My New Year's Eve Late at Night Post
So, it is 2011 already, as it is 1:22 AM here now.
I have read a few people's "the year in review" posts and wanted to post something as I enjoy the occasional band-wagon. However, I'm not sure what to post as I want it to be positive but I don't have much positive to say. And then the negative things are rather personal things that I don't really want to share, partly because I'd have to explain for years to make sure you didn't get the wrong idea.
However.
This is more a review of the last 10 years or my life, rather than 2010.
When I was younger, I used to be able to concentrate. Hyper-concentrate. And then when I got older, I didn't use that ability anymore because there was never enough time - at work you don't have enough time to really work before someone interrupts you. At home there is dinner to be cooked. And you have to go to bed at a reasonable time so you're not f*cked the next day because you have to get up early to go to work. (I use a strong word because lack of sleep has strong effects on me.) And so on. And so now I am left with my default concentration period of about 5 minutes because I'm no good at normal concentrating, and I am out of practise with hyper-concentrating. So I can't do anything. And this annoys me more and more and 2010 was particularly annoying in this regard.
Also, I am tired and lethargic and unmotivated and inertial a lot. These are all different things, but inertial is perhaps the major one and one I am not going to explain, although one person I know on LJ has probably come across this term as I mean it.
I have a terrible memory, for many things. I can't remember my goals in order to do them. I can't remember what I have to do today. I can't remember what I'm supposed to be doing at any particular time if I don't keep thinking about it. I watched the movie "Memento" recently and, although I clearly don't have short-term memory loss, the scene where he's trying to keep a thought in his head by thinking it over and over, and his use of situational clues is like a more extreme version of the way my brain works. For example, I'm making tea. I go and talk to my husband. I finish talking to him and I am wandering through the house with no aims or activity and I wander into the kitchen and see tea cups with teabags in them - oh, I am making tea! I forgot! This is why I can't multi-task while cooking because I will completely forget I am doing it as soon as I stop actively thinking about it. It's ridiculous.
And so, in 2010, I have got even more sick of these things than usual. I would like to be able to make a goal, remember it, and work towards it. Possibly even achieve it.
As a result of this, I am trying to come up with a plan to organise things better so that I can remember what I want to do in a day and so on. But I need to remember how the plan works and I also need to remember to work on the plan, and I keep getting distracted and forgetting.
But I have managed to buy a diary and a calendar and I am pretty sure that I have a plan on how to effectively use the diary that I hope will resurface out of my brain in a practical way at an appropriate time. You might be thinking - the way to use a diary is to write stuff in it and then do the stuff. But this is most definitely not a sufficient course of action for me. I have tried that way for about 15 years to no avail. To start with, I forget to write in the diary, forget to look in the diary, and lose the diary. I once found on the internet a really good diary method that I have been searching for through all my bookmarks and so on, but haven't found yet. It gave a method for how to record what you wanted to do the next day, or that week, or that year, and keep it all in a sensible, accessible way without losing any of the plans. It was pretty complicated, but kept everything all together so you couldn't lose or forget about any aspects.
In actual fact, I'd like to have less diaries and less writing down and less physical forms of memory, but the world requires you to do all sorts of stuff that can't be worked that way. I'd be much better off having to do only a few things, which I can focus on, rather than being interrupted by all this house cleaning, and food shopping, and cooking, and being places at particular times. The ideal situation would be to just work on 2-3 different projects, and to stop to eat, shower and sleep as needed and not have to worry about any of those other annoying things that take up all my brain power.
So anyway, in 2010 I really became dissatisfied with the way I function and I really wish I could live a different way that suited me better, but unfortunately the world doesn't work like that.
I have been trying to think of ways to change the way I live, but the constraints of having to go to work at specific times, and of having to live with someone else who doesn't want to live my way really makes it impossible. You kinda need to live a certain way in this world, because it is set up around the expectation that everyone lives this way. But hopefully I can identify some of the things I need and work out how to implement a system or something to help with that, and reduce the stress a bit and get a life that feels a bit more natural to me.
It is now 02:05 - I am thinking of staying up until dawn. Husband went to bed ages ago because that is the sort of silly thing he does. Apparently sunrise here is 05:51, which is less than 4 hours away, although I am starting to get somewhat tired already...
Note: I did not stay up until dawn. I got bored and tired and since Gwri wasn't staying up I decided it wasn't worth it, so went to bed at 03:30. Slept until 12:30, because I was having good dreams so decided not to get up too soon.
I have read a few people's "the year in review" posts and wanted to post something as I enjoy the occasional band-wagon. However, I'm not sure what to post as I want it to be positive but I don't have much positive to say. And then the negative things are rather personal things that I don't really want to share, partly because I'd have to explain for years to make sure you didn't get the wrong idea.
However.
This is more a review of the last 10 years or my life, rather than 2010.
When I was younger, I used to be able to concentrate. Hyper-concentrate. And then when I got older, I didn't use that ability anymore because there was never enough time - at work you don't have enough time to really work before someone interrupts you. At home there is dinner to be cooked. And you have to go to bed at a reasonable time so you're not f*cked the next day because you have to get up early to go to work. (I use a strong word because lack of sleep has strong effects on me.) And so on. And so now I am left with my default concentration period of about 5 minutes because I'm no good at normal concentrating, and I am out of practise with hyper-concentrating. So I can't do anything. And this annoys me more and more and 2010 was particularly annoying in this regard.
Also, I am tired and lethargic and unmotivated and inertial a lot. These are all different things, but inertial is perhaps the major one and one I am not going to explain, although one person I know on LJ has probably come across this term as I mean it.
I have a terrible memory, for many things. I can't remember my goals in order to do them. I can't remember what I have to do today. I can't remember what I'm supposed to be doing at any particular time if I don't keep thinking about it. I watched the movie "Memento" recently and, although I clearly don't have short-term memory loss, the scene where he's trying to keep a thought in his head by thinking it over and over, and his use of situational clues is like a more extreme version of the way my brain works. For example, I'm making tea. I go and talk to my husband. I finish talking to him and I am wandering through the house with no aims or activity and I wander into the kitchen and see tea cups with teabags in them - oh, I am making tea! I forgot! This is why I can't multi-task while cooking because I will completely forget I am doing it as soon as I stop actively thinking about it. It's ridiculous.
And so, in 2010, I have got even more sick of these things than usual. I would like to be able to make a goal, remember it, and work towards it. Possibly even achieve it.
As a result of this, I am trying to come up with a plan to organise things better so that I can remember what I want to do in a day and so on. But I need to remember how the plan works and I also need to remember to work on the plan, and I keep getting distracted and forgetting.
But I have managed to buy a diary and a calendar and I am pretty sure that I have a plan on how to effectively use the diary that I hope will resurface out of my brain in a practical way at an appropriate time. You might be thinking - the way to use a diary is to write stuff in it and then do the stuff. But this is most definitely not a sufficient course of action for me. I have tried that way for about 15 years to no avail. To start with, I forget to write in the diary, forget to look in the diary, and lose the diary. I once found on the internet a really good diary method that I have been searching for through all my bookmarks and so on, but haven't found yet. It gave a method for how to record what you wanted to do the next day, or that week, or that year, and keep it all in a sensible, accessible way without losing any of the plans. It was pretty complicated, but kept everything all together so you couldn't lose or forget about any aspects.
In actual fact, I'd like to have less diaries and less writing down and less physical forms of memory, but the world requires you to do all sorts of stuff that can't be worked that way. I'd be much better off having to do only a few things, which I can focus on, rather than being interrupted by all this house cleaning, and food shopping, and cooking, and being places at particular times. The ideal situation would be to just work on 2-3 different projects, and to stop to eat, shower and sleep as needed and not have to worry about any of those other annoying things that take up all my brain power.
So anyway, in 2010 I really became dissatisfied with the way I function and I really wish I could live a different way that suited me better, but unfortunately the world doesn't work like that.
I have been trying to think of ways to change the way I live, but the constraints of having to go to work at specific times, and of having to live with someone else who doesn't want to live my way really makes it impossible. You kinda need to live a certain way in this world, because it is set up around the expectation that everyone lives this way. But hopefully I can identify some of the things I need and work out how to implement a system or something to help with that, and reduce the stress a bit and get a life that feels a bit more natural to me.
It is now 02:05 - I am thinking of staying up until dawn. Husband went to bed ages ago because that is the sort of silly thing he does. Apparently sunrise here is 05:51, which is less than 4 hours away, although I am starting to get somewhat tired already...
Note: I did not stay up until dawn. I got bored and tired and since Gwri wasn't staying up I decided it wasn't worth it, so went to bed at 03:30. Slept until 12:30, because I was having good dreams so decided not to get up too soon.
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