/users/xiled/phlog/2019/20191203

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	Stardate: 20191203.1227
	Location: SBUX
	Input Device: AlphaSmart dana.wireless
	Software: AlphaWord
	Audio: SBUX Muzak
	Visual: Oatmeal, SBUX coffee drinkers, cars
	Emotional State: numb, low-grade depression
	*WARNING: Long, deep dive entry*

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	I woke up about an hour ago. I think I have been going
	through some low-grade depression. I think it has been going
	on for awhile now; I just haven't allowed myself to slow down
	and let it fully manifest.

	The past month or so, I have just been going and going.
	Attending to work matters, attending to family matters,
	attending to stuff...just not really taking care of myself
	physically as well as emotionally. My diet is crap, my sleep
	is minimal, my exercise, heh, what is this exercise you speak
	of? So yeah, I have not been taking good care of myself.

	So this past long weekend with all of the Thanksgiving stuff
	and cold weather going on, I basically had a system crash.
	Oh, I also had my son's soccer tournament to attend to on
	Sunday, which had me out in the elements and did not help.

	Sunday night, I'm coughing and congested. No restful sleep
	Monday, I'm totally useless and stay in bed for most of the
	day. I call in sick. Monday night, same thing. Not much
	restful sleep. I stay in bed for Tuesday morning. Now I'm
	at SBUX writing.

	I think this past couple days of rest and downtime has been
	good. I think that it was inevitable with the trajectory
	that I have been going. It is not good for me to try to keep
	going like I have been without taking proper care of myself.
	It is just not sustainable.

	Along with all of this there is the whole emotional factor
	that gets messed up. I stop feeling, I go numb, and I just
	keep going like some cyborg automaton. Then I crash and I
	need to go in for repairs and the cycle repeats. Lather,
	rinse, repeat. The thing about going in for repairs is
	that physically, I get better. Mentally, yeah a bit better.
	Emotionally...

	I think I jump back into the game too soon without attending
	to my emotional state. It is easy for me to overlook. I use
	my responsibilities to steamroll over any emotional incidents
	that happen to manifest and need to be processed. Whether it
	be work, my wife, my kids, my family obligations, my
	projects...I will find some kind of excuse not to look at
	my emotional state. This backfires too because I start seeing the
	neglect of my emotions trickle in to other parts of my life,
	like my responsibilities or how I (mis)treat people.

	I think that one of the reasons I don't want to deal with the
	emotions is that it slows me down...or so I think. Like, I'm
	trying to do all this stuff and just try to keep up with my
	responsibilities...I don't have time to break down, look at
	all the pieces, debug, and recompile. So I keep operating
	with buggy code. In the short term, I can get by, but in the
	long term, I end up with system crashes like this one.

	One of the warning signs for me that things were not so good
	was my online time and playing video games. Being online and
	video games has been a really good escape for me in the past.
	BBS's and video games were a big part of my survival in
	adolescense. I cannot afford to be living in that world for
	too long in my adult life...especially with dependents. I
	need to keep that in check.

	Lately, I have been playing way too much Minecraft on the
	SDF server. I used to play Minecraft quite a bit when my
	kids were younger. I even set up a server at home that
	we used to play together. They don't play much these
	days and I have been rediscovering Minecraft on the SDF
	server.

	I'll keep playing even when I am beyond tired. I'll even
	think about Minecraft when I'm walking around in the woods,
	IRL. I'll catch myself thinking of Minecraft at work or at
	church or wherever. I'm a damb gud Minecraft player!
	Preoccupations with Minecraft...sounds like I might have a
	problem...

	Well, not just Minecraft. It could be anything. It could be
	a project I'm fixated on at work. It could be a woodworking
	project I'm fixated at home. It could be micromanaging my
	finances. It could be tracking my health metrics. It could
	be a new Raspberry Pi project that I want to do. It
	could a series I want to binge watch on Netflix (I want my
	xxx hours of life back, damb u Netflix!!!). It could be
	anything. The point is that I need to keep these things in
	check because when I don't, I get lost in those worlds and
	anything and everything tends to slip away and turn to shit.
	I end up with blinders on to the world outside of the object
	of my hyperfocus. And this is dangerous headspace.
	Especially when it gets to the point of stuff not getting
	done, bills not getting paid, appointments not being kept,
	obligations not being met.

	And then I get stuck. Stuck on this trajectory of hyperfocus
	where it is too hard to get unstuck and I just keep going and
	going and going, runaway processes, resources gets maxed, CPU
	gets pegged...until system failure.

	So now I am at the point where I have experienced system
	failure and have been forced to disconnect from the network.
	I have been dropped down into single user mode and have been
	reviewing the dump file. I have a discussion with the kernel
	and ask, what is going on here? What am I avoiding? What am
	I not seeing? Do I need upgrades? Do I need better tools?
	Do you not have enough resources to operate efficiently? Are
	the child processes taxing the resources of the parent
	processes? Does a rate-limit need to be implemented? Does
	the firewall need to be updated? Have the system logs been
	neglected? Are they telling me something that needs to be
	attended to?

	So this is where I am at. Some of these inquiries will be
	answered and some will not. I think what will be beneficial
	for me moving forward is to be open for the answers,
	implement upgrades where applicable, and be mindful of my
	resource allocation in the upcoming days...especially with
	busy times just starting with the holidays and all.

	As for the emotional component, I recognize it as being there
	and I just need to sit with it and experience it when it
	manifests. It should not be steamrolled, ignored, or
	controlled The energy needs to process and dissapate.

	Sorry if this has been too long-winded. I understand if you
	do not want to read the whole thing. This post was mostly
	meant for my benefit, to find out where I am at because I
	seem to have lost my way and blind when I am caught up in the
	whirlwind of my own headspace. It is only when I take
	the time to disconnect and barf out the debris in my head
	that I can truly see where I am at.

	It's kinda funny how my human condition gets translated into
	computer terminology. Well, you gopher people probably get
	the gist of what I am trying to say. Most earth people would
	not...then again, gopher people are people of the earth, no?

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