Ikar

I recently saw an animated YT video trying to explain what "love" is, based on one guy's interpretation of what Jesus said or did in the Bible. He interpreted it as "giving willful attention with the intention to understand someone". This fosters connection between people and creates a bond if done right, unless the person is completely deluded or seriously mentally ill. Stereotypical romantic "TV love" is mostly focused on getting the other person's attention during some sort of courting process of uncertainty. It's also possible one person does something fairly crazy to achieve that. It's worth mentioning that what one sees as undying acts made out of love, another might see as creepy. Finally the couple kisses at the end and the credits roll, or alternatively the main character wallows in the pain of unrequited love. It's fairly interesting this recipe is often applied for singles, as well as divorced (casting serious doubts on the fact that the first part of the relationship is the most important, as presented). Regardless, it's just the first part of the relationship that doesn't repeat itself afterwards. It's a fool's errand to try and implant something as intrinsically unstable as this period of courting into an ongoing stable relationship. The instability past the first stage has different sources, e.g. figuring out what to do together or considering each other's long-term values. Not whether the other person likes me. Pure sexual desire with zero knowledge of the person is not love either. Otherwise PornHub would be called LoveHub. However it's not completely independent, as it's hard to be romantically involved in a relationship with zero physical contact. All this means that the word is fairly ambiguous. For me, "love" can be directed towards anyone, anything or any activity. There's a sense of devotion, attention, betterment and purpose. It's also trying to understand other positions and points of view. Giving the benefit of doubt, ingrained in the approach of not blowing up every time someone does something stupid (from our point of view).

13th May - 19th May: I spent the last few days with the Georgian girl before she moved to another city. We did a bit of driving, cooking and also socializing. We'll see again the next weekend, at the end of the month. We called yesterday for half an hour and it was nice. I'm also getting through the newsletters continuously. I am almost finished with setting up the cooperation with the benefit companies. However, one hurdle is that my phone doesn't have the NFC chip for payments, so it can't be used as a mobile terminal. My old phone has NFC, but the Android version is too old for the app. I'm not interested in renting and carrying around a real portable terminal, so we'll solve this another way.

I haven't been feeling particularly great mentally today, however I do feel solace in the long-term plans that I have set up for my future. It gives me the confidence that no matter what happens, I'll be able to deal with it. 8th May - 12th May: I had my last uni classes for the semester and I have two exams coming up in a few weeks. I don't expect them to be difficult, but I'll have to put in the time to study. I've been in contact with the benefit companies and managed to sign a few contracts already, so I hope this will lure some potential students my way. Pay-gate and mobile terminal solutions are in the works too. I went out for a walk with one of my friends I haven't seen in a while and did a bit of basketball yesterday. I'm catching up with the newsletters as they come now. This is actually helpful, because I do seem to have a tendency to explore new things a lot. I'm on YT and Wikipedia fairly often already, plus they're related to my hobbies and interests. I just had to get rid of the baggage of the hundred accumulated mails to get started on reading them again. The Georgian girl is leaving to another city on Sunday, so we are spending our last days together. We are continuing this regardless.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 05/04/21 - 08/05/21 "L" will stand for the (last) plan/notes for this term. "T" will stand for done this term. I added "Future goals/direction" to better reflect on the things I am trying to do and to add specificity. I will copy it and stick it somewhere where I can see it to remind myself whenever I feel aimless. I will also use different colors: blue for newly added goals/habits, green for completed/successful, orange for ongoing/some progress and red for ones I haven't worked on in that period. --- Books/Reading articles: L: I realized I actually do read quite a bit, it's mostly just not books. I'm currently reading one book on sex, but overall during the month I've gone through many articles on history, finance and current events, as well as my newsletters. I've actually decided to block one news outlet that I think I was reading too much for no real gain. Now I follow "Portal:Current events" on Wiki, where I can easily see world-wide news and access information without much bias. The situation is fairly similar, except that I cut down on news. I think I much rather watch videos where people are having a conversation or explaining something rather than reading or just simply listening without video. I've barely touched the newsletters. T: I actually went through my 100+ newsletters yesterday to give myself a fresh start on them and to see whether I will keep up with them. I could unsub from some/all of them, if I no longer find them interesting. No books. Possible direction/goals: Continue getting through the newsletters. Family: L: A few weeks ago, I decided to visit my family every other weekend for the afternoon to prioritize my own issues, needs and wants. I think it's also better to meet the members separately - i.e. meeting my family twice as a whole, plus meeting my father and my brother once for a month for lunch - somewhat seems as more valuable than meeting my family four times as a whole. I also helped my grandma with getting a new phone and transitioning to a new operator! T: Nothing new comes to mind. Possible direction/goals: Continue working on bettering the relationships with my family. University: L: University's been normal and the classes I attend are mostly interesting. I haven't gone to Germany, but I am planning to go to Bulgaria for Erasmus after summer. It's amazing how the perception of education shifts once one has a real job and isn't fed by parents, for example by learning to value one's time. T: I sent the prof the outline with ideas what to write about in the thesis and I'm planning to meet him in May. I'm going to have two exams in a few weeks, but I suspect they won't be overly difficult and that I'll pass with a few days of studying. Possible direction/goals: Find more sources for my upcoming masters' thesis. Work on the assignments in a timely manner. Exercise/movement: L: I feel that my "free-time" movement habits are sliding, however I somewhat counteracted that by creating incentives to push me into movement, such as having to visit students within walking/biking distance. I'm really not a fan of going to the gym lately, however I've already been outside with people playing football or basketball, as the weather got better. T: Same as before. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape. English: L: I worked around 110 hours this month; 65 and 30 for language schools and 15 for my private students. I also visited my English teacher-friend and asked him about his history when it came to teaching English. He said that he started teaching when he was 26, started his own courses when he was around 35 thanks to recommendations and had these ever since. He is now around 50 and he started teaching at high school a few months ago for a change of pace. The meeting helped me soothe some anxiety over the fact I am not advancing as fast as I'd like to when it comes to teaching. Regardless, I've recently made the effort to ask my students for recommendations to a) the respective language schools, b) on my website and c) on Google Maps. It can help me leverage my position regarding the language schools as well as to attract more private students. The salary negotiations have turned out to be quite a drawn out process. I'm trying to position myself as best as I can in regards to several companies and to present my case as best as I can as well. I hope the interview I'm having tomorrow will be constructive, as I am also effectively asking for my competences and responsibilities to be expanded. T: I managed to get a raise from one of the companies, a nice 16% raise. I'm also looking into getting my own payment terminal in my phone and possibly a pay gate on my website, on top of the cooperation with the benefit companies. I might even start my own LLC soon. Possible direction/goals: I'm also gonna attend an interview and another to re-negotiate my salary, once all the reviews I from my students are in. I received some information that I could use to my advantage, so I'm gonna work on that in the next few weeks. Look into strategies in becoming truly self-employed by skipping the agencies in between. I am going to pursue closer co-operation with my English mentor. I am going to check out a few more seminars on how to run online courses. / English research Women/dating: L: T: In April, we've been apart for about two weeks and there's one more week until she moves to another city for the internship. We spent a lot of time together this week. I've entertained the idea to have a long-distance relationship until I/we are able to be in one place or to change location at will. My plans are to do the Erasmus in Bulgaria and finish the masters at the uni in early 2024 and after that I am completely location-independent - until then, I am to an extent bound in my current city. The money is not necessarily the issue either; although it's usually more expensive to travel than to stay in one place, I expect my financial situation to be healthy. It's not unrealistic, but we'll see. Possible direction/goals: Set up at least two dates a month. ----- Additional thoughts/activities: My hobbies are: personal finance, gunnery, GIS, reading about history, English and geography. This month, I did these cool activities: reading about personal finance, planting trees, visiting LibertyCon, watched videos about modern history and took part in many social events.

19th Apr - 27th Apr: As for porn, I haven't watched it since the day I made my last entry. Neither have I ejaculated until I had sex with my girlfriend yesterday. I believe the best way to control porn is to have a working relationship with all of its elements. I literally had zero thoughts of porn until I came back here to report on it now. I did some work on the marketing/benefit programs to increase my reach to potential students. I will continue working on it in the following days. We with my girlfriend went to the LibertyCon in Prague the last weekend. The topics were very interesting, ranging from economics, politics to philosophy. I definitely had some takeaways from it. I played table football with my friend and we finished 3rd on a tournament on Monday.

Days without the computer are often the best and memorable ones. Movies and series can be sometimes problematic, though I just find it too passive to watch more than one movie or multiple episodes a day - it's not really my cup of tea anyway. Fasting is interesting, because I remember the one time I did it, I found out I have no way to relax without eating something!

I mostly only care about cutting the porn. I've been in a content (sexual) relationship for about four months, but now we're briefly apart for about two weeks. I just want to keep my mind in the real world. Even for singles, keeping the sexual mind on the people that are really around them is still the best solution, because it's at least an actionable indicator that this guy/girl is attractive to them.

I never understood it either, though I've been told it's emotional, creates bonds between people and that people like seeing people who are great at something and succeeding at it.

14th Apr - 18th Apr: On 14th I decided to go to an English event I haven't attended in a few months, as normally I get up early on Fridays and now that I have no lack of English connections. I met some old faces and even made two new connections with guys to go to the shooting range with next month. Crazy. I also visited a friend's birthday celebration nearby. We had Easter holidays for four days here after. I did some schoolwork, got new shoes, a gift for the Georgian girl once she returns, finished the outline of my thesis and sent it to the prof, worked on my English business marketing, watched a lot of finance videos and visited my family. One thing that stains it a bit is the habit of masturbating before sleeping, however I am not going to lose my sleep over it (pun intended, because I actually do). I'll do better next time.

7th Apr - 13th Apr: I drove the Georgian girl to the train station on 8th and we'll meet again on 23rd after she comes back from Georgia. I went tree planting on 9th in an event organized by the university. I normally don't do a lot of volunteering, but sometimes the event fits my style. I met a few known faces there and met a few new people too. I also nearly slid into a really stupid habit regarding masturbation and a sort of porn (again), but I kept away from it for the past two days. Speaking of which, I do check the news again, so I put them on the blocking software again. The last few days have been however good for making time to watch interesting conversations with Peterson, Sowell and yesterday I also watched a few videos about firearms. It's always nice to educate myself, to return to my hobbies and to relax. I also got a 15% pay raise in one of the language companies, so I'm gonna make the other ones follow suit. The negotiations are still going on, though the process is slow. Better yet, I'm gonna explore some ways to do my own marketing during the Easter holiday. That's something I can always work on. I also worked on the sources of my masters' thesis on Monday, so I made progress on that after over 3 months. That'll be also a topic for Easter.

4th Apr - 7th Apr: I'm gonna go to bed early today, as I have been feeling tired all day today. I can't afford to go to bed at midnight and get up at 7. I just have zero energy and the sun wakes me up early. I met a friend I didn't see for 2-3 months, spent time with the Georgian girl and worked on a presentation for the university today. I also had some communication with the language companies regarding my employment and other options of cooperation.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 05/02/21 - 05/04/21 "L" will stand for the (last) plan/notes for this term. "T" will stand for done this term. I added "Future goals/direction" to better reflect on the things I am trying to do and to add specificity. I will copy it and stick it somewhere where I can see it to remind myself whenever I feel aimless. I will also use different colors: blue for newly added goals/habits, green for completed/successful, orange for ongoing/some progress and red for ones I haven't worked on in that period. --- Books/Reading articles: L: I realized I actually do read quite a bit, it's mostly just not books. I'm currently reading one book on sex, but overall during the month I've gone through many articles on history, finance and current events, as well as my newsletters. I've actually decided to block one news outlet that I think I was reading too much for no real gain. Now I follow "Portal:Current events" on Wiki, where I can easily see world-wide news and access information without much bias. T: The situation is fairly similar, except that I cut down on news. I think I much rather watch videos where people are having a conversation or explaining something rather than reading or just simply listening without video. I've barely touched the newsletters. Possible direction/goals: Continue getting through the newsletters. Family: L: I got us a board-game on Christmas that we sometimes play together during the weekends. I'm also helping my grandma to transition to a new phone operator and my brother helped me regarding some settings of my bike. It's a bit of a rare occasion, but I am not visiting my parents this weekend, because my father contracted CV a few days ago. My brother had an inconclusive test, but I am negative, so I'm visiting my grandma tomorrow. T: A few weeks ago, I decided to visit my family every other weekend for the afternoon to prioritize my own issues, needs and wants. I think it's also better to meet the members separately - i.e. meeting my family twice as a whole, plus meeting my father and my brother once for a month for lunch - somewhat seems as more valuable than meeting my family four times as a whole. I also helped my grandma with getting a new phone and transitioning to a new operator! Possible direction/goals: Continue working on bettering the relationships with my family. University: L: I wouldn't have thought so at first, but working on the collaborative assignments has been a crap-shoot. I'm not particularly happy with their outcomes, although they are/were done sufficiently enough to get by. I'm happier with my own work and assignments and it seems I might not even have an exam this semester in the classical sense. As I had guessed, the exam term ended for me by handing in some writing at the beginning of January, yet for most people it ends today, so I haven't really done much in the last month. I contacted one of the profs to be my tutor for my project/thesis. I also take part in our geography student's group, though we're not too active at the moment. T: University's been normal and the classes I attend are mostly interesting. I haven't gone to Germany, but I am planning to go to Bulgaria for Erasmus after summer. It's amazing how the perception of education shifts once one has a real job and isn't fed by parents, for example by learning to value one's time. Possible direction/goals: Find more sources for my upcoming masters' thesis. Work on the assignments in a timely manner. Exercise/movement: L: This month has been slower, yet every week I went at least once for a walk and at least once to the gym. T: I feel that my "free-time" movement habits are sliding, however I somewhat counteracted that by creating incentives to push me into movement, such as having to visit students within walking/biking distance. I'm really not a fan of going to the gym lately, however I've already been outside with people playing football or basketball, as the weather got better. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape. English: L: I worked around 110 hours this month; 65 and 30 for language schools and 15 for my private students. I also visited my English teacher-friend and asked him about his history when it came to teaching English. He said that he started teaching when he was 26, started his own courses when he was around 35 thanks to recommendations and had these ever since. He is now around 50 and he started teaching at high school a few months ago for a change of pace. The meeting helped me soothe some anxiety over the fact I am not advancing as fast as I'd like to when it comes to teaching. Regardless, I've recently made the effort to ask my students for recommendations to a) the respective language schools, b) on my website and c) on Google Maps. It can help me leverage my position regarding the language schools as well as to attract more private students. I'm also gonna attend an interview and another to re-negotiate my salary, once all the reviews from my students are in. I received some information that I could use to my advantage, so I'm gonna work on that in the next few weeks. T: The salary negotiations have turned out to be quite a drawn out process. I'm trying to position myself as best as I can in regards to several companies and to present my case as best as I can as well. I hope the interview I'm having tomorrow will be constructive, as I am also effectively asking for my competences and responsibilities to be expanded. Possible direction/goals: I'm also gonna attend an interview and another to re-negotiate my salary, once all the reviews I from my students are in. I received some information that I could use to my advantage, so I'm gonna work on that in the next few weeks. Look into strategies in becoming truly self-employed by skipping the agencies in between. I am going to pursue closer co-operation with my English mentor. I am going to check out a few more seminars on how to run online courses. / English research Women/dating: L: T: February and March have been pretty good with the Georgian girl and I believe we both enjoyed it. I'm happy that we managed to get the things we wanted to get done together. We will continue to date, until the distance is just too much to bear. She's going to have a more complicated schedule in April with a lot of traveling and in mid-May she's going to move to another city, which is however reachable on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I hope to post an update on this when the time comes. Possible direction/goals: Set up at least two dates a month. ----- Additional thoughts/activities: My personal finance hobby has resurfaced once again. I made a new brokerage account, did a lot of reading and made a few calculations in one software. I calculated that my savings rate for 2021 averaged around 50% and that I doubled my net worth over the course of 2021 compared to 2020. My saving and investing is proceeding as planned. I'm also happy that during these two months, I tried out these activities: ice-skating, going to the theater and going to the shooting range. I think there is some merit to sharing joyful activities together with friends. My hobbies are: personal finance, gunnery, GIS, reading about history, English and geography. ----- Thanks for the support this year to the people below: @Max @BooksandTrees @Icandothis @Amphibian220 @The_Creative_Quitter @NesteaDrinker @Marius @alle @NannerZ @awcy_h @goodvibes I am happy that there is some "new blood" on the forums again besides the old guard. New or old, we can always make our lives a bit better. I don't have time to read and post in all your topics, but in case you want to ask me anything, feel free to message me.

31st Mar - 3rd Mar: I watched/read a bit of "news" on Friday and today, but both times only for a few minutes. I think it actually wasn't difficult for me to break the habit of checking it every few hours, as I had in mind the fact that it's just not useful for me. - In other news, I should devise some 30-90 minute activities I can do whenever I am on an unexpected break (e.g. a lesson gets cancelled). This Friday it was very apparent - I got 3 hours of unexpected free time and I didn't do anything in particular with it. It's just about realizing the moment that I have free time unexpectedly, at which I might not be good at yet. Now, I am a person who likes to take his time doing things and I don't like the feeling of being rushed, especially if there's something new I don't know how much time it takes or that takes a long time to do (e.g. writing). But even washing five plates and a pan in 30 minutes is on 95% better than to randomly do everything and nothing at the same time and hoping that I will do something useful. Some random activities I can do in a few dozen minutes to make use of small chunks of time: reading a book, stretching, washing the dishes, showering, cleaning the room/making the bed - I spent time with the Georgian girl and yesterday we went to the shooting range and did a bit of practice driving. I was instructing her in both cases, so it was somewhat stressful, but she's bright, fairly quick to learn and she enjoyed both activities. I also have an interesting business proposal for the language school I work for, kind of becoming a semi-professional recruiter for them. I'm meeting them on Wednesday 6th, so I hope something meaningful comes out of it, so we all benefit. I found out the last time I wrote the monthly report was two months ago, so I'm gonna put it to my calendar to do it the next week and set a monthly reminder too.

Reading (here) and hearing (one acquaintance) fasting this week, I decided to skip breakfast today. I had a few English classes and I could feel my brain progressively lag more and more as I was talking to my students and I also got a headache, so I decided to eat some food after and take a nap. Though I think it makes more sense to relate my troubles to the fact that in four days, the temperature dropped from 20 C (nearly reasonable T-shirt weather) to 0 C and snowing today 😄 Good luck!

28th Mar - 30th Mar: So I have not watched any news for the last three days and spent the time on other things. I have to say it's tempting to "get informed", but the attention is simply best used elsewhere. If there is something really big that happens, other people will tell me about it anyway. Nothing special otherwise - university, English classes, time with the Georgian girl, socializing... I wrote two emails regarding the pay rise today too, so I hope it will bear some fruit. If not, it's a good sign I should start working on my own marketing and seek advice.

I think it depends on the company you're with. Game reviews are going by done by people to people who are excited about the topic. It's as if you went to a bar and asked the regulars about alcohol - it's not exactly a mirror of the society as a whole, just a few guys who enjoy drinking more than the average person and that's why they are together. The bigger issue is that I overall feel like the West has somewhat degenerated to solve non-issues (while I still think it's currently the best place to live in - I live in Czechia) and that many people have lost track of what's meaningful, because we have such abundance. I think that's why the nationality structure of GQ is what it is - mostly North America, Europe and then the occasional outlier. Many people in poorer countries just don't have the luxury of time or money to get addicted to games. One guy whom I listen to stated that the war in Ukraine might rudely awaken people in Europe/North America to solve relevant issues again, instead of microaggressions, genderism or climate change. I hope that will be the case. As for encouraging addictive behavior, the solution is to say "no" or to change the environment and to be cool with the change even if nobody from the original environment joins you. Smokers and smokers-quitters can still get along quite well, as I've never seen anyone go together for a "smoking evening". Bar drinkers might meet again in some neutral venue without drinking, but it's far less likely that it'll work, as that's a big change. Online gamers have even less options - you just turn off the Internet and I stop existing in your world. Environment and "quit drinking and someone will buy you a shot" reminded me of this article: https://www.raptitude.com/2017/07/wise-people-have-rules-for-themselves/

21st Mar - 27th Mar: I decided I would visit my family only every second week, as spending 6-8 hours every week in one chunk is a lot of time. I want to have more time for myself and my own free-time projects. I did more exercise/walking this week than usual, I also worked on some uni projects that were due. I also watched some videos about finance and investing with Warren Buffett. I also decided to stop reading or watching the news. I know I had the idea before, that I blocked a few websites already and that I also read a few articles on the topic... the reason is that modern news is just entertainment with very little relevant informational value. I have several dozen e-mail newsletters that accumulated in my inbox over the last few months that I'd rather go through than randomly spending an hour on whatever news I come across. Or YT videos that can help me educate in the fields I want to be better at, such as finance, history or geography. It's pointless to consume news that do not benefit me in any way.

13th Mar - 20th Mar: I went to see the new Batman film, wrote an email asking for the pay raise, played in a table football tournament, was fairly physically active and spent time with the Georgian girl. I'm going to visit my family today and do some minor errands.

I mean, I have almost forgotten how does it feel to have a job I dislike. What do you have in mind to try out after you quit this job?

2nd Mar - 12th Mar: I went with my brother for sushi to a new place, which promptly gave me diarrhea. Anyhow, I went to the opera with the Georgian girl and went ice-skating the last weekend. This weekend I've been working on school errands, preparing for my asks for pay rise and overall just relaxing and lounging around. I again feel as if the time is just flying by very fast.

Seconding what @Pochatok wrote. I hope you are enjoying the time on your own and with your girl and other friends, as am I.

20th Feb - 1st Mar: I feel like the days are just flying by. I got myself a new dentist, because my old one retired. Everything seems to be going just fine, thankfully. I feel I have everything I need. Gratitude.

I believe she is the best match I've ever had. We don't call ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend, but we are exclusive. I think our relationship is getting into deeper layers too thanks to that.

6th Feb - 19th Feb: I can't exactly say that anything important happened these past two weeks. I spend time with the Georgian girl basically daily, although I sometimes meet other friends as well. The university started again and the responsibilities have been quite busy - next week I have 27 hours of English teaching planned and 8 hours of university classes. I managed to go for a walk or to the gym a few times. I'm also helping grandma with a new phone and I got my tax papers done.

6th Feb - 13th Feb: I don't think there's been anything noteworthy happening this week. In fact, I rather feel that I should start filing my tax report instead of thinking what to write here.