Neko

bought dr. k's guide today, going to try and build up a solid meditation practice

missing Gabriela :) but glad to be back in the States. what a great, perfect, excellent trip it was. it was really such a joy and pleasure to get to connect with the beautiful nature and kind hearted people of Latin America. i will forever cherish the past 5 months and i hope i can visit again one day. i am ready however for a season of putting my head down and getting back to work. i need to get my diet and exercise and health back in check.

I used to be a mover, as my job - moving furniture from place to place. Each day of work had a very tangible input and output. I'd put in thousands and thousands of steps each day, liters of sweat, occasionally blood, and at the end of the day I could stand back and see "all these things were in that other house this morning, now these things are all here". Seems kind of silly to say out loud but I did get a sort of primal sense of "work has been completed today".

Now, as a full time software dev, the "tangible experience" of my job is staring at screen and tapping at keys. Sure, different problems to solve each day, but I don't get that same "trophy effect" (coining this term to describe how it feels to look back at the work you accomplished). Especially being fully remote, I don't even get to go out with my coworkers for a beer to celebrate a successful launch or overcoming a difficult challenge. So each day is experientially very very similar to the previous day.

Another factor that the old job had that I'm lacking now was the long-term trophy effect of seeing and feeling my muscles grow over time. One day I notice "hey, lifting this piano is actually within my body's capabilities" whereas dev work feels like being on a treadmill that is always set to a slightly faster speed than I can actually run - each 'challenge overcome' is just a pile of technical debt that I'm gonna regret writing in 6 months.

I think it's partly a personal mindset problem; I should be taking some time out of my work every so often to reflect on the challenges I've overcome and the growth I've made. Well I don't know how to end this rant but that's the last of my thoughts for now so thanks for reading bye

found this forum post that realllllly resonated with me: agora road. it bummed me out that i don't have a richer familial and friend network. what i do have is amazing and i'm super thankful for it but i'd like a wider network.

what should i do about the fact that most of my favorite content creators post exclusively on big tech platforms? thinking of running some scripts that mirror content to other platforms. it's my last monday in El Salvador before i go back to the states. i'm really gonna miss it here, it's so nice

sick of wasting time on instagram and youtube watching random bullshit. wanna make real connections with people and interact with them outside of the paradigm of "how can i turn your attention into money". i respect the hustle but i don't want my attention to be a commodity.