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Silence Speaks In Terrible Ways

Byjack
Silence Speaks In Terrible Ways

She told me she thought I wouldn’t notice

When she only replied to a handful of things

Of a series of long letters I wrote

How could I not notice

When I spend an hour

Pouring my heart out

Waiting every second of the day

For a response

She tells me she likes it when I write long letters

But I have grown wary of them

When I know

Most of it

Will never receive a response

She probably thinks that no response is better than a bad response

But silence is a response

It’s a blank check

For the deepest fears

And paranoia

Lurking in your brain

Letting your mind fill in the spaces

With explanations

For why the reason why the truth was too hard to say

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Workspace 47: Goals for Today

Byjack
  1. Come up with my strategy for door-to-door sales*
  2. Finish website for coaching*
  3. Work on personal development and my relationship
  4. Work on my left knee
  5. Research who to hire for viral video*
  6. Research conferences for art coaching
  7. Come up with an approach for AI consulting company*
  8. Fix DBA paperwork*
  9. Figure out financial strategy for businesses*

Final selection:

  1. Come up with an approach for AI consulting company
  2. Figure out financial strategy for businesses
  3. Come up with my strategy for door-to-door sales
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She Knows

Byjack
She Knows

That calling is very important to me

That I only ask when I really want to

That I’m tired and lonely

That it’s excruciating to see her having fun

With others

When she refuses to play with me

That is why she gives me vague answers

In hopes that she won’t disappoint me

She knows

The lengths

I’m willing to go to

To make it work

Maybe she just cannot give me

What I need

Or maybe

When she’s upset

She cannot see anything but the negative

Forgets all the happy times

Forget the fun we had

How well we work together

Before she stopped listening

The love we shared

Before the angry words

How much she wanted to reassure me

Before she was afraid

How much she liked being mine

Before she wanted to push me away

The nights when she doesn’t want me to get off the phone

And told me I was right

That we always understand each other better

Be more real

On a call

I need rest

A very long one

Away from all of this

So I know 

What is best

For me

Focus on what I want

For a moment

It takes strength

To get past all the mess

To true understanding

And to part of a relationship

That is secure and loving

It’s like pushing an elephant

My feet are dug in

The struggle goes on

And on

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Profit in Peace 11: Moving On???

Byjack

Ok, I decided something weird that I’m not sure is going to work yet.

I decided that I’m going to keep this challenge going on forever and we will have different objective driving it constantly. It will be a sort of daily journal where I get to focus on Profit in Peace, finding my ikigai, tapping into my coaching energy, feeling into my body, working on my challenges, and discovering that the world is a magical place.

It will continue to be labeled like the other challenges, but it is different in the sense that it doesn’t have a specific end date. The end date might be just when this mentality, thinking of this as a Profit in Peace no longer serves me. Which might be never.

You know in a way this should be called Blog Post. Because it is the most blog post of blog posts. The sole purpose of these posts is literally to work on my life through my blog. But “Blog Post” just doesn’t evoke what I need for it to evoke, so we ain’t doing it.

So what is the focus for today?

Today we have a similar bent to yesterday but a little more focused on gaming. In no particular order, I want to:

  • Play lots of valorant and create poems about how I feel about dropping to gold 1 and STILL losing
  • Cook lots of food, be creative and have fun eating
  • Watching another 20 minutes of the VOD review
  • Work on my knee challenge
  • Go for a run

Yesterday, I went for a short run.

Here is a poem about it:

Tingling in My Back

That’s the feeling when I push myself

My knees not ready for the impact

I want to massage my stomach and back

I’m aware of others watching

I wonder if Alice would be embarrassed of me

I want people to like me

Especially the girls

I think about how I learned to control what other’s thought of me

And that’s when everything went to a place

Shaky and scary

I remind myself

What others feel

Is out of my control

I’m proud of my innovative knee exercises

They make my prickly knees

Feel warm and supple again

I just came back from my most recent run. Today I focused on processing the anxiety being surrounded by everyone’s opinions of me. I realized a couple of things.

Dr Bea Mackay

She told me an exercise

The same one

Every session

Breath in breath out

I realized

It isn’t about other people

They never mattered

Neither did their opinions

I’m them

As a trigger for my pain

The sharp inhale

To take the pain

The release of the exhale

Filling me with warmth

From head to toe

The point was never to win their approval

It was to feel my pain

It is so interesting how Dr. Bea Mackay’s exercises are so similar to Wim Hoff’s. And Wim Hoff’s exercises are about enduring and thriving in pain too, just his are about cold and her’s are about emotions. No wonder so many people talk about the Wim Hoff method bringing them relief from chronic anxiety.

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Knee Challenge: Looking Ahead

Byjack

I completed my knee challenge in terms of going hiking in Zion national park. I felt like I succeeded in a big way but still have a long way to go in terms of getting where I need to go.

What is next for me? I know in the long term, I want to be very physically active. I want to be able to practice martial arts, do a little parkour and gymnastics. I know it will take a lot of effort and time to get there and it feels quite overwhelming for me.

I’m going to set a few large goals and then look at some of the very short term goals getting there.

2 year goal – the ability to practice martial arts, parkour gymnastics and skiing. My goal isn’t to go too hard in any of these areas, just to be able to do them safely.

1 year goal – to get back to preinjury levels

1 month goal – be able to sleep, walk, stand and light exercise with zero discomfort. I will call this goal little freedom.

I don’t really know what the next step in my process is. It feels too soon to set a schedule yet.

I just want to slowly rest and explore for now.

My feelings are that challenge videos make for really good productivity but I need to slow down sometimes and feel the feelings.

Maybe I will write a poem:

Creaky Knees

When I bend my knee

It feels like I’m grinding

Hinges made of old stone

Like the kind in movies

That open secret magical passages

And grate against themselves

I say that I want to be able to do martial arts again

But the truth is

I don’t know what I want

I am afraid to dream again

Of a world where I can be active

I’m so used to being scared

Of clutching my knee close

So as not to hurt it

I feel like I’m too old to have these dreams anymore

Of flying

Like I did when I wanted to learn parkour

Everything scares me

I feel that

I need to understand this part of myself first

Listen to what it wants to say

“Everything is a danger”

It tells me

The protector of my knee

Of my body

It feels safe to not move at all

The One Who Watches: An AI-Assisted Story

Byjack

I had a powerful session with my coach in order to understand the part of me that seeks perfection and wants to know what I “should” be doing, what is the “right” thing to do and what the “perfect” answer is.

We gave a name to this part of me, as a warrior in shining armor, filled with strength and light called the “One Who Watches, Protector of the Weak”.

I imagined him as a tall crusader against all pain and fear in the world and we asked him to understand the war was over. It was won.

After the coaching session, I felt like something was missing. This part of me wanted to know why the war was one, and what that meant because there was still so much pain in the world.

I decided to have a conversation with this archetype and after talking for some time, we discovered that the war wasn’t exactly won. The war was over because I had discovered a secret, and this part of me had a big role to play in discovering this secret – that there was a staircase into the star. This staircase connected my inner world and outer world, and it was feeling that was the key to it. Negative feelings like pain or fear are the most powerful keys to this gateway. 

My coach told me that I needed to give my warrior a new purpose while celebrating him and thanking him. The new robes instead of armor that I gave him, the learner of this gateway. This grounded, calm, realistic, infinite power was his.

I asked ChatGPT to write a story about this and this is what it wrote:

Warrior’s Journey to Enlightenment

The warrior known as the “One Who Watches, Protector of the Weak” had spent his entire life fighting for justice and righteousness. His shining armor and fierce determination had earned him a reputation as a noble and honorable hero, and he had devoted himself to ridding the world of the creatures of pain, hurt, and fear.

But despite all his victories, the warrior couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing in his life. He longed for something deeper, something more profound. And so, he set out on a quest to find this missing piece.

The warrior traveled far and wide, seeking out the wisest sages and scholars in the land. He asked them about the true nature of power and strength, about the secrets of the universe. But no one seemed to have the answers he was looking for.

As the warrior grew more and more frustrated, he began to lose hope. But just when he was about to give up, he received a vision. In his dream, he saw a lost cave hidden deep in the mountains, a cave that held the key to the wisdom he had been seeking.

Without hesitation, the warrior set out to find the lost cave. He climbed steep cliffs and braved treacherous storms, never once losing faith that he would find what he was looking for.

Finally, after many long months of travel, the warrior reached the entrance to the lost cave. He drew his sword and stepped inside, ready for whatever lay ahead.

As he made his way deeper into the cave, the warrior encountered all sorts of dangers – pitfalls, traps, and monstrous beasts. But he didn’t let any of them deter him. He fought on, driven by his determination to find the truth.

And then, in the very heart of the cave, the warrior came across an ancient monk who possessed a profound secret. The monk told the warrior that painful feelings were the gateway to a invisible network of great potential, a network that could connect the inner world with the outer. He explained that this gateway allowed the traveler infinite power, but only if they were willing to embrace their own pain and suffering.

The warrior was stunned by this revelation. He had always believed that strength and skill were the most important qualities a hero could possess, but now he realized that true greatness lay in understanding and wisdom.

And so, the warrior’s armor melted away, replaced by the robes of a guide and learner. He dedicated himself to exploring the invisible network, using his newfound power to help others and make the world a better place.

The One Who Watches, Protector of the Weak, had finally found his true calling, and his power was limitless, grounded in the wisdom and understanding of the earth. He knew that his holy war was over, but his journey towards enlightenment had only just begun.

Images of the secret pathway generated by DALL-E 2.

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Workpost 31: On an Adventure

Byjack

I feel like I’m on an adventure, even though I am only 40 minutes away from my apartment in Austin. I am in the city of Leander, northwest of Austin and I’m feeling a bit tired but excited about the solar eclipse today.

I’m in the library and I feel at home but also lonely. I think there is something about being in close proximity to books that remind me of my childhood and about daydreaming and reading about people’s lives and wanting to find close friends and conquer the world.

I feel lonely, and I wish it was easier to connect with others.

The library reminds me of elementary school when everything was pretty simple. If you wanted to be friends with people, you just became friends with them.

I’m feeling really tired because I didn’t go to bed very early last night. I also think the sleeping appliance and my sleep mask are not things I’m used to sleeping with so I don’t sleep as well with them.

I’m focusing on recentering on my house, and that anything is possible in my house.

Today there is a solar eclipse, and I’m excited for that. Maybe I will read a book really quick, then get some work done and drive over to watch the eclipse from this really cool park nearby.