It's only the third day, and I'm already starting to feel the “limits” of this commitment I've taken. My current workflow is actually quite comfortable and entirely sustainable for the long term, but the fact that I have to do it means I can't sometimes decide to use the time for other stuff.

I'm a parent of two small kids, and as all parents know, any amount of free time you can get is precious and severely limited! I do most of my writing in the morning as I sit on the toilet. It's a 15-minute spell that I know is unlikely to get interrupted, but I also need to be mindful not to take too long so I can help with the kids. These 15 minutes are basically all the alone time I get until the evening after the kids go to bed. By this time I'm usually already quite tired, so it's not the best for writing. It's also during this time that I spend some alone time with my wife, which is important.

Anyway. As I said, my usual activity during those 15 minutes is writing. Now I'm doing these vomits I write, but before I used to work on my journal or something else. However, that period is also usually up for grabs for anything else that might interest me. Maybe I want to read a book or a post, or maybe play a game. But now that I have this “responsibility,” that span of time is spoken for.

Usually I don't mind it that much because there's nothing I would rather do than what I'm doing now, but other times there's other stuff that I would also like to do! For example, today I got a copy of Visa's first book (I think it's his first?) and want to read it, but now I'm instead writing about wanting to read it and likely won't be able to open it until later tonight!

But well, I don't want to complain too much here. I feel there's a balance that I still need to find between saying something and saying something using too many words! I have the “mental timer” of how much time I'm taking in the toilet plus the counter of words for today's vomit, and maybe this setup is conspiring to make me create stuff that's wordy and convoluted.

I feel these past three vomits are of dubious quality, but I've set the goal of not letting myself worry about that. Remember, it's not about what you're writing today but what you'll write in 50 days from now (somehow I got to this magic target of 50, but even that might not be enough!).

…

Today is our last night here at the beach. It's been really nice so far, except for yesterday. Yesterday I was really tired all day and feeling a bit depressed. Not depressed as in “sad,” more as in “bleak,” “low energy,” “shut down,” “un-feeling.” If you know what I mean, then you know what I mean.

I felt a bit bad with the rest of my family as I worried I was dragging them down with me, but managed not to worry too much about this (or things would've gotten worse). I'm taking the approach of thinking about my mental state as “mental weather” that will come and go on its own. The core insight here is not to identify with the feelings of depression, or things will become a hundred times worse.

The other day I read or listened to someone say how, when they're sad, they often feel like it will last for eternity, but how when they're happy they always have a thought in the back of their mind telling them how soon that happiness will evaporate. I think that's so true for many of us!

We tend to talk ourselves into thinking that the depressed state is our baseline since we can't seem to keep ourselves in the happy state. “As we're not happy, then we must be depressed,” is something many of us think. The truth is, however, that our baseline is neither happy nor sad; it's right in the middle, but some of us shoot past it so fast that we fail to notice it at all.

Anyway, today is another day. As I'm writing this, the day still hasn't started in earnest yet, so here's to making it the best “last day at the beach” possible!

Oh, another thing that has been useful is realizing how much all of our emotions and behaviors are just stories that we tell ourselves about who we are. This was actually a suggestion from an AI chatbot that I had act as Thich Nhat Hanh.

Yesterday I mentioned some ideas I wanted to write about, like the AI chatbot thing. I, of course, didn't get to them today. Maybe tomorrow!

(hell, I should've timed how much I took to write this)

---

Ideas for today:

• Living with intention. It's so, so easy to let ourselves drift through life, to let ourselves be carried by the currents and just react based on our human nature. It's good not to go against the current, but it's dangerous not to take any agency.
• AI chatbots as a living book for personal growth. I also mentioned this idea yesterday.
• Waiting for inspiration to hit is not great for creative output. These wordvomits take that away, as I'm now free not to wait for a particularly strong idea to show itself.
• I once heard someone say that we still tackle the problems acquired during childhood with the same toolset and mindset we had then. Lately I've been seeing this in some “long-term” issues I've had for as long as I can remember, and how I still relate to them as if I were a kid. If I were presented with those issues today, I would certainly approach them in an entirely different way.
• Wondering about the meaning of beauty, and specifically about why we perceive it and what it means. I would hazard the hypothesis that the feeling of “things are right just as they are” is the same as beauty, and that “safe things” appear beautiful to us. Think about it. Beautiful beach - all is safe and calm, no stress or worry. A beautiful sunset - take the time to do nothing; all is well. Even other things like babies, dogs, and cats. Have you wondered why people often stop to say hi to your dog or baby but barely even raise their eyes to meet yours? Babies and pets are safe; adults aren't.

---

Some pictures from today (I realized I can use this place as a sort of photo log for whenever I have anything cool to share!)