poorly written, it is on me. Buddhists talk about how the idea of self is an image, not reality. What does it mean for me to be my limiting factor? Looking non-religiously, what about the greater structures I find myself in? The world is more fragmented than it has ever been; labor has never been so divorced from results and compensation; workers are losing rights that were painfully clawed after for generations.

What stories do I tell that limit myself? One is always that I will ever want to do something. Even going to a friend’s home for Memorial Day, something that they actively expressed interest in me attending, is difficult.

If I want to accomplish something, I must either find a way to claim that it’s actually a continuation of some other task, or else grit my teeth, push through the thorns of complacency and fear, and find myself in a new grove of new tasks. If I want to finish something, I need to actively confront the spectre of death that lies in front of any accomplishment. Perhaps more importantly, though, I need to accept that neither of these are moral failings. Wanting to be better at starting and finishing tasks will not make it so, and even if there was some way for me to fix them, I do not know what it is. There’s something to be said for wishing the world was a better place, doing what I can to effect that change. However, there is also something fundamentally important about working in the current world.

Do I wish that the electoral system would represent the people and that I could vote for a candidate I passionately support? Yes. Do I know that I must vote for the candidate which I find least objectionable in almost every circumstance? Yes.

If I am comfortable with accepting that I don’t have a great political representative, why am I so opposed to accepting the parts of me that are not idealized?

At this point I must go to my meeting, but I do really feel like I’ve got a good post going, and I’m excited to finish it.⁷

Draft 1: 28 May 2025

⁸

What does it mean to be better?

This is a question I ask myself often. For many, it involves worldly success, which is often measured by money or influence. For others, it means that the boundaries they see in themselves are gradually eroded. For still others, it means learning to accept the boundaries which they have.

As someone who has consumed a large quantity of literature which could be described as self-help⁹, the more that a book aims to effect specific changes in behaviors or patterns, the more that it tends to assume that the reader is “normal.” What any given author means by normal is very rarely explicitly stated, and it does differ slightly between different books, even those who share an author. In general, though, they assume someone who does not have a disability, has sufficient autonomy to markedly change their life if they so chose, and is dissatisfied with the state of their experience. Most tend towards a neo-liberal idea of self and betterment,¹⁰ which assumes that we are cogs that should be constantly producing and that we can improve our lot in life solely by our own efforts.

It isn’t that I think they are intrinsically wrong. In fact, I do think that most people would benefit from knowing at least a little of the literature on how to live a life that is closer to what they want. At the very least, most of the books ask the reader to think about what they want, which I don’t think many of us do anywhere as often as we maybe should. It’s one thing to excel at the consequences of the choices we made, and it’s something far different to make sure that we’re choosing correctly.¹¹ However, the advice is, by nature of coming from a static book, one size for all. Every person is fundamentally and wholly unique¹², and no advice will work for all people in all places.

Perhaps the most impactful piece of self-betterment advice I have encountered recently came during the dissertation writing camp I attended last week. During each lunch break, the organizers brought in a speaker to talk about some aspect of the writing experience. As someone who’s consumed perhaps too much literature on producing writing, most of the advice was completely old to me: write daily, accept that early drafts are bad, make sure that things are appropriately formatted when submitting, etc. On Wednesday, however, they brought in a speaker to talk about mental health in the dissertation writing process.

I do not have a good grasp on linear time, and I have significant mental inertia: once I start on something, even and especially a break, I find it hard to stop. Standard productivity advice, like the pomodoro method, is actively harmful not just to my productivity, but to my overall sense of well-being. Despite knowing this at intuitive and intellectual levels, I still generally feel as though the fact that I cannot get through the many tasks I wish I could is a personal and therefore moral failing.

At this seminar, there were three key things that felt as though they were shining light onto a part of me that I didn’t know existed, let alone was hidden in darkness. First, there is nothing wrong with not being able to follow any given writing advice; the speaker gave the example of someone with caretaking responsibilities being unable to consistently write at the same time every day, but quickly extended it. Second, the society we live in assumes that we can do literally everything on our own and that we should be able to do so. Even more than that, though, it tells us that we must judge our every action against not just our own goals, but also the accomplishments of those around us and those who could conceivably be called peers; once I finish my Ph.D., I am nominally on an even playing field with my advisor, so I should be able to output as much work in as short of a time frame. Of course, this idea is ridiculous; I hope the explanation alone conveys that. Finally, failing at something is not a moral failing.

I don’t know why that final statement struck me so hard. It’s not as though that’s something that I’ve ever been explicitly taught, and in fact my family raised me with the opposite belief. And yet, the effects of society worm their way deep into our psyches.

Each day of camp, we were asked to make three goals: a dream goal, a reasonable but optimistic goal, and a minimum goal. In doing these, I realized that I have a fundamentally different understanding of my capabilities as the rest of the camp, and likely the normative person too. The minimum goal for me is what I know that I can accomplish given the lowest productivity that I have had over the past three weeks. The reasonable but optimistic goal assumes that I do not spiral out during the process, and the dream goal assumes that I can work without rest and at a pace where my hands are the sole limiting factor in production.

Perhaps because of this, the first two days I was barely able to meet the minimum goal. There’s something to be said for setting lower goals, because that means that it’s easier to exceed expectations. At a deep and primal level, though, I hate that idea. Lowering standards never feels like a good thing to me.

How does this relate to the self-help literature?

In general, books aimed towards improving your life assume that you do not know what your capabilities are. People tend to overestimate some aspects of themselves and underestimate their skill in other domains. I do not claim to be any different in general, but I do think that I know what I can do and what I want to do.

The issue for me is always starting and finishing tasks. Something deep inside of me sees every new action as a cliff that will lead to sharp rocks. Finishing any project is ending, which is a form of death, and I have a reasonable fear of causing death in others.¹³ Once in a space where I am working, I perform best when I am able to remove every obstacle: water should be close at hand or preferably even just lean-overable, because the way time does not pass for me means that I will otherwise forget it. Hunger, which often gnaws at me, silences itself when I find myself working deeply. Rewards do not work for me because I understand that I am not really reward motivated, I am external praise motivated.

Ok this is good, I think that the focus is really better expressed as what normative advice is and what I would advise me about. Mostly the latter, in fact.

Draft 0.5: 28 May 2025

As a musician, I was well-schooled in the idea that practicing scales and chords¹⁴ actively improves my ability to write, play, perform, and generally experience music. As a writer, then, it feels like the same should be true for typing practice; the goal of scales is to allow the instrument to become part of you¹⁵ by making the simple motions completely mindless. Typing practice lowers the barrier between thoughts existing in my mind and being put on the page. And yet, there’s nothing I’ve seen really anywhere to suggest that aspiring authors should do typing courses.

Part of it is obviously a historical precedence.¹⁶ Typewriters and computer keyboards are far, far younger than notation modern enough to make practicing scales a concept. Given how many writers still do so by hand, it is perhaps unsurprising that the advice I was given is that the analog to scales for writing is free-writing, where there is no self editing. And yet, I find that I’m better able to write now as I have done more scales.

Hmmm this is also not getting me where i want to go. DO I want to write about self-help? I don’t know actually. Let’s try one more time, and we can see where we get it.

Draft 0: 28 May 2025

Something that I realize more and more as I grow older and¹⁷ wiser is that I cannot live my life according to the standard set of optimization routines. This is not even in the “I am human not machine, and so cannot and should not be optimizing literally everything for the sake of optimization”, but also because I am not a standard human being. None of us are, which is another strike against the normative self-help literature¹⁸

Despite, or perhaps because of this, I have consumed a large number of books whose nominal goal is life and self improvement. Some of these have been explicitly self-help, and others are more theoretical or philosophical. The fact that my family reading group¹⁹ picked this genre often probably also says something about the environment I occupy. We have a family reading group, and of every book which has ever been, we tended to pick those which claimed that they could fix some broken part of us.

This could very easily spiral into a theological folly about how we cannot fix what is broken, but that being broken is fundamental to human nature. Or, I could reflect on the Buddhist books I’ve been reading lately²⁰, and how viewing ourselves as broken is a bad story. For whatever reason, I’m instead reflecting on a book on rhetoric I read recently: “The Evolution of Mathematics”, along with the writing camp I attended last week.²¹ The book argues that mathematics is best thought of as a type of rhetoric, and explores how Calculus required fundamentally shifting the rhetorical framework that people used when discussing numbers. It ended with a chapter discussing the paper which caused the 2008 global financial crisis through a rhetorical lens. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the derivations in the paper were mathematically valid, but made incorrect assumptions.

For some reason I’m thinking a lot about metaphor right now. There’s a metaphor I use often about how writing is a well. Sometimes the well runs dry, and that means that I need to stop writing for a time. As I experience right now, though, I think that’s fundamentally untrue.

So far as I can tell, the normal advice for self-care and self-growth involves trusting that you understand your bodies cues and listening to those cues. Recently, though, I gave someone advice which boiled down to “the only way to get through this is to just ignore the part of you that says you can’t do it.” That’s true for much, and I learned last week at writing camp that self-efficacy is better correlated with success than actual competency.

Ok wow this is spiraling fast. I don’t entirely know what I’m trying to say today, and that’s part of the issue. I haven’t been journaling by hand in a while, which is almost certainly part of it. Take two.

Daily Reflection 28 May 2025

1. Top Priorities:

   • Sleep:

     • Keeping sleep time sacred?

       Yeah!

     • Good sleep hygiene?

       Eh! Last night I took a nap from 7-9, was then unable to sleep for a hot second, but did some stretching which was probably the best thing for me at the situation.

     • Sleeping enough?

       Probably! I woke up this morning a few minutes before my alarm, changed it, and then basked in the joy of warm blanket for a while

     • How well rested do I feel?

       Generally fairly! I think that I might now be caught up on sleep, which is good!

   • Feed myself:

     • Did I eat breakfast?

       Today? I had a pack of gushers

     • Did I eat a second meal?

       Am planning to get a bagel sandwich for lunch. Yesterday, as discussed below, I went through a large bowl of oats

     • Did I eat dinner?

       I ate jerky last night, and tonight is Wednesday, so it is burger night.

     • Water?

       Not as much as I would like, but we’re slowly edging back towards cells with water

   • Family:

     • Am I neglecting any familial obligations?

       Nope! Called the brothers and everything. We all have our tasks for the week, and mine is listening to the Red Album²²

   • Movement:

     • Am I stretching at least 5 minutes per hour of computer time?

       I am a monster and ignored all the alarms last night.

     • Am I generally making efforts to be limber?

       I stretched last night and then again this morning. I still feel tight, so I don’t know if it’s great.

   • Spirituality:

     • Time for prayer?

       No

     • Prayer?

       A morning prayer!

     • Time for sacred silence?

       Bedtime last night

     • Deep breaths?

       I kept telling myself to, and um it’s hard to breathe deeply for some reason. Probably nothing worth thinking about

2. Secondary Priorities:

   • Thesis/ Ph.D. work:

     • Keeping up on the writing deadlines?

       This week’s whole plan is making plots and whatnot for the paper and for anything that I want for the presentations I’m going to be giving. I’m terrified of submitting the jobs to the cluster, even though there is no reason for me to have that fear.

     • Reading the necessary things?

       I think so! I did a good lit search this past weekend.

     • Making graphs?

       I’m going to re-itemize this into things that I need for RF and things that I just generally need for the thesis or whatnot.

       • Visual depiction of Latin Hypercube

       • Visual depiction of Loomis-Wood Diagrams

       • Visual depiction of Spectral Stacking

       • Visual depiction of how the fitness of the spectral stacks is really reliant on the graphs being the right height

       • Plots from the actual results of the runs, to make sure that it worked out.²³.

       • Visual depiction of Grid Search

       • Visual depiction of random search

       • I guess that the stuff for intro to quantum video counts here.

       Oof that’s basically all things that I need to do this week. That’s fun and exciting, I guess.

     • Organizing citations?

       Not so much, no. I did go through and clean some citation data yesterday, because I think that I don’t trust every computational result that comes out of scientists.²⁴

   • Love:

     • Taking risks?

       Nope, let’s fix that now.

     • Making efforts?

       Yeah! I reached out to a friend last night, and it was good to chat.

     • Showing affection?

       I think so! It’s hard to show affection to everyone at all times, especially when I’m as tired as I’ve been lately, but that’s not really excuse.

     • Being honest?

       I think so! Very few questions are being asked to me any more.

     • Being open?

       Generally! I like showing the real me, and I think that I’m getting comfortable with my habit of loose papers in the backpack.²⁵

     • Being appropriately vulnerable?

       Generally! I’m sharing the struggles I’m having with people. I’m shocked at how positive the response to my latest song is, because I thought that it was a cry for help, but.

3. Adjacent to Primary and Secondary:

   • Typing Practice?

     I did yesterday, and will do once my writing buddy leaves for their day of work.

   • Applying to jobs?

     I sent off two new job applications last night and will be starting another today.²⁶

   • Reading the things I think could be good?

     Nope.

   • Making manim videos?

     Nope, I really need to get on this though. I feel like I’m always running about 30 percent behind these days, and I have no clue why. Might be good to just plot out my life again.²⁷

     When do I have time for it, who can say?

4. Cleaning?

   • Office

     Not really, but it would probably be good for me to spend a little more time this week doing that.

   • Home

     Not a ton, and I really feel behind on it.

   • Car

     I still need to return the telescope. It’s tempting to just do that today, but I’m also already in the office, and I like taking the bus sometimes.²⁸

   • Computer

     Not really? I think that more and moreso²⁹ it’s getting to be clean. Then again, the number of files that I have on this writing site has once again ballooned, and I would like to start cleaning it out.

   • Other as needed

     N/a.

5. External Obligations:

   • Guitar for wedding?

     I think that I’m happy with how well I can noodle around on the chords, so assuming that the groom-to-be is cool with what I have³⁰, it’s just going to be about practicing so that my fingers don’t bleed.

   • Travel plans?

     No, but I really need to get on that.

   • Talks for parks?

     I like the talk I have right now, and as I discussed with a friend yesterday, I can go on autopilot while delivering it, which is really nice. That being said, I think that there are other presentations I could do that might be better.

   • Other requested talks?

     Not at all, but also need to get on that probably.

   • Talks for conferences?

     No, but that’s the thing for the week.

6. Tertiary Goals:³¹

   • Blogging?

     Look at this!

   • Reading?

     I restarted the “Full Murderhobo” series³² on audiobook again. Is it at all high-brow? No. Is it enjoyable? Yeah!

   • Web Noveling?

     Ughhhhhh this is another on the endless list of things that I fall short of. A dear friend just mentioned that they reread the entire series and are caught up, so there’s even more motivation to continue writing.

   • Guitar?

     I have the song, I don’t know if I like the chords entirely as they are, and I know that I don’t like the way my voice sounded on the recording I did.

   • Other hobbies?

     Not so much, no.

7. Quaternary Goals:

   • Letter writing

     No, but that is a goal for today, I think. After my meeting, maybe I’ll go to my cage and write a letter. A small friend³³ of mine is about to have a birthday, and it would be nice to send a card, even if they cannot read it unaided.

   • Handwriting/penmanship

     I did none yesterday, but I really want to be doing more. I saw a short tutorial on some mechanical drawing exercises, and I think that a lot of that will intersect nicely with the handwriting, because one goal is distinctive, but the other goal is reproducible.

   • Picking a new signature

     No. I don’t know if this is actually something that I want to be doing, though.

Daily Reflection 27 May 2025

1. Top Priorities:

   • Sleep:

     • Keeping sleep time sacred?

       Generally!

     • Good sleep hygiene?

       Maybe?

     • Sleeping enough?

       Maybe? I do feel like I’m needing to sleep more but might just be running myself to the bone.

     • How well rested do I feel?

       Eh.

   • Feed myself:

     • Did I eat breakfast?

       In general I have not been doing well here. Today I’ve been working through a bowl of oats for like 4 hours.

     • Water?

       Not well here either.

   • Family:

     • Am I neglecting any familial obligations?

       I almost forgot to listen to the album last week, but I made it through!

   • Movement:

     • Am I stretching at least 5 minutes per hour of computer time?

       No, shoot, time to add the alarms back to my schedule.

     • Am I generally making efforts to be limber?

       Eh, I stretched for a little bit yesterday and Sunday, but generally no.

   • Spirituality:

     • Time for prayer?

       No.

     • Prayer?

       No.

     • Time for sacred silence?

       Kind of!

     • Deep breaths?

       No.

2. Secondary Priorities:

   • Thesis/ Ph.D. work:

     • Keeping up on the writing deadlines?

       No. This week’s big goal is making all the plots I want and need for RebelFit.

     • Reading the necessary things?

       N/A

     • Making graphs?

       Not yet, but I’m hoping to get good at this going on.

       • Visual depiction of Latin Hypercube

       • Visual depiction of Grid Search

       • Visual depiction of random search

       • Visual depiction of Loomis-Wood Diagrams

       • Visual depiction of Spectral Stacking

       • Visual depiction of how the fitness of the spectral stacks is really reliant on the graphs being the right height

       • I guess that the stuff for intro to quantum video counts here.

       • Plots from the actual results of the runs, to make sure that it worked out.³⁴.

     • Organizing citations?

       Yeah! Over the weekend I think that I went through all the papers that compare theory and experiment going back to the start of 2021. I’d like to get more, though.

   • Love:

     • Taking risks?

       Eh, not a ton.

     • Making efforts?

       No

     • Showing affection?

       Yes!

     • Being honest?

       I think so

     • Being open?

       Maybe?

     • Being appropriately vulnerable?

       Yes?

3. Adjacent to Primary and Secondary:

   • Typing Practice?

     Ope! Let’s do that now. Generally doing ok.

   • Applying to jobs?

     Submitted my first job application on Friday, hoping to get two more out tonight.

   • Reading the things I think could be good?

     eh.

   • Making manim videos?

     No, not at all

4. Cleaning?

   • Office

     It’s starting to have entropy sickness again, but I have hope that I can fix it today.

   • Home

     It’s better than it was but still horrifying. I really need to get rid of things I think.

   • Car

     I made it clean so that I could put a telescope inside it. Now I need to return the telescope.

   • Computer

     Generally! I think that I’m making progress on having an ordered one.

   • Other as needed

5. External Obligations:

   • Guitar for wedding?

     Yeah! I think that it’s coming nicely, and I was even recently inspired to write a whole new song with words and everything.

   • Travel plans?

   • Talks for parks?

     I just reused the talk from last year, and I think that it went well?

   • Other requested talks?

     Nope.

   • Talks for conferences?

     This week’s goal is getting all the stuff for the RebelFit presentation ready.

6. Tertiary Goals:³⁵

   • Blogging?

     Not at all.

   • Reading?

     Not really, but I did mainline the Cradle series recently. I want to reread another fun series after that.

   • Web Noveling?

     Nope, I want to be better

   • Guitar?

     Yeah!

   • Other hobbies?

     Wrote a song!

7. Quaternary Goals:

   • Letter writing

     Nope

   • Handwriting/penmanship

     Fair amount of work, actually

   • Picking a new signature

What We Don’t Post

First Published: 2025 May 23 (because forgot to hit post)

Draft 2: 28 May 2025

Of the many things that I do not post, things that I worry may negatively impact my future career aspirations are high on the list. As a child, I was always advised¹ to never willingly incriminate myself, and even though there is nothing objectively objectionable in what I deleted, I don’t know if it is necessarily a good look. There is a question to be had about whether it’s incriminating to describe that I have not posted something incriminating, but I think that I just don’t like being embarrassed by what I put out in the world.

Draft 1: 21 May 2025

I have, not infrequently, written an entire blog post only to realize that it had no place on this site. That can happen for various reasons, and I’ve more recently started thinking about how I can still reference that I did do writing even if I’m not posting the results. So, with that in mind, let’s talk about what we don’t post.

Most often, what I don’t post is either overly political or overly personal. That which is overly personal often includes vulnerability that does not feel appropriate², and more often than not these days focuses around my mother. From here on out, I’d like to make a new draft of this with each post that I don’t make.

Yesterday I got most of the way through a reflection about morality and the role of women in the Church, before realizing that I didn’t really care about it any more. More than that, though, I think that I forgot what I wanted to say in the post at all. I hadn’t, and haven’t, reflected about the meta-reasoning behind each folly, and don’t really know if this is the space I want to use for to do so.³

Anyways, all this to say, there is much that I do not post, even though this is something that I will

Daily Reflection: 21 May 2025

1. Top Priorities:

   • Sleep:

     • Keeping sleep time sacred?

       Yeah! Went to bed at like 8 again last night. Felt great, somehow actually slept through my alarm though!

     • Good sleep hygiene?

       Eh, I have to imagine so.

     • Sleeping enough?

       Slept through alarm which implies no, but idk, maybe it’s also just the whole “I’m getting up earlier than I am used to”.

     • How well rested do I feel?

       Eh, decently. I get exhausted easily, but that’s the nature of life

   • Feed myself:

     • Did I eat breakfast?

       I’m about to! Yesterday I ate a breakfast equivalent.

     • Did I eat a second meal?

       I did yesterday! I went for a long-ish walk and got the cheap overly large chinese-american lunch that is popular amongst a demographic of students here.

     • Did I eat dinner?

       I think so! i honestly don’t remember what happened when I got home last night, I was just so tired.

     • Water?

       Nowhere near enough yesterday, today is another day, though. Goal is to finish the whole water bottle and all of the tea.

   • Family:

     • Am I neglecting any familial obligations?

       I guess I’m not listening to the new album quite as much as I maybe should be.

   • Movement:

     • Am I stretching at least 5 minutes per hour of computer time?

       I did not, though I did get far closer yesterday. If anything, the fact that I had such limited motivation really helped with that, because I could always use stretching as a way to be productive while procrastinating

     • Am I generally making efforts to be limber?

       I think so! I spent a solid 20 minutes stretching last night and a few minutes this morning vaguely stretching. I know that I’m slowly tightening up again, which I don’t like, though.

   • Spirituality:

     • Time for prayer?

       No

     • Prayer?

       No

     • Time for sacred silence?

       No

     • Deep breaths?

       I’m generally doing it, at least as I read these daily reflections. Outside of that, though, I don’t know.

2. Secondary Priorities:

   • Thesis/ Ph.D. work:

     • Keeping up on the writing deadlines?

       I realized yesterday that I don’t really have an internal image of where my thesis currently stands and what it needs. With that in mind, I printed out a copy of the thesis as it stood yesterday to see what I have.

     • Reading the necessary things?

       I brought more textbooks to the camp today, which might help.

     • Making graphs?

       No.

       • Visual depiction of Latin Hypercube

       • Visual depiction of Grid Search

       • Visual depiction of random search

       • Visual depiction of Loomis-Wood Diagrams

       • Visual depiction of Spectral Stacking

       • Visual depiction of how the fitness of the spectral stacks is really reliant on the graphs being the right height

       • I guess that the stuff for intro to quantum video counts here.

       • Plots from the actual results of the runs, to make sure that it worked out.⁴.

     • Organizing citations?

       I spent a little bit of time yesterday, and I also realized that I had not ever actually made the .bib file for the thesis, so set that up as well.

   • Love:

     • Taking risks?

       Marginally!

     • Making efforts?

       Minimally!

     • Showing affection?

       Yeah!

     • Being honest?

       Trying to

     • Being open?

       Eh.

     • Being appropriately vulnerable?

       Yeah

3. Adjacent to Primary and Secondary:

   • Typing Practice?

     Yeah! I like doing it first thing in the morning. However, I do also know that the morning is my most productive time, so a large part of me feels some bits of guilt about not using the time to be productive. Hard to know what the correct thing to do is, though.

   • Applying to jobs?

     Not so much. I have a meeting with the career office this afternoon about an application which is due tomorrow, so that’s existentially terrifying.

     What if they don’t want me? Even worse, what if they do!

   • Reading the things I think could be good?

     Eh, not as much as might be good. I want to understand how rotational transitions work, and I want to describe that in my thesis. I’m just not sure how much of an explicit derivation I should/want to/can have. It’s certainly a lower priority than other things I could be doing.

   • Making manim videos?

     Nope! That’s something I could work on when I run out of energy today though!

4. Cleaning?

   • Office

     Remains fine because I’m not there.

   • Home

     Minor efforts, and I found out that Monday is Memorial day, so that should help! Nominally not allowed to be at work, which means that I can really focus on cleaning the home.⁵

   • Car

     Shoot! I’m giving an outreach talk on Friday and Saturday, which means that I need to have it cleaned.

   • Computer

     Not a ton, but a little bit last night.

   • Other as needed

     I don’t think that there’s much else. I guess my thoughts and life and thesis, which I have done a little bit of.

5. External Obligations:

   • Guitar for wedding?

     I realized yesterday that I want stepwise and fourth-wise motions. If I limit myself to major chords, that means that I only have twelve chords at most, and since most of them are symmetric⁶, there’s really not that much to do. Since I don’t realllly want to be moving all around the neck, that limits the chords even further. That being said, I do still need to be spending time on it.

   • Travel plans?

     Nope!

   • Talks for parks?

     Signed up for a few more, so I think that I’ve officially set up at least as many talks this summer as I have before this summer.

   • Other requested talks?

     Not at all!

   • Talks for conferences?

     Yesterday while in my mood of existential dread I made the “dream talk, minimal viable talk, realistic talk, stretch talk” outline.⁷ I have about a month until the conference, which is both too long to feel urgent and also not long enough to be able to feel comfortable with procrastinating it in full.

6. Tertiary Goals:⁸

   • Blogging?

     I’m going to get this post out today, and I will commit to that.

   • Reading?

     I have been churning through the Cradle series again, which is fun.

   • Web Noveling?

     As with blogging, I’m going to get a chapter done today. I will also do everything in my power to get another chapter done tomorrow, and a third done Friday. I don’t know when, exactly, would be best for me to do that, but we’ll see if it’s possible. I think that I really need to just accept that even though they tell us to stop working after boot camp ends, it’s only 4pm which means that I do, in fact, have a lot of the day left to do things. Might also want to go on a long walk tonight! Oh wait, today is burger night, hmm.

   • Guitar?

     Played three fishers this morning, which was fun. I love the way that things sound when I’m still primarily asleep.

   • Other hobbies?

7. Quaternary Goals:

   • Letter writing

     Nope!

   • Handwriting/penmanship

     This week is dissertation camp, and I realize that I’ve been doing a lot of handwriting. I’m not totally sure why it is that writing things by hands makes my life go better, but wow do I need things to be hand written.

   • Picking a new signature

     Honestly, I don’t think that this should be an entry any longer, because wow I do not make progress on it.

On Melody and Harmony

First Published: 2025 May 7

Draft 3: 2025 May 7

The previous drafts have been a lot more meandering than I’m used to lately, and I think that part of the reason is that this post was really amorphous in my mind. Rather than the standard folly, where I have something I know I want to express and find the way to do so, I don’t know if I ever really knew what I was trying to express in the previous drafts. Thankfully, whatever net I cast still managed to bring back something worthwhile to gnaw on.¹

Like many people, I struggle with imposter syndrome at times. These days, I find it happening almost exclusively in musical realms, and almost entirely when it comes to performance. In many regards, I can acknowledge the feeling as ridiculous. I am not trying to make a living doing music, so of course I am not as good as those who do. I know what would help my ear, and I actively choose not to do it.²

If I was just generally not as great as music as I wanted, I think that I would be more comfortable. However, I do also have some amount of pride³ in my ability to compose, which I think is where the cognitive dissonance comes in. Every professional composer I’ve spoken to is pretty clear about the necessity of not just being able to hear the harmonies and melodies one writes as they enter the page, but of being able to hear the absent harmonies.⁴ I can, at least most of the time, relatively accurately hear any individual melodic line in my writing. I can, however, almost never hear the harmonies.

As I write a piece for a dear friend’s wedding, I am finding the absolute limits of my ability to compose without paper. The frets of the guitar are welcoming and encourage certain harmonies and melodies. When I am away from it, though, I can still think about where my fingers and hand will need to be in order to make notes. So, I guess that the takeaway is that I need to accept that I cannot compose without paper, even though that hurts to admit. When composing for choir, I need an active audio playback.

Draft 2: 2025 May 6

When I was going into my senior year of college, I was debating different career options. Because I was formed for academia⁵, I knew that meant I wanted to go to graduate school next. Being a major in music with a love for composition and chemistry with a love for quantum and analytical, I asked professors what I was missing to be a good applicant to graduate school and generally successful in the industry. When we had visiting musicians, I did the same.⁶

I don’t remember what I was missing to be a good chemist, other than I think literal information. There was probably something like “be better at your lab notebook”, which I have not really done, but.

To be a successful composer, though, every professor and visiting musician I talked to had the exact same answer: a better ear was essential. Even outside of composing, the different performance based professors I worked with were often shocked at just how bad my pitch memory was.⁷ My ear is not great, and I have no real desire to do the work essential to training it. Back in college, before I had matured and learned the value of suffering⁸, I was even less willing.

And so, two futures of mine diverged and I took the one of least resistance.⁹ That spring, I then won a composition award from the music department. As it turns out, even though I do not have an emotional idea of what each interval is, nor can I play 11 notes on a piano and say which one is missing,¹⁰ I can still write music that makes the academy happy. Given the general reception to the songs I’ve written since then, I can also write music that makes the average person happy too. The only issue is that I cannot do it without a pencil and paper.

I can improvise lyric if I need to, and can figure out what should come next if given parts of a line. Given a melodic fragment, though, I cannot put the end on a guitar.

As I write a piece for my friend’s wedding, this is coming up constantly. I am nearly positive that what I want is just some scalar walking between different chords, but don’t have an idea in my hands or head how to do that when looking at the fretboard. What little I have been able to do past the moment of inspiration has been because I actively paused and reminded myself what chords were what scalar¹¹ distances from each other and how I could walk between them. Still, the more I did that, the less the new parts felt like something good.

I’m sure that if and when I go and put the notes in my sheet music editor, I will immediately know what I can do to make the song last forever. I love programmatic music, and especially for something which is meant to be somewhat ambient, having a number of touch points with transitions is great.¹² I can easily string a bunch of riffs or licks together, but need to have them first.

What was the point of this folly?

Really mostly me coming to terms with the fact that I don’t intuit musical instruments like I do sheet paper. That does, in my heart of hearts, make me feel like less of a musician, but it probably isn’t something horrible and worthy of despair. I don’t think that I value the skills of composing on an instrument enough to work on them, so I guess it would behoove¹³ me to internalize that I am ok with this fact.

I don’t know how I feel about this musing right now, so may revisit it before posting tonight. With two minutes until the end of the hour, I’ll call it here, though. On to the thesis.

Draft 1: 2025 May 6

While writing with my dear friend this morning, they commented that I have not been posting here lately. That’s not incorrect.

Part of me feels like any writing I do here is writing that would otherwise be done on my thesis, which is not totally incorrect. There are only so many thoughts my brain can capture, break in, and pin to the page in a given day. However, I also know that I feel more grounded if I do these follies, and that being grounded lets me capture more thoughts. With that in mind, I’m going to consciously choose to spend the remainder of this working hour¹⁴ writing this. If it doesn’t get me to the point that I want, I’ll try to return to it later.

So, what do I want to say about melody and harmony?

I was talking with a friend this weekend about how we write music. She has a great intuition and ear, and just sings what feels natural. I am so far from that, at least in general.

Sure, most of my songs begin with randomly singing a line or even just a few bars. However, what comes next is that I have to painfully figure out exactly what relative and absolute pitches I sang¹⁵. Even then, I only have a single line of music.

What comes next is the part of composition that I have always found easiest: composition on the staff. I am a product of the modern era, and really love having automatic playback. However, if I am away from my computer, I can write more pleasing melodic lines simply by using a staff than I tend to be able to do without the paper in front of me. I don’t know what about me is well trained to write music.

Having written that sentence, I do realize that’s untrue. I have spent a lot of time in my life explicitly and actively studying the melodies that I enjoy or dislike. Almost all of that study has been score study, which means that I have, at the absolute minimum, a good internal intuition of what a melody should look like on the page. Add to that the fact that I have internalized the formal rules that people have written over the ages for melodies that sound good¹⁶, and I guess that it should be no surprise that I can quickly jot down something that I like for a single voice.

Harmony is always something that comes later to me, which I attribute in equal parts to my high school choral experience and general love of early music. Both of these sources center melody, and have harmony fall out as a consequence, rather than the reverse, as is more common to the academic composer.

In playing guitar, though, most of what I’ve learned is various folk and folk adjacent¹⁷ songs by looking at chord sheets. I have mostly internalized standard variations on the 145 progression, which is certainly not bad, especially since most of what I write is folk and folk adjacent. Right now, though, I’m trying to write a piece for solo guitar for a friend’s wedding.

In a stroke of inspiration late one night, I found a riff I really liked. The warm light of morning showed me it was just a walk up from A to D in tenths, which made figuring out some next options easy enough. However, because I do so little work with melody on guitar, I find that nothing I’m doing feels particularly natural. I’ve practiced enough scales that I can look at a tab and follow it, but apparently not enough to have internalized it.

So, what does this mean for me?

I want to work on transcribing it, because I feel like it will help with getting the progression through. Right now I feel like what I have is alternating melody and fingerpicked harmony, which is not necessarily a problem. Ideally, though, I think that I’d like there to be more of a melodic line throughout, if only because that is familiar.

Draft 0: 2025 May 5

I’ve talked a fair amount in the past about how I write music, and especially how I’m writing a piece for a friend’s wedding. While lying in bed late one night, I awoke with inspiration for the hook for the piece I’m going to play this fall. Figuring out what comes next, though, has really been a struggle.

Daily Reflection 5/7

1. Top Priorities:

   • Sleep:

     • Keeping sleep time sacred?

       I think so! I saw that it was around 9 pm yesterday so put the computer and whatnot away and went to sleep. When I woke up between 2 and 4, I didn’t get back on my phone, even if I did check my watch for the few notifications it had.

     • Good sleep hygiene?

       Eh, I was watching youtube in bed last night. Still, didn’t use electronics when woke up in the middle of the night, which is a win in and of itself.

     • Sleeping enough?

       Yeah! I woke up completely naturally at like 615, and I was unable to keep my eyes closed, so that’s a good sign that I’m finally recovering from my sleep deficit.

     • How well rested do I feel?

       Decently! I feel pretty good, but I also haven’t left my home yet, so it’s a little hard to know how much of that is that I’m actually well rested and how much is that I haven’t done anything at all.

   • Feed myself:

     • Did I eat breakfast?

       Yesterday I had some matzah! Today I um plan to eat by 1030, because that’s where I penciled in food for the day. Given how hungry I am now, though, might not be a bad idea to eat earlier.

     • Did I eat a second meal?

     • Did I eat dinner?

       Yesterday I did! Had pizza.

     • Water?

       Nowhere near enough. My water bottle is nearly empty, so I really should¹⁸ refill it.

   • Family:

     • Am I neglecting any familial obligations?

       Nope!

   • Movement:

     • Am I stretching at least 5 minutes per hour of computer time?

       I did not stretch for the final like 2 or 3 hours at home, and it was clear that I felt so drained from that fact.

     • Am I generally making efforts to be limber?

       I stretched this morning before this, and it felt good. Currently trying to do some foot stretches because they still hurt. I’m hoping it’s not stress fractures, but who can say.

   • Spirituality:

     • Time for prayer?

       Nope.

     • Prayer?

       Nope.

     • Time for sacred silence?

       Nope.

     • Deep breaths?

       Generally actually did ok with this one yesterday! Woo one of four.

2. Secondary Priorities:

   • Thesis/ Ph.D. work:

     • Keeping up on the writing deadlines?

       Eh, I thought that I wanted to do one piece of writing a day and then did not do it yesterday. Still, I am generating a fair amount of content, and there’s absolutely something to be said for the importance of organizing things before I just work on the project. Where the line is between being productive by planning and procrastinating by planning, I’m not completely sure, but I think that I’m still very much on the side of benefiting from planning more.

       What are the current things I want to write?

       • Draft of video one of youtube. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • Science Communication Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • RebelFit Introduction Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • RebelFit Background Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • Publicly Reachable Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9. Hmm, can I count the things that I’m doing as an animation for that? Maybe. Still want to do it as a writing chapter, though, in case the boss isn’t keen on the idea.

       • RebelFit Results Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • Background subtraction got weird, because one of the species didn’t seem to appear in the spectrum. I realized that I’ve been working with a small subset of the spectrum, rather than the entire thing, though, which probably isn’t helping.¹⁹

     • Reading the necessary things?

     • Making graphs?

       Not at all

       • Visual depiction of Latin Hypercube

       • Visual depiction of Grid Search

       • Visual depiction of random search

       • Visual depiction of Loomis-Wood Diagrams

       • Visual depiction of Spectral Stacking

       • Visual depiction of how the fitness of the spectral stacks is really reliant on the graphs being the right height

       • I guess that the stuff for intro to quantum video counts here.

       • Plots from the actual results of the runs, to make sure that it worked out.²⁰.

     • Organizing citations?

       Nope!

   • Love:

     • Taking risks?

       Oh! Minorly, actually.

     • Making efforts?

       Nope

     • Showing affection?

       Decently!

     • Being honest?

       Yeah!

     • Being open?

       Yeah!

     • Being appropriately vulnerable?

       I think so

3. Adjacent to Primary and Secondary:

   • Typing Practice?

     Did so this morning. Lots of work on C and Z, with a little on Q at the very very end.

   • Post-its being maintained?

     Kind of! Realizing that the way I’m doing post-its might not be ideal. Yesterday I did some pseudo-assigned reading for the writing camp I’m attending, and all of the advice seemed to really stress having a good schedule. I have a nice bulletin board that I have been trying to figure out how to use.²¹ Putting all the notes on it with dates might not be the worst idea! I think that I would need to break the time down into the rest of the week, month, and degree? Have three rows, and then spend some time each morning shifting things around? Maybe? Will see how the motivation takes me.

   • Applying to jobs?

     Nothing new here from yesterday.

   • Reading the things I think could be good?

     Nope! Today I actually scheduled time for it, though, which is probably going to be helpful.²²

   • Making manim videos?

     Nope.

4. Cleaning?

   • Office

     Made sure it was good before I left yesterday, and will not be in today, so hoping to have it remain good.

   • Home

     Scheduled time to do so today. I don’t entirely know what it would mean for me to be all caught up with cleaning, but I think that, at the very least, it would involve vacuuming?

   • Car

     I’m finally going to take the bulletin board out! That’s something.

   • Computer

     Not really, though not sure if I really need it.

   • Other as needed

5. External Obligations:

   • Guitar for wedding?

     Scheduled time to transcribe it today, and will finish the musing about it above.

   • Travel plans?

     Going to call about one hotel just after this.

   • Talks for parks?

     Two more have been scheduled.

   • Other requested talks?

   • Talks for conferences?

6. Tertiary Goals:

   • Blogging?

     I’m finally going to post this one.

   • Reading?

     Nope, but I think that part of it is that I’m not reading anything worthwhile right now.²³

   • Web Noveling?

     No, but I would like to get back into it. Thankfully, the bulletin board²⁴ has my notes from before giving up.

   • Guitar?

     Spent a solid few minutes last night working through a few exercises. I’m getting better at reading staff notation for the guitar, which feels really nice, if also more than a little strange.

   • Other hobbies?

     Not so much.

7. Quaternary Goals:

   • Letter writing

     I’m thinking about bringing the books that I want to be reading to my cage, so that I can have more of a reason to visit it. There’s something to be said about scheduling a default day which involves time there. I just really wish that it was open before 830 AM. Tragically, however, it appears that the building is the only space that has them available. Still, the 24/7 library is only like a block away, so if I started the morning there, could always shift to the library with my things later in the morning.²⁵

   • Handwriting/penmanship

     Yeah! I have generally been handwriting things, even if I haven’t been doing the loops and lines as much. The letters are getting gradually more even, and in general I think that I’m liking how the penmanship is developing. It is still really weird to be writing in lower case letters, and I do still catch myself returning to block capitals, but.

   • Picking a new signature

Daily Reflection 5/6

1. Top Priorities:

   • Sleep:

     • Keeping sleep time sacred?

       Yeah! I was spending time with a friend last night, so it could have easily spiraled out. Luckily they also respect their rest, and so I was politely encouraged to leave at an appropriate hour. I then went to sleep.

     • Good sleep hygiene?

       Yeah! Went to sleep! Didn’t do bed rot.

     • Sleeping enough?

       About another 11 hours last night, which I hope brings me closer to a healthy level of total rest.

     • How well rested do I feel?

       Generally ok! Still hurts to walk, but that’s really the only thing slowing me down right now.

   • Feed myself:

     • Did I eat breakfast?

       Yesterday! Today I’m planning to eat it later.

       Oh! I also had a few chocolates this morning. Look at me, feeding myself.

     • Did I eat a second meal?

       Yesterday! I had dinner with friends.

     • Did I eat dinner?

       Dinner was two full meals worth, so I’ll count it double.

     • Water?

       Generally ok? I think that I went through a full two liters of tea yesterday. Today I’m hitting a nice 15 ounces of espresso, which will hopefully both improve my productivity and desire to consume water. I do really prefer cool to cold water over room temperature, which is good for me to know, even if it not particularly actionable. I think that my electrolytes might be generally out of whack lately, which might mean that I shouldn’t be chugging water so much as making sure that I also maybe like eat teaspoons of salt with them?

   • Family:

     • Am I neglecting any familial obligations?

       Nope! Need to listen to an album sometime this week, but will find space and time for that, I’m sure.

   • Movement:

     • Am I stretching at least 5 minutes per hour of computer time?

       Generally did ok with this yesterday, though I did ignore the last two or three hours of yesterday’s time. That’s not great, but also like I frame the activity much more as taking a break from work than actually stretching, which is probably wrong, but does explain at least part of it, to me at least.

     • Am I generally making efforts to be limber?

       Yeah! Even when just sitting down, finding that I want to move more and more is probably good. Also like wow my shoulders are tight, and so did some stretching while walking. That felt nice, and so I’ll probably spend more time today focusing on feet and shoulders, since those are my big areas of note²⁶.

   • Spirituality:

     • Time for prayer?

       Not really, kind of filling my day.

     • Prayer?

       As a result, not really.

     • Time for sacred silence?

       Nope! Wow I have done nothing with intentional quiet.

     • Deep breaths?

       Not really, which I don’t like in the slightest. Maybe I should remind myself with the stretching to also breathe.

2. Secondary Priorities:

   • Thesis/ Ph.D. work:

     • Keeping up on the writing deadlines?

       What are the current things I want to write? Oh boy are there a lot of them, and I think that the goal is going to be the rebelfit intro/background, since I’m not sure how what I write is going to end up. Mostly going to focus on the whole “this is a list of algorithms I didn’t use” for now.

       Yesterday I also said that I wanted to get the new jobs resubmitted. Part of me wants to wait on that, but I think that’s just the part of me that is terrified of success. Going on the list!²⁷

       • Draft of video one of youtube. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

         Would also be good to have this? Will spend time on it if I have extra energy after finishing the draft and submitting the jobs.

       • Science Communication Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • RebelFit Introduction Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • RebelFit Background Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

         I really don’t know if I can adequately differentiate this from the above, but hopefully it will clarify itself as I write.

       • Publicly Reachable Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9. Hmm, can I count the things that I’m doing as an animation for that? Maybe. Still want to do it as a writing chapter, though, in case the boss isn’t keen on the idea.

       • RebelFit Results Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • I guess that I should probably also put here: “Do the background species subtraction and resubmit those jobs”, which I will nominally deadline at tomorrow, 5/6, because I think that I should do that today.

       • Introduction to Spectroscopy, especially rotational spectroscopy, both as classical and quantum framed. Let’s say due 5/7.

         I did this one yesterday! That means that it gets to be removed from the list! Woo!

     • Reading the necessary things?

       I think that I don’t really need to be reading (read: I should not be reading)²⁸ I should reorganize the Zotero, but that’s not a high importance or urgency task.²⁹

     • Making graphs?

       • Visual depiction of Latin Hypercube

       • Visual depiction of Grid Search

       • Visual depiction of random search

       • Visual depiction of Loomis-Wood Diagrams

       • Visual depiction of Spectral Stacking

       • Visual depiction of how the fitness of the spectral stacks is really reliant on the graphs being the right height

       • I guess that the stuff for intro to quantum video counts here.

       • Ope! Plots from the actual results of the runs, to make sure that it worked out.³⁰. Post-it time.

     • Organizing citations?

       Hah.

   • Love:

     • Taking risks?

       Kind of! The very slightest of risk yesterday, and it went well, which is, in retrospect, unsurprising.

     • Making efforts?

       I think so! At the very least remembering what it means to make efforts.

     • Showing affection?

       Yeah! I think appropriate amounts no less.

     • Being honest?

       Generally! It was really weird to write with my friend this morning and find that they were so willing to be helpful.³¹

     • Being open?

       Yeah! I think it’s funny that I separate these two, because one would hope that they’re synonymous, and in my mind they certainly approach it. However, there’s some part of me that reacts to the words differently, so I’ll leave it for now.

     • Being appropriately vulnerable?

       Yeah!

3. Adjacent to Primary and Secondary:

   • Typing Practice?

     Will do now! Lots of work on the letter q. Sadly, the letter C was again an issue, and I even had a few lessons with Z. Generally looks faster than yesterday, which is nice. Perhaps unsurprisingly, focusing on the letter q did mean that my relative accuracy for it went down. I’m sure it’ll rise up again as I keep working, but for now it is somewhat low.

   • Post-its being maintained?

     I think so! Lost the list of post its from yesterday, which is a little sad and scary, but I’m sure they will turn up when I return to the office.

   • Applying to jobs?

     Set up two meetings with the career office, one this Thursday so I can ask what should go in the materials and one next week so I can make sure that what I’ve put in them is good!

   • Reading the things I think could be good?

     Nope!

   • Making manim videos?

     Nope!

4. Cleaning?

   • Office

     Spent a good twenty or so minutes yesterday doing so, felt nice, meant that I could work at my desk. It feels like all the work has disappeared since then. The curse of entropy rears its head again.

   • Home

     I did not get home until bed time last night, so did not. Today I will try to make time after work!

   • Car

     none

   • Computer

     Not really, but will plan to do some today. Oof I get a lot of emails that actually require responses.

   • Other as needed

     Don’t think any right now!

5. External Obligations:

   • Guitar for wedding?

     Subject of the above musing!

   • Travel plans?

     Have reached out to some people!

   • Talks for parks?

     Have signed up for more!

   • Other requested talks?

     Nope!

   • Talks for conferences?

     Nope!

6. Tertiary Goals:³²

   • Blogging?

     Here!

   • Reading?

     Not really, but I would like to. I just always feel like I have too little time³³

   • Web Noveling?

     Nope! Thinking about it, and trying to remember where I last left off, though.

   • Guitar?

     Noodled a bit this morning. As I figure out my schedule, will try to be better at actually practicing.

   • Other hobbies?

     Going to set aside some time today to work on poetry/song lyric.³⁴

7. Quaternary Goals:

   • Letter writing

     Nope!

   • Handwriting/penmanship

     Yeah! I did some work yesterday, and today I’m working on it in the sense of thinking about what I write as I do. I think that I do really want to keep the capital A that I’ve had since college, since I have actively been complimented on it before. I’m not totally sure if it fits the vibe of the other letters that I’m making, though, so that’s something to certainly consider.

   • Picking a new signature

     None.

Daily Reflection 5/5

1. Top Priorities:

   • Sleep:

     • Keeping sleep time sacred?

       OOf.

       I went on a long walk/camping trip. Both because we had early mornings and because no one else in my life loves early bedtimes, I did not do great with that over the Friday and Saturday nights. Last night, however, I think I went to bed or sleep by 8, and I do feel significantly more human.

     • Good sleep hygiene?

       Generally! I think at least. One plus side of camping, there is maximal incentive to minimize time in sleeping bag when not sleeping.

     • Sleeping enough?

       Uhhhhh.

       No, I don’t think, but also like that may just be physical body muscle repair rather than actual need for sleep.³⁵

     • How well rested do I feel?

       Generally ok. Woke up feeling well rested this morning and ran out of energy halfway to work.

   • Feed myself:

     • Did I eat breakfast?

       On it right now! Ate something approximating breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.

     • Did I eat a second meal?

       On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, yes!

     • Did I eat dinner?

       I slept through dinner last night, other wise yesish.

     • Water?

       Nowhere near enough, but much more than normal.³⁶

   • Family:

     • Am I neglecting any familial obligations?

       I don’t think so! Generally doing ok as far as I can tell.

   • Movement:

     • Am I stretching at least 5 minutes per hour of computer time?

       Not yesterday, but in general yes. Today I’m absolutely going to try to.

       Also, realized that I do tend to do a fair amount of foot stretching while I sit at my desk, especially today, where my feet are in incredible pain.

     • Am I generally making efforts to be limber?

       With how tight my entire body is right now, absolutely, even though it does feel like I’m tighter than ever before.

   • Spirituality:

     • Time for prayer?

       Yeah! As a group we decided to do the four sets of rosary mysteries during the walk, so 200 Aves.

     • Prayer?

       As above.

     • Time for sacred silence?

       Ehhhhhhhh. One plus side of being with a group is that there’s no need for silence. I’ll try to get back into it today, though, because wow I need to feel grounded again.

     • Deep breaths?

       I think so! Certainly right now as I remember.

2. Secondary Priorities:

   • Thesis/ Ph.D. work:

     • Keeping up on the writing deadlines?

       I sent in a paper draft and some chapter drafts in last week. What are the current things I want to write?

       • Draft of video one of youtube. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • Science Communication Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • RebelFit Introduction Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • RebelFit Background Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • Publicly Reachable Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9. Hmm, can I count the things that I’m doing as an animation for that? Maybe. Still want to do it as a writing chapter, though, in case the boss isn’t keen on the idea.

       • RebelFit Results Thesis Chapter Draft. Internal/nominal due date: Friday 5/9.

       • I guess that I should probably also put here: “Do the background species subtraction and resubmit those jobs”, which I will nominally deadline at tomorrow, 5/6, because I think that I should do that today.³⁷

       • Introduction to Spectroscopy, especially rotational spectroscopy, both as classical and quantum framed. Let’s say due 5/7.

     • Reading the necessary things?

       Don’t think that there’s a ton to read other than the spectroscopy and quantum books insofar as they can help me with the videos and background.

     • Making graphs?

       I need to make a lot of graphs. What, though?³⁸

       • Visual depiction of Latin Hypercube

       • Visual depiction of Grid Search

       • Visual depiction of random search³⁹

       • Visual depiction of Loomis-Wood Diagrams⁴⁰

       • Visual depiction of Spectral Stacking⁴¹

       • Visual depiction of how the fitness of the spectral stacks is really reliant on the graphs being the right height

       • I guess that the stuff for intro to quantum video counts here.

       For now, not going to put deadlines, because don’t really think that any are necessarily essential⁴²

     • Organizing citations?

       I have not made progress on this, but would like to do so today. At the very least, as I read the rotational and quantum books, make sure that their info is in a new zotero folder.⁴³

   • Love:

     • Taking risks?

       Not really any, though I guess that I did try to set up meetings, even if not romantic, with people.

     • Making efforts?

       As above, though also tried to get myself back into the habit of good/intense⁴⁴

     • Showing affection?

       Oof, not great here. I forgot to ask any of the people I was with this weekend their thoughts on being called love or beloved, and I forgot to ask them how they feel about physical touch.

     • Being honest?

       I think so! I tried to not deflect, at least. I did also go to confession for the first time since my mom’s funeral⁴⁵, which was really hard for reasons I don’t know if I can adequately explain here/want to.

     • Being open?

       I think so! I was trying to be receptive to others. I had good conversations with strangers during the walk.

     • Being appropriately vulnerable?

       I don’t think that I was vulnerable appropriately, but it’s a process, not a one off thing, so that’s fine.

3. Adjacent to Primary and Secondary:

   • Typing Practice?

     Not at all, let’s real quick do that now.

     Generally a fair bit slower and less accurate today, but progress was absolutely made. I felt myself becoming smoother with each lesson, and even though it was exclusively p and w lessons, I think that the remaining keys got some good practice. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as I sit better⁴⁶, I type both faster and more accurately. I should really⁴⁷ go back to the external monitor, because wow is the laptop screen too low for me.

   • Post-its being maintained?

     Will do just after I do my hourly stretch now!

     Before next hour I should look up how to stretch foot, because wow it was cramping continuously.⁴⁸ Oof there’s a lot of them, and it’s starting to feel overwhelming. Might want to make more categories than “now”, “not now”, “low priority”, or at the very least figure out what I can do.

   • Applying to jobs?

     Nope! I will make a note for that though.⁴⁹

   • Reading the things I think could be good?

     Haven’t made much progress there, would like to spend some of tonight or tomorrow doing that, depending on how much work I am able to get done.

   • Making manim videos?

     Nope! But I did spend a fair amount of time on Friday thinking about how to frame the series and where to start it. I think that “an intuitive explanation of quantum chemistry” feels like a lovely title, assuming that I can make it true. Luckily, someone else in my life expressed that they would love to watch it, not just because they support me, but also because they think that the information could be generally useful.

     Also probably want to have something like “market research” meaning looking at the animations and videography I like and dissecting it. I’ll add a post it to the dailies.

4. Cleaning?

   • Office

     Not yet, but have it on the list to do today. I’ll do after the 10 AM Stretching break.⁵⁰

   • Home

     Negative amounts. I came in from the walk yesterday, dropped everything down, stripped, and collapsed in bed. Good things to do this week for sure though.

   • Car

     I have camping stuff in the trunk and not camping stuff not in the trunk, so it’s at least more ordered!

   • Computer

     Nope! Will do so today after the 11am stretch.⁵¹

   • Other as needed

     Generally I think that’s everything. I guess “go to confession” counts as cleaning the soul!

5. External Obligations:

   • Guitar for wedding?

     I have more ideas for the piece, and plan to start transcribing it, because that should help with the composition.⁵²

   • Travel plans?

     Nope! Get hotel room is officially high priority, and message each of four groups of friends becomes medium.

   • Talks for parks?

     Nope! I think that working on the animation for manim would be a good start, though, and at worst I’m comfortable with last year’s slides.

   • Other requested talks?

     Nope! Oh shoot, I should really work on the “how to read science news” talk that was requested.⁵³

   • Talks for conferences?

     As I write and make the graphs I think that I’ll have a lot of this.

6. Tertiary Goals:⁵⁴

   • Blogging?

     Wow look at this, which I don’t really know what I’m going to write for the actual text of the post, but I have spent fully 2000 words figuring out the rest of my mind on.

   • Reading?

     Nope! I did read the very slightest bit of the book on my phone, and I finished the last chapters of the volume of a web novel my brother and I churn through.

   • Web Noveling?

     Wrote last week’s chapter, have yet to write this week’s.

   • Guitar?

     Some! Did a little with the whole “learn the actual instrument through the book”, but only the very slightest bit. Probably would be good and healthy and personally helpful for me to schedule time for it.

   • Other hobbies?

     Nope! I don’t know if I have other hobbies right now, or if I really want them. I guess that I was chatting with someone about song writing over the weekend, so could be good to return to that.⁵⁵

7. Quaternary Goals:

   • Letter writing

     Nope! I will figure out where people live as I plan trips to them, though, which is part of the requirement to sending letters.

   • Handwriting/penmanship

     A little! Yesterday at the cafe we went to before going home, everyone was very entranced with my pens, which was a fun and weird situation.

   • Picking a new signature

     Not at al.