Okay, today I will digitize and/or copy-paste all the notes I've made in notion that should go in public posts... go in public posts. Quite a few dream-journal things to digitize. That'll be fun.

Backlogging starting now (1508).

....

All right, split it up throughout the day, but past days are filled in (1848 right now).

Dream

Intention (2230 the night before)

Sleep now. Recite intent. Compromise. Take it easy. Don't force it.

VR, Air-vents, and Malls

I have a VR setup on a side-street on the sidewalk. I'm curious about... naughty VR things. Start to look into it even though I know it's a bad idea in this public place. I end up watching some VR YouTube videos.

Now, I'm hiding in an air vent with my wife. We're talking about something before we... do naughty stuff.

Now I'm outside that air vent. There's a repair man repairing something. He needs a tupperware container. I know that I have some in the air vent. I go to the vent and grab some. He's confused about how I could know it was there. I ask him if he wants it or not. He does.

I have been procrastinating something this whole time. Some sort of presentation for the mall we're at. Celebrating 1,100,000 total visitors. Someone else has ended up doing it. It's really flashy. I wonder why we're celebrating such a specific thing. Also, the mall is dead because covid19, seems like a weird thing to do.

There's a game show happening at the mall now. Lots of disabled people show up in wheelchairs. There's a DNA test happening to see what disabilities you have to give your team the necessary handicaps. This seems off to me for some reason but I can't articulate it. I am also curious what the DNA reading will say about me.

"Apparently, you can have a negative handicap. People with really good memories can break some of the events. One person could remember which team made which cupcakes" I thought for sure I'd have a negative reading. Don't remember the reading I had.

Vague memories of events.

That's all I remember.

Pre-nap (1257)

I think I want to reinforce "catching up" during my nap today. Which is just digitizing any notes, and doing the various Notion tasks I have in today's bucket. Possibly also some work (I was super distracted last Friday, and wanted to have something done that isn't, but I should be able to get done within an hour or so).

So, the plan is:

• recite intentions
• think about the things I want to do (or at least properly organize so that future me isn't over-assigned)
• maybe think about work task a bit

Post-nap (1318)

I recite my intents, then start thinking about the day's tasks, which I read over before finishing my pre-nap. One such task is mutating my daily template. Reordering tasks and such. Also, I would like to initialize the document at the end of the previous day, I think.

Politics finds its way into my mind, but I have long since decided that I'm done "thinking about what it'll look like when the problem is solved". That has its place, but I should practice and actually do some work towards solving the problems before doing more thinking about what the end result would look like.

Moving on, studying Japanese lingers in my mind a bit. A lot of people on the anime discord I'm a part of are also studying Japanese, and at least two of them are interested in studying Japanese by learning a piece of media's vocab and then watching that media. Perhaps we could create a channel for such a purpose.

That's basically all the important bits. Let's transition to getting my system to a good state that doesn't weigh on my mind.

Meditation (Day 115)

Intentions for the day:

• Stay in posture part of prep until you're prepared to set the intention to stay still
• Stage 4 intention (vigilance on keeping introspective awareness continuous)
• Fall back to stage 3 if necessary
• Label the distractions, do it over and over so that it becomes automatic
• Learn the various different ways I guide myself back to the breath
  • E.g. away from tempting distractions, away from posture distractions, away from pain
• Note where the breath was when you label a distraction (attention, awareness, or forgotten)
• Before adjusting posture, mirror-check
• Mirror-check only when agitated due to worry and after counting to 8 in breaths

Post-Meditation (1130)

Today was a new best day! Second day of only subtle distractions. Though my definition of that gets stricter over time so we'll see if some of the "subtle" distractions become something I label as gross in future sessions.

This may be why progress can seem so chaotic, I think. It is also certainly pretty chaotic, but regular practice means a refinement of processes and a clearer line between things, and so less mislabeling and thus more accurate noting of mistakes.

In any case, I won't mark stage 4 as mastered today, but maybe it'll be marked that way next Sunday if the following week goes well enough.

In which case, I'll need to start doing stage 5 exercises again, and also really need to read more Mind Illuminated.

I am also learning how to adapt to the kind of distractions coming at me. Basically, match like with like. Visual distractions mean visualize the breath. Audio distractions means listen to the breath. Memories mean focus on connecting the breath. Present (aka external or bodily sensations) mean follow the breath.

This isn't about driving the distraction from attention, I don't think, nor blocking its access to attention, but more about providing more resources to that area so awareness also gets more power. With stronger awareness, the distraction can be kept in check as we go through the meditative formula: relax and look for joy; let it come, let it be, let it go.

Also, because distractions are more successful where awareness and attention are vacant, they move around to those various areas, and me meeting them there with focus on the breath means a solid breath of focus along many axes. Which means a more throughout workout for my consciousness, I think.

Pretty excited about this breakthrough, though we'll see if I agree about its value as time goes on.

General Thinking

Okay, mostly caught up, but still behind. Didn't start my weekly review. Hopefully can make time tomorrow or the next day.

Feeling pretty recharged, though, and that's good. Hopefully I can make time in the morning for meditation, but I might just push it to around 1600.