Category Archives: Personal Data

The Whole of the Moon

Once upon a time, I would not have known that today would be the turning point. It’s hugely helpful to now be able to look at myself, objectively, and understand when the tide shifts. It allows a measure of organisation that simply did not exist before. More importantly still, self-care is possible, where it did not take place previously. The fear that underpinned everything can then effectively be dealt with.

Right now, I’m not sad. I’m afraid. Saying that out loud is hugely useful as well, because it rationalises so much else. There is a scheduled dentistry checkup, which is inevitably fear-inducing without everything else that is currently taking place around me. My daughter is unexpectedly home sick and being able to be a good mum also makes me afraid. Most importantly however, my own fear of failure is inescapable.

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Understanding the difference between depression and fear is an enormous change. It’s pretty much the most important thing to happen to me internally since counselling and now that’s apparent, there’s the opportunity to employ some transformative ideas in order to move the personal narrative forward. Somethings are already in progress, others will undoubtedly appear over time.

However, the key to all of this is the significance of blame. No, it doesn’t matter who or what is at fault in most cases, and this whole situation is not to be played as a martyr, not ever. I don’t need those kind of games in my life any more. If there is to be acceptance of genuine progression, pointing fingers and apportioning blame needs to stop. That’s my problem to deal with, nobody else’s.

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The only way forward at this point is upwards, towards change and improvement.

Better start climbing, then.

Sing it Back

…ooh look, it’s two days into a new month and I’ve not put my belt on yet. Dun worry, that’ll all change tomorrow. For now, it’s probably time to celebrate last month’s achievement.

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4611 MEP’s to beat… that’s gonna take some work. I could strap on the belt 24/7, I suppose, but that rather defeats the object of the exercise. What’s needed here is CONSISTENCY, which is really quite easy to work on. Keep the rest days, know when it’s appropriate not to push, and ensure that there’s a proper balance between cardio and strength training.

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I always knew today would need to be an enforced rest day, and undoubtedly as we get closer to Christmas there will be other days where it is impossible to fit in the exercise required. If there’s a feeling on Tuesday morning there’s enough energy to catch up on today’s missed work I will, but it’s more likely to be a gimme. 22 days out of 31 with summat is brilliant. 

The aim is 20 days minimum on the calendar for November.

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With the news breaking yesterday that Google’s bought Fitbit, you’ll all soon be able to see my data, all over the interwebs without me needing to do screencaps… ^^ Until the changeover happens, I have plenty of opportunities to work on that 12k a day step total. If I wondered why I was so wiped after Wednesday night this week, I reckon almost 20k including a Blaze with hill incline runs probably had summat to do with it…

That’s tomorrow’s task too, with some heavy lifting thrown in for good measure. Why am I doing all this again…?

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However, I will be very much enjoying not having exercised today, oh yes…

Goodbye

I cleared house yesterday, not yet totally done. They’ll be some poking at my Twitter feed over the next week. I’ve only forced unfollowed one person, primarily due to the amount of content in their timeline that bothered me. I can’t convince other people that overt porn is ewww when you’re on a public feed. The assumption is that they don’t realise everybody can see what they do. So, instead of complaining, curate then hit the button.

What wasn’t expected yesterday was how lovely everybody else would be when I was actually honest for the first time in years.

I’m an equal opportunities Drama Starter. The issues with women is fairly represented in blog posts, over the years. Oddly, none of those incidents really matter any more, because most never lasted past the implosion that began them. It becomes progressively simpler to forget those pieces of past, making sure principles are held in memory as cracking examples of How Not to be an Adult on Social Media. 

These creepy guys though, many of whom I know are married…

I don’t think any women are stalking me: maybe it is already happening, they’re so good at it their plan isn’t abundantly apparent. You only get to react to stimulus that’s obvious. It’s remains a constant source of amazement how many men, when you strike up a conversation with them in a civil, but friendly fashion, automatically assume you could be a potential partner. That’s not how this should ever work. Twitter is NOT A BLOODY PUB.

Hopefully, by poking the feed from time to time a different perspective emerges. Over the years people have taught me many things. I know all about hentai and wish I didn’t. I didn’t know you could have an item named after you in a computer game. I didn’t realise that friendship overlooked people acting like fucking monsters, abusers being painted as victims. That’s a special kind of person I’d never, EVER want in my life again.

However fabulous your life might look up close, EVERYBODY will benefit from an occasionally unscheduled wake-up call. Nobody’s perfect, and taking stock of situations and environment from time to time… trust me, it’s really helpful. If your feed’s contents is enough to make someone decide that it’s time to leave, and it keeps happening, that might be a message worth heeding.

Listening is becoming a lost art, and it makes me sad.

Weather With You

I know why I didn’t want to write yesterday; simply not enough brain space to accommodate it. There needed to be other things done instead and today I’ll get back on the tasks in hand. Once upon a time, there’d be no means of questioning why stuff was happening either. Now, everything is considerably easier to fathom. The biggest realisation however is that some things will never be as they were.

1000 calories in a night is a big deal. There was a lot of pushing last night, and at one point so much sweat was dripping off me that I couldn’t see through my glasses. This is absolutely a new experience: arms this morning are sore in a completely new way. Interestingly,  historical injuries are also receding in concern. It’s officially the quickest recovery from blood donation that’s been managed since we started this journey.

Next step, of course, is to see if I can do it all again tonight with the same measure of success.

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There’s all the other stuff I gotta do as well, of course: prioritising it all becomes progressively easier with each passing day. Sleep patterns are slowly returning to normal, less caffeine is needed every day to keep brain functioning, it is all good. As long as that continues to be the case, life is the best it has ever been. The stress won’t ever go away, issues don’t ever vanish. That’s how this works.

The key is how that’s dealt with on the way.

Cantaloupe Island

Hey there Sunday. I did the majority of the work for next week last week and had hoped that there’d be time to swap over my desk space today but honestly, it isn’t going to happen. For the next two weekends I’m a lone parent anyway: it’s possible I might be going to Birmingham for the second one, dunno, it will depend on various factors. Whatever does transpire going forward, there is a lot on, but I’m ready for it.

Let’s make the second cuppa and get started.

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I’m working on a new novel. There is, of course, nothing at all wrong with the old ones, they just need editing but that’s not something I’m capable of doing right now. So, instead, it is time to make something new from scratch. That means a cover. This might be the best cover I’ve ever made, most relevant to content.

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Needless to say, in the downtime between poetry in May, this gets chipped away at… it also has a playlist, which is always a good guarantee stuff will be successful. This one gets to be listened to in the car, at the Gym, when exercising, so brain can be stimulated as well as the other muscles. Let’s see how successful it is.

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I have a submission to finish. It requires an artist’s resume. I bloody HATE talking about myself but it has now been proven that doing so produces results. Therefore, I’ll jerry-rig summat from that last successful submission (can’t talk too much about it yet, more as it happens) and see if we can hit the target again. This is tough work mentally, but knowing now it is successful, that people notice… that’s the key.

Just keep moving forward, doofus.

Personal Data // Alpha

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A lot has changed in my life in the course of the last year, more than had initially been grasped. It’s only when you have to lay life out to a total stranger that it becomes apparent of how a world view’s subjectivity will influence thinking and reaction. I’m absolutely not going to talk about the details of those conversations here, but I can consider the consequences they create in this virtual existence.

More and more, in my virtual sphere, it has had become socially acceptable to be the villain. Having played that role before such things were a means to make money, or show your disdain to other political/social groups, I realise that there is a lot of subtlety that is being ignored or simply not even being considered by people who feel that any criticism is bad. You either like summat, or you shut the fuck up.

Of course, that’s what I’ve done above. With the unsubtle, visceral lens screwed tightly into my world view, someone will read this tweet in exactly the same breath as the person who complains vociferously that their game’s being ruined by whiny, entitled fanboys. That position’s remained unchanged for well over a decade. The addition of ‘let people enjoy their stuff’ is irrelevant too. You come to Twitter for a fight, right?

That’s the entire point of posting a Tweet to start with.

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The subtlety of discussion is receding in my timeline. It’s quite rare to have that kind of interaction in the first place: what tends to happen is someone does a ‘thread’ on a useful subject that is read and discussed, people elevate memes to new levels of clever/ridiculous/indecipherable, everybody posts more pet pictures and that’s the game. Is it because I’m not following the right people? I don’t think so.

What seems to happen now is that people just don’t talk to each other as much unless they feel SUPREMELY confident of their ability to deal with all-comers. This mostly seems to manifest with genuinely arrogant, unreadable diatribes or the occasionally brilliantly smart, funny and readable commentator. I’ve had enough of listening to the smug writers and broadcasters who somehow are above the rest of us.

Looking for genuinely interesting new followers is an increasingly tough ask.

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Maybe this finally means the ‘if you’ve got nothing nice to say, say nothing at all’ adage is beginning to stick, I dunno… or maybe, more significantly for me, the feed I read on a normal day’s been reduced to something approaching quiet. The curation I’ve undertaken over the last six months has reduced my feed by about 250 followers: yes, I’ve gone in and force unfollowed a LOT of people.

Many of those were also people who would never, ever follow me back, and as a result are only useful to read and rarely react with. There are a few exceptions, but most of the discussions now are about subjects that are distinctly lacking in contention. I’m in no position to do anything else, and remain happy online. I look forward to the day when there’s more confidence to do so, however.

It will happen again, undoubtedly.

Go Up

I have always been a prolific tweeter: the platform very much gets used ‘as intended’ in that regard. As part of my ongoing process of enlightenment, there’s been some time given to what has happened to get me here. Twitter last week suggested following someone who I’d not spoken to for several years: looking back, I realised that they’d been blocked, and then needed to remind myself of why. Going down that rabbit hole was eye-opening, reminding how the platform has changed in just a couple of years.

It’s never your friends that are the villains. It can’t possibly be the sweet, kind individuals who very intentionally hide their true natures when online knowing full well the consequences can be devastating. The more you live a lie online, the more likely it is that someone will find you out. The behaviours are there for all to see: eventually, it just needs enough people to put together the pieces.

It means, over time, continually reassessing what it is I am and how it appears. All the contentious people that I’ve clashed with, over the years, fit into some fairly distinct categories. Most feel I’ve made a mistake, and they’d be right. I shouldn’t have gotten halfway through that community project and shelved it: the reason why it was never completed very simple. I lost confidence in the people I was supposed to be championing.

That was the moment reality finally broke my self-imposed fourth wall.

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Nearly all blocks imposed are the means by which I can exert control over situations that I feel threatened by. However, an increasing number are there to prevent people returning to read me, because they’re the quick and dirty means by which a feed can be instantly curated. As long as there’s gmail addresses still left to claim, it’s an academic task to set up a sock account and bypass any restriction: that act alone says far more about a person’s level of obsession than anything else. Take it from someone who knows.

The history of my past, littered with remnants of other people’s actions, nearly always paints me as the villain. I’m the one who seemingly shuts down conversations (clearly because I’ll lose) or I’m the one whose hijacking someone else’s feelings or personal sanctity. In nearly every case, there’s a realisation that the person you’re speaking to has either been dishonest, or is projecting onto you far more significance than actually exists in relation to the relationship.

That’s the killer: this other person thinks we’re friends, when we’re not.

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A lot of this comes from being burnt, an awful lot across the years, by people who decided I was their friend when it was apparent the entire relationship was convenience. It still happens: you have a historical association, clearly enough to grant rights to complain, control and ultimately dismiss one side of a story because clearly, that can’t be true. It’s why I refuse to Facebook, accept requests from people who I used to know on the basis you need to be able to feel comfortable with all the mistakes of your past.

I will become the shitty friend, and am more than happy to accept the mantle of arrogant, selfish, intractable. I’m the toxic element you needed to remove from your life,  yet so many people seem to find it really hard to let go. It’s odd, that: how many of those who complain so vociferously about being rejected will forget all that perceived mistreatment the moment they change behaviour. I know my shortcomings only too well. Learning those lessons is absolutely worth the effort.

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There are many consequences to living life online. This week, I’m watching someone I knew very well for about a year and a bit get dragged through the media: part of a fairly high-profile, rather unpleasant court case. We met online, communicated regularly: their Christmas compilation CD has significantly shaped listening tastes. Of course, I didn’t ‘know’ them at all, just the piece of themselves they decided to share with me. That’s all online life is about, in the end.

Reality is no easier, and far messier. Maybe that’s why we’re all here to begin with.