Self-Serving Sacrifice
Did well back at the day job today. It’s nice to not have meetings to worry about. I got my one SR done – marked Resolved – with only an hour or so of research. Got a VM spun up for the BZ project and got a test run going. I should be in good shape for transfer automation tomorrow and for having no deadline work when I leave on Thursday.
It was nice to not have anything to worry about yesterday: no work, no robots, no one available when I called. I got to sleep in myself and help Shanda get extra rest while she’s sick. I got to work on a bunch of robot code – lots of new framework pieces I’m excited about. I’m saving the new drive code for the team, but I wrote a config system and opmode wrapper and new base drivers for motors and servos. I still might get to a debug interface now that we have the parts for it, because I think that could speed up prototyping quite a bit. I also got to play a quick round of Rimworld – not a whole game but enough for good testing – and just to breathe for a minute.
I chatted today with someone who has found peace in accepting hopelessness. Which is a position I have found myself in. Dave used to say that I found the cure for hope and he’s right – I can definitely see the safety of fatalism. I have used it to keep myself alive. But it’s not the only trick I know, and not one I’d recommend if you have goals further in the future than this week.
It’s easy for us to want to give what we do not have, to teach what we do not know, to believe we know what’s best when we do not even know what we want for ourselves. But no amount of preferences or promises or punishments will substitute for practice. No sacrifice is big enough to make up for a lack of faith. No amount of other people coming to terms with past hurts will ever be enough that you don’t have to do it yourself.
It’s worthwhile to remember that feelings are information about the world, like any other perception you have. They sometimes tell you very important and accurate things. They sometimes tell you things that aren’t at all useful in your current situation. But they are there all the time, giving you data. They are piling up every time you fail to acknowledge them, even if you can get them out of your conscious mind. You can take them out of your index but they’re still consuming resources, even if you never access them. They are still keeping you from making choices that would require the space they consume.
No therapy this week while my therapist is away, so no need for a topic. I’m still going to take one for myself – projects I have trouble starting. I plan to use the time to start a GFM pitch and see what feels fall out of it. I don’t think I’ll get done in one go, but starting and having the feels is plenty for one day. I also want to try python for polygons, but that’s not for tomorrow – that’s maybe for HA4H on Thursday. I will have to leave for Portland before HA4H is done but for this week I just need to get started. In fact giving up after I start is one of the things I want to practice, to help with my fear of losing access to code as art.
I’m making progress on the budget and housing plan with Shanda. Not fast, but some, and way more than most of the last 5 years. I think we’ll be ready to involve a bank in a month or so, which would be real progress. There’s still work to do in adjusting for a life where we support two households indefinitely, but there’s some movement there too. I’ve got an idea for a next step on that front, if I can convince Shanda we’re up for it. It’s a plan we couldn’t do before because the avoidance made it invisible to you, but I think we can do it now.
ZiB
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Sent from a phone.
