|

The Bubble

Byjack
The Bubble

Our words to each other

Are poor feeble tools

Unwieldy, inefficient, inaccurate

Yet they built something

We fumbled yes

It’s part of our practice

And make me feel hope

That when we meet

We find ourselves

In a place where all else disappears

Except the two of us

Our minds

Our emotions

Mixing

Like water in a bowl

A place where words dissolve

Like mints

Into their true feelings

And our minds as one

Find a place

Outside space and time

Similar Posts

| |

Water In the Basement

Byjack
Water in the Basement

There was water in the basement today

My mom handed me a garbage bag

To throw away things

That we couldn’t wash

The saddest thing

Was a cardboard sculpture of myself

Because I knew

It was sodden and sad

Paper hair plastered on the side

Like a sad version of a bad hair day

I remembered when it was new

When my art professor told us about Chris Gilmour

The sculptor who used cardboard instead of stone

Intricate cars and motorcyles

Precisely detailed in warm brown

And gave us the assignment to create a sculpture of ourselves

But my sculpture

Wasn’t like Gilmour’s at all

It was all messy cardboard

Hot glued together

It didn’t look like me

But it felt like me

When I looked into the eyes

I remembered the way I felt

My mind was all stars and night and imagination

Some part of me

Is afraid to let it go

It’s a familiar sad feeling

Like what I felt when I let go of the girl I loved

Only

This time

The person I’m letting go of

Is the person

Who made the sculpture

Years ago

When I look at this sculpture that I made in wood and mixed media class, I remember what I felt in college. So young and full of promise. That I could be anything, do anything. That I didn’t have to think about the rest of my life. Part of me always wants to go back. And it is hard to admit that that part of my life is over.

I think about this when I wait for nighttime. It is nighttime when I will see how things are going to unfold. I hope she will show me her vulnerable side, her emotional side again. The parts of her that I knew I needed in my life when I first met her. But I know, I cannot force her to be that person for me. That there is a possibility, that she won’t. That she will be closed and I’m so sad that I may have to say goodbye to the person I was when I was in love with her.

Workpost 43: Resilience (17 Questions)

Byjack

My questions:

  1. How to find a good business partner?
  2. How to live an entrepreneur/unemployed life?
  3. How to approach taxes as an entrepreneur?
  4. How to approach risk?
  5. How to build a support system?
  6. How to handle rejection?
  7. How to approach financial risk in a smart way?
  8. How to rebuild from nothing?
  9. How to deal with people looking down on you?
  10. How to get hired/search for a job?
  11. How to turn off work?
  12. How to minimize work effort/stress/inefficiency?
  13. How to process awkwardness?
  14. What are different selling methods?
  15. How to sell in a way that I feel myself?
  16. How to gain from/work with/ benefit from the American system?
  17. How can I be more resilient?

My intuitive answers to the questions:

How to find a good business partner?

  • Write down what the ideal business is like
  • Imagine all your favorite parts
  • Imagine all the parts you need help with
  • Write down your values
  • Think about where a person like this (values + good in the areas you are weak + interest in your business area) would like to do/hangs out
  • Ask close friends if they know someone like this

How to live an entrepreneur/unemployed life?

  • They are different questions
  • For the entrepreneur
    • Without a company, you need to build a company around you
    • Need to hire help/services to help automate different parts of life
  • For the unemployed
    • Now is the time to look for help
    • Look into government assistance, help from family and friends
  • To decide which one you are:
    • Unemployed when you no longer have ability to make money
    • If you have savings + some cashflow you are an entrepreneur
    • If you have no savings and negative cashflow, you are unemployed
    • You can be an entrepreneur and still work a job to increase your cashflow

How to approach taxes as an entrepreneur?

  • Find a CPA that has experience working with entrepreneurs

How to approach risk?

  • Risk is actually really simple
  • Risk value = probability of success x value of success
  • The higher the risk value, the more worth the risk, compare that with the resources the risk requires 

How to build a support system?

  • The easiest way are people who want to live in a similar world as you do
  • People who’s goals align with yours
  • The easiest way to ascertain this is just to ask people
  • You can also try to go to places that are included in your vision for what type of world you want to live in

How to handle rejection?

  • Repair the ways in which you rejected yourself

How to approach financial risk in a smart way?

  • Get good at estimating risk value and investment
  • If the risk value is $100,000, and the investment is $90,000 then the risk is likely worth it
  • If the risk value is $100,000 and the investment is $10,000 then the risk is definitely worth it

How to rebuild from nothing?

  • Know your strengths
  • Know what people want
  • Sell yourself

How to deal with people looking down on you?

  • Repair the ways other people have looked down on your in the past

How to get hired/search for a job?

  • Think about the jobs that will be easiest for you to get
  • Based on the interviews and discussions, adjust closer to what makes you happy

How to turn off work?

  • Create a viable plan for when pending work will be addressed
  • Write down the plan and execute when you are ready

How to minimize work effort/stress/inefficiency?

  • Focus on creating clarity at all times on what is expected and when
  • Set boundaries around respect and time
  • Make sure that the goals are specific and small enough to complete one at a time

How to process awkwardness?

  • Find reasons why awkwardness is a good thing

What are different selling methods?

  • Relationships sales – they like you
  • Technical sales – they like the technology
  • Pressure sales – they don’t want to say no
  • Trust sales – they trust you

How to sell in a way that I feel myself?

  • Trust sales + technical sales sounds most like me

How to gain from/work with/ benefit from the American system?

  • Sell to the rich
  • Hire people who are good at what they do
  • Outsource tedious stuff to other countries or AI

How can I be more resilient?

  • Spend time getting up when you fall
  • Specifically focus time and effort on healing from painful experiences
| |

Workpost 18: Addicted

Byjack

I’ve been playing pokemon go so much recently. I’ve made a lot of progress in the game, but I really worry that I’m getting addicted because of how stressed out I am right now.

I stressed out about my relationship and about my career path moving forward. I want to make sure that work does not take over my life and that it stays aligned to what I want to do moving forward.

Every time I feel stressed, I reach for the pokemon go. Holy shit, I am addicted.

I feel very tired, but no longer sick. That is a good thing at least.

I’m going to walk around the airport. And this time, instead of catching pokemon, I am going to meditate and think.

On the plane I meditated on some of my issues and I came to a big realization. The first step to feeling or processing any pain is to notice and name the pain that exists. I spend so much time avoiding thinking about painful emotions or experiences, avoiding thinking about how things hurt me it makes it hard to face the pain at all since I’m not taking the first step,

I want to focus on doing that more now as the first step to processing more emotions.

|

Workpost 33: At the End of My Rope

Byjack

I feel pretty awful. I’ve lost focus in work. I feel overwhelmed and unhappy. Every day I stay up late at night. The only solace I find is in games. Everything that I wanted to do now feels like things I have to do.

I struggle to regain the mentality that I use for these workposts.

I guess I feel extremely tired and depressed.

There are a couple of things that filter through the haze that I’m feeling:

  1. I want to find a way to post on LinkedIn again. That is the one thing I want to work on achieving.
  2. This new idea in taichi, and breathwork. To receive what is coming instead of taking. To allow things to come to me. To receive breath instead of taking it. To receive emotions, purpose, and understanding, instead of creating it. I feel this is the essence of patience.
  3. To be curious. I want to do more IFS therapy, but I feel overwhelmed by it. Too much thinking about thinking that is too cerebral, non-intuitive, and downright frustrating. However, we can take the core concept of IFS – the concept of creativity. Ask how do I feel? What do I need? Why do I feel that way.

It’s not been all lost I suppose. There was something I worked through recently – two people that I am jealous of. One who went to Harvard and ended up starting a successful youtube channel, and another who worked on my software company before leaving and getting big on youtube for his music, and is now a famous musician.

In speaking with my friend Edgar about this I came up with the following concepts to remind myself in times of jealousy:

  1. How do I want to succeed my way? The issue with a lot of these people is that they got successful in things that I want to succeed in, but not in the way that I want to succeed. There is great value in succeed in the way I want to succeed.
  2. Hardship creates growth. Success isn’t the end goal, success just leads to creating more challenges for yourself to work through. The ones who go down the harder path to begin with will still succeed but will be more complete when they do.
  3. Is my goal to succeed a little in the short term? Or is the goal much bigger? This is the concept that if I want to gain one rank in Valorant, the outcome of a match matters (because my elo will be impacted directly). If my goal is to get to radiant (the highest rank), one loss in the scale of a huge journey is not significant.

Finally, I’ve put off doing a LinkedIn post for far too long.

Let’s tackle the steps:

  1. Answer a list of questions in a letter to my girlfriend.
  2. Come up with a research plan and timebox it.
  3. Timebox getting everything “on the canvas”, move very fast, get messy, take big risks, keep going until it coalesces into what the art wants to be
  4. Break to do other things, view work from different angles
  5. Put on strategic hat to finish

Questions to ask myself (step 1):

  1. What my vision for the ideal post?
  2. What am I worried about and feel uncomfortable by?
  3. What do I want to learn when creating this post?

Strategic Hat

  • See the work as something in itself, not just as a manifestation of my ideas
  • Put on creative hat, check: is there some feeling here, is there some beauty, fun?
  • Put on producer hat, check: if this was a work created by one of my clients, how would I promote it? If it was done by my brother?

*One Big Thing I Noticed*

It’s a lot easier for me to be motivated to workout than to work. Plan workout sessions for the entire day and bring work to do during those times. If no work gets done, I am still being productive and will be healthier, guaranteeing better work in the future.

Health Checkup 10/25/2021

Byjack

I feel worried about posting about this topic since it can be kind of gross.

However, I feel that physical health is one of the most important things to understand in life as it controls your energy levels, affects your mental strength, and dramatically affects your physical attractiveness or beauty.

Tracking and problem solving my health issues will not only help me but may provide inspiration for others.

Digestion

Symptoms: bloating, gas, diarrhea, distended belly, sensitivity to cold, stress, and exhaustion

Brainstorm:

  • Raw ginger – seems to add an overall boost to blood flow (yang qi) and stomach circulation
  • Farmhouse Culture Gut Shots – tastes absolutely disgusting, feels like it may actually help
  • Unlocking/moving/stretching hips – ever since my knee injury, my hips are tight and contribute to the blockage in my stomach
  • Stomach massage – helps smooth out the knots and blockage points
  • Increase overall circulation – qi gong, running and cardio all help increase overall circulation and remove blockages overall
  • Activate digestion while eating – eat slower and smell food more
  • Eat less – to 70% fullness

Current Focus:

I need to improve my baseline before going after a specific treatment plan. The baseline will focus on two basic areas: overall circulation, reducing strain. The goals need to be very small so they are easy to maintain.

  • Circulation – eat ginger every morning, run around the block once every morning (minimum 5 min)
  • Reducing strain – focus on eating as little as possible, meditate once in the morning and night (minimum 5 min)
Hair

Symptoms: thin hair (but seems to be thickening), itchy scalp, hair falling out, dandruff

Very strange that my hair is thickening but falling out at the same time. Pretty sure my massage is working but the new hair growing in is so thin it falls out easily.

Brainstorm:

  • Vigorous scalp massage – increase blood flow and already thicken hair a great deal
  • Wash hair – more often, with cold water and apple cider vinegar if possible to reduce inflammation and increase circulation
  • Oil/fatty acids – use huge amounts of conditioner and castor oil to thicken hair and prevent breaking and falling out

Current Focus:

I need to cleanse and increase circulation

  • Wash hair every day with cold water and apple cider vinegar, need to use lots of conditioner to counter the stripping effect of washing your hair too much
Knee (injury)

Symptoms: afraid to put pressure or impact, no feeling at surgery area, pain

Brainstorm:

  • More movement – motion is lotion to the joints
  • Increased muscle mass around the joint – muscle is needed to support the joint
  • Gua sha – need to tear up the scar tissue around the area and increase blood flow
  • Warmup/loosen hips – hips are too tight reducing range of motion

Current focus:

I need more circulation

  • Gua sha (or graston) for at least 5 min per day
Posture and Alignment

Symptoms: jutting forward head, misaligned hips, shoulders rounded forward

Brainstorm:

  • Cobra yoga pose – let the hips relax into better balance
  • Wall posture exercises – strengthen back muscles
  • Foam roller stretch – stretch chest muscles
  • Practice standing/walking – try to establish perfect alignment
  • Move joints more – joints are where everything attaches, moving the joints mean more relaxed and fluid movement

Current focus:

I need to see a chiropractor and also just slightly improve posture while doing things bad for posture (computer, phone):

  • Find a chiropractor within my health insurance
  • Focus on finding a comfortable way to look at the phone with head back (put your phone on your knees)
Vision

Symptoms: dry eyes, headaches (happens not very often), worsening vision

Brainstorm:

  • Relax into looking farther – stretches eye muscles
  • Move vision more – gets the eye muscles to work a little more
  • Do more active sports – forces your eyes to focus on things moving and far away
  • Blink more – resets the eyes

Current Focus:

I want to just relax my eyes more when looking at far away things, rather than trying to move closer.

|

Valorant Poems

Byjack

Today I will be playing a lot of Valorant and hopefully processing a lot of the stress and feelings I have around Valorant through the use of poetry.

Pregame Stress

I’ve got knots in my stomach

What if it is another day

Of humiliation

That drop in my stomach

Feeling helpless

Like I’m worth nothing

I go down in rank

The more I play

What is wrong me

That I cannot get better

I hate this

Myself

Me

Hands Sweaty

On my keyboard

Heat on my face

Clenched stomach

It is no wonder

Valorant has such a big impact on me

I wish to let go of my fears

And remember the satisfaction of shooting

I starting to find it a challenge to write poetry because my mind always turns to thinking strategically and thinking in terms of sentanaces and bullet points. I’m going to roll with that. If that is how I feel, we are just going to write in sentences and bullet points.

I feel a bit tired like I’m walking through a haze. I’m scared to start a ranked game, and yet there is an eagerness to gain rr. Gold 1, what could go wrong? Yet I’m scared. HOW DID I GET TO GOLD 1? That’s unhead of. It gives me so much anxiety that I don’t know what is going on.

I want to remind myself of my main valorant tenants:

  1. Think of it as a 1v5
  2. Follow your feelings, peek when you are ready
  3. Keep wrist relaxed, use movement keys to aim

Some additional tenants:

  1. Find a space angle to hold, something that feels safe
  2. Peek expecting them there
  3. Notice things about aim, don’t try to change them, noticing is the pathway to the unconscious mind

Goddamn, this fucking omen can’t hit him while he’s moving . Why is Silver Movement so good?????

WHY IS THE RAZE HIDING IN THAT AREA? NO FUCKING COMMS? I hate this team. Why can I not hit shots.

I think I wasn’t aware of the danger I was in when clearing heaven. Maybe need more of that 1v5 mindset. Also, maybe need to notice where my shots are going. Scared but playing again. It is silvers I am with WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY KILLING ME. Counterstrafing, one tapping me??? WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?

THIS IS LIKE GOING BACK 2 FUCKING YEARS. I guess what I thought before is that I would never drop this low because I can beat them on gamesense alone.

I feel tired. Why are the braindead idiots getting more kills? I feel a bit better now. I adjusted and I was able to get a bunch of kills in the end. I guess its just about holding better angles.

I don’t like this bullshit bottom fragging. I feel so tired and awful and I feel hungry.

It is interesting that with these reflections I was able to drop 39 kills in one of my games.