The most recent previous post is pinned and therefore does not appear in sequence. Projects & Aspirations is what it says. It will be updated. It's incomplete. It's a good start.
Facebook is no longer a medium for Rob inputs or outputs. Like, at all. My account was deleted. I may say more about it here eventually. I did nothing salacious. I did, and so far continue to do, nothing at all.
I made a new crayon coloring video the last time I woke up (yesterday at 7pm). It was the first time in a long time that I woke up wanting to be awake. The pain has been bad lately. Waking with no motivation is common so I was happy when yesterday/today started differently.
I've been half-listening to sci-fi audiobooks that I'm not super interested in. As is the case with some recent inspirational recommendations I am trying to avoid books closely related to topics I wish to write about. I have a sense that some media helps inspire me while others may interfere with what I seek to produce.
Recent thought-provoking media inputs include Schulman's Conflict Is Not Abuse and Philosophy Tube's Judith Butler video essay. “Thought provoking” does not signify total agreement. Specific points of disagreement, in fact, are what I feel inspired to expound on. Again, eventually. Everything is eventual. I have little ability to predict my future functioning. Lately I've contemplated joining TikTok and Neocities. They're 2 totally opposite style places, but the same reason has held me back from both. I do not think I have the spoons. [Explore spoon theory via quality search results at search.Marginalia.nu.]
It's 6:15am. Good night!
Update: it's now 8:40 and I haven't slept. My eyes are burning but I haven't slept yet.
Subject-verb agreement is something I dislike. For me it's an obstacle between thoughts and words. Alas we cannot communicate in pure thought and we have developed words as an imprecise medium of exchange. I translate my thoughts into words so that I may share them with you. Words also interfere with thoughts, it has been proven. “Interfere” sounds only negative when I could have said “affect.” The image coming to my mind is like clean water and sewage. Any backflow is contamination. I love words! Now might be a good time for me to say that. Words aren't sewage. But I do think words are an incomplete or insufficient translation of thoughts. Example: I find myself thinking, and often before I know it speaking, a cliché. Some phrase I've heard 1,000 times comes to me and I happily grab that prefab piece and add it to my current pondering. It's a relief from the burden of thought. New thinking is work. Prefab ideas, words, and phrases are welcome short cuts. That is, until I realize I'm not saying what I mean — perhaps I am not even sure of my own ideas anymore because I let preexisting ones infiltrate my thoughts. In almost all cases the best remedy is time. Taking time to stop and think and let myself perceive the world, that's a powerful antidote to regurgitating prechewed ideas.
Observed Sunday, the 14th of April
Fort George Island, Florida
YAYAYAYAYAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY! The fireflies were out. So were biting bugs and I wished I had more (natural) bug repellant coating than I did, or to wear long pants and sleeves if I can bear that heat.
Sunset was just before 8:00 p.m. Good viewing begins then, and improves at 8:30 to 9:00 as darkness increases. The most difficult aspect of viewing these fireflies is adjusting our eyes to darkness. Cellphones off or brightness turned way down. Give your eyes time to adjust. Relating to phones and eyes, capturing the fireflies on video or photo is a challenge. I always take some captures but honestly it's better not even trying and just enjoying the live experience. The biting bugs are more easily avoided when continuously moving, another argument against stopping to take images.
I MAY GO BACK TONIGHT! Get in touch, anybody who is interested.
Three latest video posts are previews of what's to come. That is, if I stick to what I have planned currently. The threat of burnout is likely and financial pressures are mounting. Enjoying the process > results is key. For now I hope to adhere to the schedule
Sunday, March 17, 3:30repeating 2 weeks later
It's a book club, it's a support group, it's a new religion:
I’m amazed by my certainty that ideas come from the unconscious. If anyone reading this struggles with focus and decision making I strongly suggest you reduce your inputs, embrace silence, and get plenty of sleep. When authors say that their characters determine the story, how do you suppose that happens? What it means is that progress in thinking up a story takes place unconsciously.
Talking on video as much as I do leaves a record of thought development. I can see myself having an idea while talking. It occurs seemingly spontaneously, out of nowhere, because ideas come from the unconscious. Something in the moment likely triggered its appearance. A new idea pops out raw and is often labeled an ADHD distraction. Even if I like the idea I don’t know where to go with it. If I try to take it too far (more than my unconscious has worked on it) I get lost and uncertain. That’s the stage when mistakes are easily made, pushing an idea instead of waiting for it to develop. The best thing for me is to acknowledge an idea that I like that I want to work on, and then to put it aside. Later the idea will come back more refined, without me having spent any time on it consciously. I have seen this pattern repeatedly in my “talking to myself” videos.
title above is just cuz titles help with blog organization. I considered that title for what appears below but will omit it if it appears elsewhere. It may become the caption to my 2nd planned stream of consciousness video on YouTube.
Create
Share
Separate
Relate
Pause
Feel
Create without filter. Thinking, feeling, being alive are the source of creativity. Hinder none of these.
Share. I’ve chosen to be an artist. Many lovely people are designers and marketers, but I am not. I am an artist.
Potential caption to accompany an as yet unpublished video of me talking to myself for over an hour. — Update one week later: Said video is now on YouTube & YewTube. Look at me, doing stuff as planned!
What could easily be judged as the raving of a madman is an attempt to capture genuine self talk. At least since I first learned of Stream of Consciousness literature I fixated on the seeming impossibility of capturing actual thought. I grant that lack of interest in such a project is a possible explanation. The content may indeed be of no general interest and is nearly incomprehensible to boot. To the best of my ability I am not talking to any viewer other than myself. As with the effect of measurement altering that which is measured, I've long felt that recording changes the behavior being recorded. It has been
difficult for me to record thoughts. On video and verbalizing I am much more performative than I would be with no recording. Having said that I do banter with myself, have inside jokes, laugh at myself a lot, sing to myself. None of the behaviors in this video are uncharacteristic of me when not being recorded. There will (hopefully) never be a way to record actual thoughts. If a subject were unaware of being recorded their thoughts would be silent. I consider there to be value in this recording as psychological data. I only know my own brain so I could be an extreme outlier. But I do not believe so. Regardless I'm learning how I think. My brain circles back to topics. What is often considered distractability I view as natural functioning. The work of wise decision making happens in the background, I believe. The rapid cycling of thoughts into focus is how my mind operates. Development of ideas takes place consciously as well as unconsciously. My current take is that the unconscious processing is the more valuable. In other words, during healthy functioning an idea cycles back into top of mind more developed than the last time.