Timeblock
| Time (PST) | Plan | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| 0000 | SLEEP | |
| 0030 | SLEEP | |
| 0100 | SLEEP | |
| 0130 | SLEEP | |
| 0200 | SLEEP | |
| 0230 | SLEEP | |
| 0300 | SLEEP | |
| 0330 | SLEEP | |
| 0400 | SLEEP | |
| 0430 | SLEEP | |
| 0500 | SLEEP | |
| 0530 | SLEEP | |
| 0600 | SLEEP | Meditation |
| 0630 | Meditation | Cooking breakfast |
| 0700 | Cooking/eating breakfast | Reading: The Wretched of the Earth |
| 0730 | Reading: The Wretched of the Earth | Eating breakfast/DMing people |
| 0800 | Morning routine | |
| 0830 | Planning | |
| 0900 | Stretching | |
| 0930 | Stretching | |
| 1000 | Maintenance: Notion Tasks | |
| 1030 | Buffer | |
| 1100 | Grocery shopping | |
| 1130 | Grocery shopping | |
| 1200 | Lunch | |
| 1230 | NAP | |
| 1300 | Wife's day | |
| 1330 | Wife's day | |
| 1400 | Wife's day | |
| 1430 | Wife's day | |
| 1500 | Wife's day | |
| 1530 | Wife's day | |
| 1600 | Wife's day | |
| 1630 | Wife's day | |
| 1700 | Wife's day | |
| 1730 | Wife's day | |
| 1800 | Wife's day | |
| 1830 | Wife's day | |
| 1900 | Wife's day | |
| 1930 | Wife's day | |
| 2000 | Wife's day | |
| 2030 | Winding down | |
| 2100 | SLEEP | |
| 2130 | SLEEP | |
| 2200 | SLEEP | |
| 2230 | SLEEP | |
| 2300 | SLEEP | |
| 2330 | SLEEP |
The Return of Wife's Day
So, since the pandemic started, I haven't really been following through an agreement I made with my wife: "Saturdays belong to wife, Sundays belong to me." I intend to return to proper wife's day today, with some caveats.
- Wife's day does not start until after I do my daily maintenance
- There are some things I can plan for Saturday if they can not be planned for Sunday
So, a large chunk of today's timeblock is, as it used to be, "Wife's day."
Black Lives Matter
Oh, yeah, I haven't explicitly said anything about this here. I'm in full support of Black Lives Matter. Any condemnation of violence is a condemnation of the police, as far as I'm concerned. I'm also fully in support of the notion that "All Cops are Bad" (which is a systemic argument, not an individual one).
Defund the police. Think about what jobs the police are supposed to be working on, and create a new or multiple new departments towards that end. Don't call them the police.
Meditation (Day 8)
This morning, expecting the resistance, I had a much better meditation session. Though there was quite a bit of difficulty staying with the meditation object. I had to redo the four steps (present, body, breaths, breaths at the nose) a couple of times. I also broke my stillness as there was some periodic noise that sounded like dripping coming from the matt. I though maybe I was dripping sweat, but I think the subtle shifting of weight to naturally keep me stable caused a sort of creaking. It went away after two resettlings of my sitting posture.
But I think maybe I should've tried more to "let it be". The problem was that I had the perspective of control, so I took it, but sometimes distractions come without my control, and I have to accept it. And I have found that I can. I'll play with this kind of problem in the future, so it's not a big deal. Luckily, I have given up the illusion of control on itches and discomfort, and so do not try to remedy those, to great joy.
So, about two days into meditation, I started meditating with my eyes open (as various sources recommend you can do). This has led to various interesting experiences. It is too much to go into all of them today, but I'll at least name all of them in a bulleted-list:
- Sight missing from attention and awareness (a pseudo-blindness)
- Color draining from vision
- Vision bluriness as a distraction
- Vision cloudiness
- Stronger attention when closing my eyes after several minutes with eyes open
The last three were experienced today (and the last two were experienced for the first time today). I want to discuss the last one, though. I decided that my vision was being a bit too distracting and so carefully and intentionally decided to close my eyes. With a sense no longer providing moments of consciousness, I could feel my awareness and attention get stronger elsewhere, and was much more capable of staying with the breath, as well as observing more of the breath.
This is something that was noted in The Mind Illuminated. In the book, he gives you a process for strengthening you awareness and attention via body scanning. By slowly increasing how much of the body you are observing, you improve the control and scope of attention, and exercise and strengthen the total power of consciousness. While doing this, you suddenly return to the breath at the nose to use the full power of attention of a body-scan on just the breath at the nose.
Now, I'm pretty far from the stage where this is recommended, I think (it's something to do in Stage 5 and I'm between Stage 3 and Stage 4). But it seems I can play with the concept via which senses are active and which are not. Though the main one I have control over is sight.
....
Thinking on it, however, I could use headphones and a timed-transition between white-noise and silence to play with it for hearing, as well.
Hmmm... something to consider.