Slow muscle up
one arm chinup
iron cross
break upper door frame
#3 gripper
bend something in half

Once again a bit of not sleeping so good. Here and there have periods where my sleep is too short and too light. Seems definitely related to night shift. When I attempted a one arm chinup everyday I certainly slept like a rock. But trying it everyday was too much. Started feeling like just passing out all the time. Was also starting to get weaker. Wonder if it was hurting my heart also. But, must sleep a bit better than I've been managing recently.

So much goes wrong without proper sleep. So many things. Noticed lose ability to appreciate music. Not that that's maybe so high on list.

So not every day then but shall two or three times a week.

...I think just feeling physically not as well makes me fearful/tense. I can see how people get drug addictions in this way. One constantly doesn't feel well and thus is constantly fearful/tense. This is a constant anxiety that ends up wearing them down mentally off into the direction of 'panic attacks', etc. One increasingly, in desperation, turns to various drugs for even a day of relief, something to let loose the relief valve just to survive another week at work. Depending on the extent to which they don't recognize the danger of the drug, they start taking more and more.

...there is additionally something of the fantastic about attempting extreme feats of strength. It is a sort of fantastic dream which means a sort of hope, the attempt to aspire to something remarkable. Silly though it is and really just to exhaust nervous system enough to overcome insomnia.

Liked my new job so much in part because it seemed to me so much better than my previous jobs. Whether or not this was even actually true doesn't matter. Just the perception matters. Lately haven't been thinking in such terms. The newness has passed. No longer comparing it to whatever rebuilt memories of past jobs I had.

Anyway, to think, it could be worse, can work quite well for standing bad situations.

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hope replaced by fear.

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Bob Dylan is freakishly overrated. I do like his music OK. He used to have a nice voice, which he's since lost. Lyrics and composition are nothing special. Emperor's new clothes effect. Which I think occurs so often. So nice to believe in something. Not just to brown nose to the powerful but even just to agree with a group about something and to build something up.

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Need some fantastic dream. Or just some dream. Something to keep me going forward. I've no children. My dream was to write. Lost that. Think it just doesn't matter. I guess need to find a way to bring that back. Need a dream to give me hope. Without hope negative things fill the void. But I've lost all belief in the fantastic.

What are good uses of the internet?

1. wikipedia is better than a encyclopedia.
2. can store music in case house burns down
3. could be used for people with common interests to find each other and come together. But this is hardly happening. Trying to use it for this purpose is like endlessly surfing 300 channels of crap for something worth watching. The time wasted isn't worth what little one finds... I've found one worthwhile person online in a decade. Of that I'm very glad. But, I'm not going to spend another decade in order to find a second. Just the time wasted would be bad enough, not to mention the ugly memories, the knowledge of the existence of so many crappy people.
4. Free software/cheap software. VSTs, Reaper, etc.
5. Getting news of the world through a medium not completely owned by billionaires.

There is a lot though which is a waste, a time waster at best, and often worse. The thing it could be used for, is just not happening, I keep expecting it to change. It's not. Maybe someday society will change. But for now best just to turn away from some things.

Thinking of deleting self from facebook. What worthwhile thing has occurred there? I've got in contact with people I knew in the past. Which confirmed how utterly hopeless they were/how bad my situation had been. That was worthwhile to know, to confirm, as I had forgotten. I had turned it into largely being my own fault, when it wasn't actually.

Now though, just thinking of Douglas Adams immortal character who's goal is to personally insult every person in the universe. Comically was thinking of using facebook for that. Would be sort of nice to just send an insult randomly day by day to crap people I haven't seen in 10, 15, 20 years.

I think that's the only useful thing left for facebook. So off to delete self now. As a statement. Not that anyone cares. But also because it's just wrong. The way it's used. The way people interact. The time wasted.

The internet has primarily been used to increase people's isolation, not their knowledge. It is best to avoid using it to communicate/interact with people. Any exceptions must be very very carefully considered. Like using email to find a cello teacher for example. Or occasionally some short email to someone I communicate primarily by phone with. Or to mail pictures or short stories, etc.

There is on the one hand, incredible frustration with this society, with it's social norms, and the feeling of the need to utterly reject it, to furthermore make a statement, to take symbolic actions to express my disgust, my anger, to make it clear... to who? To me, at least, to some imaginary god perhaps, to others I think I must think, but ought to know better.

There is on the other, the reality that all others are just trying to adapt to it, and utterly oblivious to what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, utterly clueless that it's the entire whole of society to which I'm reacting. People just trying to get by from day to day who would be baffled at best if I showed anything of what I'm feeling. To these people I can it seems at best just hide everything, and keep things pleasant, albeit forever meaningless.

Pleasant and meaningless while I know the future holds absolutely nothing. Pleasant and meaningless while I want to randomly scream in every direction.

I want to make a statement that it is nothing. I want to expose it. This is like... I see the golden dream in the distance, I want it, and instead get something meaningless. Always just the meaningless. The dishonest. Anti-truth. The empty. But I can pretend this meaninglessness is something else. And in pretending it can give some nourishment. So do I accept it or throw it away?

Without it, will I starve?

And, will I hurt others in the process?

Will anything good be accomplished?

The thought is that by rejecting it I might reach the golden dream someday, that I will reach truth, the meaningful, that even if I don't, I'll be true to myself at least...

But I'm just starving, and possibly hurting others. Albeit probably not really. Mostly just appearing bizarre.

To speak the truth when it will do no good?
To instead lie?
To just say nothing at all.

Qualities to look for to better avoid more crass treatment by yet another person.

1. Book reading. (Or corporate TV?)
2. Ethical stances above the status quo. (Or primarily concerned with fitting? Pleasing others or pleasing over-I?)
3. Lack of demonization of others. (Furthermore do you tell someone when you disagree with them or just say nothing and avoid them in the future?) This means being intolerant of intolerance in a way.

Spent some time in the spare bedroom in bed with J with both windows open with the wind and rain. We both had a book and snuggled close to stay warm. My latest song wafting in from the other room. All very nice. J is always so warm while I'm usually quite cold. I was trying to read Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Beautiful book but I was quickly falling asleep... Trying to stay awake as I've got to switch back to night shift after 5 days off.. Ate a bunch of chocolate but still fell asleep very early and am here up by 5AM next day... So now the possiblity (again and again and again) of having a 27 hour day. At least (as it happens over and over) not bothering as much to stress about it. This time will go out for breaky and then take sleeping pills.... Which I bet probably aren't so good for me. But what else to do?

Well anyway, this was supposed to be a happy post. Have been running at least 3 days a week. A max of 4, work stops me from any more than that. And have been sleeping very well. Managing to sleep deeply for 6 hours instead of waking up after 3. That is The Reason for the running. Knees and hip joints holding up very well thanks to set of lunges and toe raises after each run. Side effect has been that I'm running much faster. Running with 5 pound weights also.

Anyway, so nice to fall asleep while reading with J. With hohner 26 melodica glitchy reggae coming from other room and the rain and wind and three kitties. And Proust.

Also read Hobb's new Dragon book. Read the entire 400+ page book yesterday. It's both really enjoyable and incredibly absurd on some level. Kept on imagining a friend as being the main character. A lady described as having red hair and freckles and being very scholarly...

And a vikingish Weis and Hickam fantasy that was slapped together pretty badly.
And Black Hole by Charles Burns which was extremely depressing. I suppose the disfigurements were symbolic... It maybe is a good representation of high school...
And The Genius in All of Us, which is I guess what I've mostly thought... That it's a matter of wanting it and then practicing hard enough and smart enough. And that virtually anyone can achieve virtually anything. But, the thing is, the wanting it part in the first place is no simple matter... Nor practicing smart enough...

Trying to find a cello teacher somewhere in the area. The one's listed online have moved/disappeared. Cello is so expensive. Online the talk is you must spend at least 2000 dollars or otherwise not even waste your time. Also must get a teacher they say... I've never bothered with teachers. Past music teachers only seemed to be trying to make me hate music and were quickly discarded. Might end up just buying an electric cello... But for now still looking for a teacher and hoping to rent a 2000 dollar cello...

The quality of keeping it light and fluffy. Has it always been this way or is this an adaptation to a world of so many people where everyone is regularly moving to a new job and new house, etc such that it's just very rare to have anyone other than a few relatives that you're really keeping in touch with over the long term? Instead you learn to treat even what few people that you keep in touch with for a few years as if each meeting is the first and last time you'll see them.

And how do you treat someone/have a good time with a total stranger that you're meeting for the first and last time? You keep it light and fluffy. You crack stupid jokes. You keep it meaningless. You don't talk about anything 'personal' or 'private'. This is just how the well adapted people are such that even if you know a person for years you're still acting this way.

Or is 'light and fluffy' The Optimism? Is showing anything 'private' or 'personal' being 'negative' and dark and thus to be avoided?

I'd rather just stay home and read a book than associate with the light and fluffy. These people really annoy me. I respond to their idiotic exuberant hellos with a frown. I'd as well watch some corporate garbage TV, some reality show as associate with these people. And understand the saying, 'the difference between a wise man and a fool is that the wise man learns something from the fool.' I think it quickly quits applying when the fool is a marionette. When their every action is just an act and there's nothing at all real occurring. The real them is buried so deep they can't even find it anymore. They're buried in layer after layer of meaninglessness. Nothing that isn't a complete and utter waste of time ever comes out of their mouth and they're defiling the truth. They are a lie.

Unfortunately this all means that it's always best for me to just stay home.