I just posted a video of me playing the piano with no anxiety.
The first time I posted a video of me playing the piano was last year and I practiced for hours and hours to get the video right and my heart was in my throat.
Since then, I learned that I was an artist. I create the best art I can at the time. My responsibility is to my art, not to make the people like my art.
This belief has been a rescue boat in savage seas and has brought me nothing but peace and tranquility.
Be an artist.
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It’s not really a syndrome, but I am a procrastinator. I recently watched a Ted talk about being inside the mind of a procrastinator. I used to fight my nature of procrastination but have since embraced it. Rather than feeling bad about how I work, I ensure that when I procrastinate, I do a controlled procrastination and make sure that I have exactly the right amount of time to accomplish what I need to accomplish.
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Working on a program right now. Unfortunately, I’m dependent on the blockchain. Not just the local ganache application, but the decentralized blockchain. It takes time. The rinse and repeat cycle for developing without documentation is frustrating. Not even guaranteed that I will be successful at this because the information is packed so tight. Never give up. Never surrender.
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Last night I was going through some stuff in storage to create a space to record some video production. I found a video of a musical (community theater) I was in 9 years ago, and I did not like how I looked. I realized that nothing had changed. I think it takes that spark to light a fire.
I’m going to change my body to what I want, which is healthy (based on performance objectives) and very agile. I care much less about the look of it, but I realize the appearance of my body is the representation of how close I am to my objectives. And I’m not close.
Today, that changes.
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I have been writing a lot in notebooks lately. Normally where I’ll make checkboxes and lists I have been writing full sentences. Instead of putting “read, work out, take dogs out” as a list, I’ll write that out like this: “Today I’m going to read 10 pages from
It also allows me to think as I write, to process my thoughts in order to get them down. I find when I write on a computer, I’m focussed more on the writing than the thinking. I have to pause to think. That may be due to being able to type fast and without looking at the keyboard, or maybe it’s just consequent to the act of typing. I don’t know. But when I write in cursive on paper, my thought processes are much different and I’m able to think more thoughts and connect more dots than when I type.
I was explaining power to someone today (one day, I might share who that someone is – long story and beyond the scope of this post) and the morality behind it. As well as the philosophy behind power. I expressed my definition of power: Something that empowers you to do something.
Fire is power since it empowers you to cook or be warm.
Electricity is power (and we actually refer to it as power) since it empowers you to do all the things it does (too long to list here).
Money is power since it empowers you to acquire resources for your or others’ consumption and/or enjoyment.
Physical strength is power since it empowers you to help lift others up, literally, or dig them out of a tornado-struck house.
It’s the use of power that creates morality, not the existence of it. Using a horse to plow a field is power. Eating salad is power. These things empower you to do other things.
Anything that empowers is power.
I couldn’t think these thoughts while I type, only while I write.
Then I thought of contemporary uses of the term empower. When we teach, we empower. We can empower people to stand up for themselves by teaching them a perspective of the situation and themselves. We can empower people to stand up for others, again by teaching perspective and sharing insight so the compassionate will be moved to stand.
Does this make us… Power? Do we have the power to empower people?
We absolutely do.
What an incredible source of identity. To have the power to empower people. And I’ve seen that empowerment come from encouraging words, insight, perspective, instruction, a pat on the back, a hug, a cheer… so many things can empower people.
And each one of us has this power.
As they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Did you know that you have that power? If you had asked me academically yesterday, I would have said yes. But after I considered the profundity of my definition of power in relation to whether we each have power, my answer is still yes… but a wholly different yes.
Be powerful. Empower everyone whose path you cross. That’s your power.
Here we are. Sunday night. Everyone’s asleep but me (and everyone playing videos, but they should go to sleep).
I bought a new laptop recently. I’m not going to say it is the fastest in the world, but it is faster than the one listed as the fastest in the world by several (no doubt branded articles) 2 months ago. It does have more cores than any laptop in the market.
I’ve not been able to do any serious development for many months as my other laptop is 1) old enough to start showing signs of keeping up with my need for processing power and 2) damaged enough that it no longer charges a battery so it’s basically an underpowered desktop. I’ll probably repurpose it as a server.
Anyways, I have so many projects to try to catch up on now. First of which is a rewrite of my task-management software. I built a version that is SUPER insecure, but the purpose was two-fold; to learn how to program in a new language and to also create a rocking task manager. I accomplished both, but I was not following any security conventions when I wrote it. Now that I work in security, when I look at it my skin crawls.
I’m rewriting to a version others can use as well. So, if you’re interested, drop my a line and I’ll add you to a beta-users list.
Once I’m done that, next “Johnny Renaissance Project” is a t-shirt store that I’ve started (on paper at least, plus some domain purchasing, etc). Trying to generate a little passive income. I have a few projects passed that but they are written in my journal which isn’t in my hand at the moment and I wrote them down so I wouldn’t have to remember them. 🙂
I am toying with the idea of working in 10 day chunks. You can follow the Decaday category for the updates.
PS. RV life rocks.
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