Ikar

I'm aware I haven't been around writing much in the last few months. For comparison, my diary has pages 1-17 for 2019. 2020 has pages 18-36. 2021 has pages 37-42. I'll use this post as a repository for all the bigger summaries I've done. I actually haven't done one in 18 about months, though for those 18 months I did monthly reports. I'm gonna think of one now in a post below.

It's actually interesting that both of you old-timers have found out that it was not only gaming addiction that hampered your life, but that I'd say parallel to it, was a disease causing symptoms of its own. I think there's some merit to the rhetoric that @Amphibian220 is using and that it can work well, primarily on some singular issues or challenges, but if that approach fails a few times, it's worth thinking whether the issue is not somewhere else. Plus try-hard perseverance can be detrimental, especially while focusing on the wrong thing and while others are pushing you to do it. Right things have to be done for the right reasons, otherwise the things that are done don't matter.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 22/12/21 - 05/02/21 "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. --- Active writing (blog/writings/journal): L: I wrote a draft of an article the last week, though so far it's very disorganized. I started writing here in a new format, so I focus only on the most important events of the week. T: I can't say I've written anything in the last months. All I've done was to work on a few uni projects that required us to write something, however I haven't actually written anything on my blog or in my uni paper. That's not necessarily bad; I'm just stating how things are. Possible direction/goals: Write on my blog. Keep writing in my diary here twice/once a week. Books/Reading articles: L: I've not been reading anything much, only the occasional newsletter. I only watched a few lectures with Thomas Sowell. T: 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. Possible direction/goals: Continue getting through the newsletters. Family: L: Outside of the situation where I visited my grandma to get my composure back at the beginning of the month, I don't think there have been any special occasions in or around my family. T: 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. 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. T: 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. 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: It's been about the same this month. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape. English: L: The number of classes has been around the same. In case I lose some courses, I won't replace them, as I think it might be more useful to learn to use my free time better than I do now and I can't just work to pass most of my time. T: 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 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. 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: Things have been going pretty well with the Georgian girl. She's gonna stay here until June and I myself might go to Germany for Erasmus in April, if the situation permits. It's nice to have somebody close to me to share things and try new things with every now and then. She's intellectually bright and can challenge me on a few things, so she also gives me the mirror sometimes. She's also good at English and had some interviews already. She negotiated even a bit higher rate than I did. She actually gave me the impulse to revisit the payment I get from language schools this early. Possible direction/goals: Set up at least two dates a month. ----- Additional thoughts/activities: This proved to be true and I welcomed this - I will factually have more time next month for other activities, as there are likely no exams for me during the exam term and I do not have to attend any classes. 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.

20th Jan - 31st Jan: gym/exercise number: 1 I went for a trip to another city with the Georgian girl to see some sights the last weekend. I also pondered how to best invest my money, using a new broker Interactive Brokers alongside Degiro. My Erasmus application is also still in the works. My brother and I have also worked to put my bike into condition again, now that the weather might permit cycling without snow/ice. And as usual, I've been working and sometimes spending evenings with friends.

It reminds me of this timeless classic: Anyhow, the point is, with the current democracies as they are, having 4-6 years to rule before the opposition is likely to take over the country, that there is no political benefit to making the population healthier. As in the video above, it's basically reduced to the argument of either having 4 billion £ a year or not. Remember all those 80s Belmondo movies, where there are 4 guys sitting in a car and they are all smoking? Nobody cares about the long-lasting benefits of longer lifespan (and possibly longer productive age/work life), if you can cash out now and do something with the government money now.

13th Jan - 19th Jan: gym/walk number: 1 (2 - gym today evening) I feel again that there isn't much to write about, but I'll report anyhow. I'm spending time with the Georgian girl, teaching English (got a few more private students which is great) and doing some work on the uni project of mine. Some YT video or films about the topics I like here and there too.

Welcome back.

5th Jan - 12th Jan: gym/walk number: 3 So I'm back to teaching English after the Christmas holiday. This might be one of the first holidays when I wasn't bored at all in its duration. I think I'm overall trending towards pursuing my hobbies and passion interests more. I seem to value my free time more than my work time at the moment. That written, I haven't worked on the thesis for about a week now, even though I enjoy working on it. I find it difficult to sit down to it in the afternoons/evenings after my English classes, as I am most productive right in the morning when I have most of the English courses. Some of my English courses that I do for the language schools are actually ending soon, however I do have some influx of private students, so in the final analysis the amount of classes I have is about the same. I don't have any exams at the university, because I managed to pick only the subjects that are without it. It's somewhat frightening, as that means I will have these exams in later semesters, but I didn't know about this prior. I just chose my subjects the last semester based on how well it will work with my English teaching schedule. I did have to finish two projects in the last two days, though both of them were just a few hours' work. A few other bits for future reference: social meeting - MK, Georgian - gallery + films, internet mail solved, package sent, mails - newsletters, passport,0 Erasmus?

@Nico IndigoI second everything @BooksandTreeswrote above. I also stopped counting, quite recently actually, but I can't even begin to fathom all the things that would have to happen for me to end up gaming pathologically like I used to. I built up such a network of friends and acquaintances that I hardly ever need to use my journal as my "retreat" anymore when something in my life is not going too well. Usually I just talk it over with a friend and that's that. The part about acceptance of self is vital. Don't kid yourself that everything will be easy after quitting gaming, but also recognize what was going well for you even while you were gaming. My English would be nowhere near my current level if I didn't have the passion for gaming at some point in the past. I became an English lecturer after I quit games. Games will be forever a part of the path I took.

It's been like this for as long as I can remember, but it's normal. Quitting excessive gaming doesn't imply using GQ forums or even staying on them forever. Cam did reference there are 2.7 billion gamers in the world and if only 1% get addicted, it's 27 million people. Anyhow, you do raise valid a point of being vigilant. I think there are lots of (under)currents such as excessive gaming, substance (alcohol, tobacco etc.) abuse or irrational fear of nuclear energy. These are the things whose value is hardly calculable (especially monetarily), but I'd argue these ills are much more harmful to the mankind than the exalted CV pandemic, which however does seem to get the spotlight for the last two years.

26th Dec - 4th Jan: gym/walk number: 5 I've been working on my research/potential thesis. I saw the Chernobyl series. Got through most of the newsletters and some videos. Spent time with the Georgian girl. Started teaching English again. Happy new year everyone.

I think the biggest drawback of student collaborative projects is that there is no given authority. It's hard to figure out how to split the work evenly and so it ends up with everyone being eager to work, but being stuck with no assignment. My favorite projects so far have been individual ones, as I get to organize the work myself and it's obviously something I want to do 100%, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. My future master thesis is one of these, did a lot of reading the past few days and I find it meaningful. I'll keep that in mind. Who knows, maybe I already do. I just wanted to keep some objective benchmark as a basis to reflect upon. You're right about things being completely different in one moment than in another. I keep thinking about the long-term most of the time, so the momentary anomalies sometimes catch me completely off-guard.

Brilliantly written. It also reminds me of the quote that we are unique individuals having common experiences, not common individuals having unique experiences.

20th Dec - 25th Dec: gym/walk number: 6 I was with my family for two days. It was actually fairly fun, the gifts were nice and we played a board-game I bought too. I did a few interesting things during the last week of holiday and surprisingly enough, I do not feel long stretches of boredom. I played some table football on Monday, did some finance reading (I'm creating a new account with a new broker), wrote my monthly report, got through some newsletters and subsequent articles and started the process of writing my (master's) thesis. I also spent two evenings with the Georgian girl, we did a few fun things and... in the end slept together. As I wrote before, I let things develop their own way. She told me after that she was gonna actually stop meeting me, had I not done something/or had something not happened between us. Good point for future reference.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 19/11/21 - 21/12/21 "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. --- Active writing (blog/writings/journal): L: I've only been actively writing here on GQ to a few other journals/topics and my own diary. Nothing more than that. T: I wrote a draft of an article the last week, though so far it's very disorganized. I started writing here in a new format, so I focus only on the most important events of the week. Possible direction/goals: Write on my blog. Keep writing in my diary here twice/once a week. Books/Reading articles: L: I've not been reading anything much, only the occasional newsletter. I only watched a few lectures with Thomas Sowell. T: No books, only newsletter articles and the odd video. Possible direction/goals: Continue getting through the newsletters. Family: L: The last four weeks, my mom was in the spa and I drove her back home on Wednesday. I told her I see the effort with her trying to be closer to us and I told her that I appreciate it. It's been pretty standard going with the rest of my family. Just wrote my brother to meet up for sushi next week too. I feel quite good about the situation in the family at the moment. T: Outside of the situation where I visited my grandma to get my composure back at the beginning of the month, I don't think there have been any special occasions in or around my family. Possible direction/goals: Continue working on bettering the relationships with my family. University: L: The uni's been in full swing. So far, I/we have been nailing the assignments without much trouble. I did a bit of brainstorming with a few people about the master's thesis and got some ideas for it. T: 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. 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: It's been about the same this month. Possible direction/goals: Keep in shape. English: L: I am currently working with 20-25 hours of English per week and I'm not interested in taking up more courses, because I wouldn't have the time for them anyway. I'm also meeting my English teacher/friend every Tuesday in the class, so it's perfect to have the inspiration at hand. I met with a guy about my age running a very small-scale language school with a few friends/part-time workers, so there's some inspiration for me to do something a little bit different from what I do now. T: The number of classes has been around the same. In case I lose some courses, I won't replace them, as I think it might be more useful to learn to use my free time better than I do now and I can't just work to pass most of my time. Possible direction/goals: 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: So I've been out a few times with the Georgian girl I met at the beginning of October. She's fun to be around, likes my analytical mind and so we sometimes grapple intellectually. She's also kind and I'd argue more compassionate then I am. We're gonna plan something together the next week too. I'm fairly unaware about where this is going, so I'm leaving this go its own way. The only thing that's for sure is that she leaves at the end of January. (copied) What I've been probably happiest about that this area of my life seems to have some traction, as I felt there was none during the summer until the end of September. What's also worth noting is that this one of the areas with the most shades of gray and trial and error I've been in. I can absolutely not plan for an outcome. It's as much about knowing the other person as it is about knowing myself. Possible direction/goals: Set up at least two dates a month. ----- Additional thoughts: The Wire is a great series! I'm happy I have finished watching it though, it sapped a lot of my time. I jammed with one guy from the dorm. I will factually have more time next month for other activities, as there are likely no exams for me during the exam term and I do not have to attend any classes. ----- SECTION REMOVED - to make the report less cluttered and easier to read.

Perfect! Happy to hear from you and to read you are making progress. Have a meaningful 2022!

12th Dec - 19th Dec: I got the gifts for Christmas for my family fairly in advance. I even have a few chocolates/drinks for some of my friends. gym/walk number: 3 Passed one test at the uni, tomorrow there's another one, also had to put in some work on a few projects. So far, so good. I have no English teaching classes for the next two weeks. I will probably do something creative, hang out with friends I don't see often, maybe go for a trip somewhere... likely the next week, as I have this one already reasonably booked. So I've been out a few times with the Georgian girl I met at the beginning of October. She's fun to be around, likes my analytical mind and so we sometimes grapple intellectually. She's also kind and I'd argue more compassionate then I am. We're gonna plan something together the next week too. I'm fairly unaware about where this is going, so I'm leaving this go its own way. The only thing that's for sure is that she leaves at the end of January.

Thanks! The next time I'm going to do a longer post, I'll try to make it into a blog article too, where I am gonna be more playful and rigorous with the format. I think people should make do with what they have and work as if there was no welfare state, save for the small % of people who have some serious disability and are unable to support themselves. It even makes me doubt if there should be a retirement/social security system in the way it is now - going from working 40-50 hours a week to 0 hours a week - primarily because work always has some of its meaning and because the mentality of "I have to work X years of this shitty job before I can retire." is detrimental to mental health. I think it'd be best to have it as a scale, coming in together with the normal salary. Regardless, there are very few "outside" projects in life with the lifespan of kids (let's say they really "need" parents until they are 18). I also believe that the typical situation is that both parents love their kids, but the reason they get divorced is because they don't get along with each other. And that they do not get along with each other because they forgot the two of them are the base and have neglected each other for a long time. At this point, the welfare state kicks in and says something along the lines of: "Dear Parent, because you have been incompetent in dealing with your personal relationship with the other parent of your child, we will bail you out financially." Now, I'm not saying that there's a fortune to be made in single-parenting or that all complete/nuclear families are heaven on Earth, but that it likely facilitates the lack of civility, the lack of long-term planning needed to raise a child and interchangeability of people (consumerism in romantic relationships?). I read about someone famous on Wiki that they divorced after their youngest kid turned 18 and I thought that if I ever get divorced, I want to do it that way. I hope I won't live to find out that this text bit me in the ass 😄

My bad, I made a hyperbole with the 50% divorce rate. It is true that lesser and lesser amount of people are getting divorced, because lesser and lesser amount of people are getting married in the first place. Article 1 you provided mentions that the % share of people who got never married is increasing as time goes by. Article 3 has nice graphs and I think it's best not to look at the absolute or relative number of divorces, but rather single-parented households and births outside marriage to get to the cornerstone point I had in mind when I made my original comment: https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces#there-has-been-a-decoupling-of-parenthood-and-marriage https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-births-outside-marriage https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-single-parent-families Marriage is an institution to primarily protect the children of the parents and to ensure they get a somewhat fair treatment in case both of the parents are not around anymore (for whatever reason). I don't buy the argument that marriage is there to "secure the love" in the relationship or whatever - I don't need a piece of paper to prove that I enjoy being with my girlfriend or to stop me from cheating on her if things go sideways. The main point is below: "Single-parent households are among the most financially vulnerable groups. This is true even in rich countries. According to Eurostat data, across European countries 47% of single-parent households were “at risk of poverty or social exclusion” in 2017, compared with 21% of two-parent households." What worries me is the combination of the increasing poverty of the single-parent households coupled with the increasing amount of these. Then, there are two solutions how can the government go about this: 1) create a rich welfare state to support the single parent families, or 2) cut the welfare state to the absolute minimum to perhaps pressure some sense into the squabbling parents with the child I see the 2) as the more reasonable solution, because it frees up money to be spent elsewhere and it doesn't sponsor the anti-social behavior towards the taxpayer as well as the child. Kids today are (roughly) a 20-year project until they are reasonably independent, so it's nearly impossible for anyone to set up two successful families (biologically speaking). My lengthy explanation above probably explained this part too; the conclusion in Article 4 is that (30 years ago), tearing down the nuclear family will have negative consequences in the future - and since then, I think the West has definitely moved in that direction, looking at the graphs from Article 3. Again, with a hyperbole, I hope I will never wake up one morning to see some TV advert, presenting family on the same side of societal ills such as tobacco or alcohol. No problem, I thank you even. I made a quick careless remark and you called me out on it, so I had to explain what I meant in more detail what I mean by what I wrote. I hope I made my argument clearer now 🙂

4th Dec - 11th Dec: Finished one uni presentation, currently studying for the test on Monday. Finished watching "The Wire". It is a good series, however I don't think series overall are good for me, because I just spend too much time watching them and there are more useful things to be done even if I want to relax or take a break. I'm having a cold in the last few days, mostly just a runny nose though, so nothing horrible. Went to the gym on Tuesday, going for a walk today. I don't think this idea is anything new and maybe I described it somewhere before, but ejaculating multiple times during a few days does make me more satiated and "happy" with whatever situation there is in my life. I think it makes me calmer as well. It's also the creator of zits, primarily on my face, heh. There's something on the proclivity to be animistic in my life and unleashing that sort of energy wherever it is desirable/useful: in the army (exercise, shooting), sex/masturbation, gym and others.

Is she actively countering your efforts to get closer or is she just indifferent? It's difficult to keep good familial relationships in this age, when every second marriage ends in divorce and all the anti-familial propaganda keeps telling us we can be everyone/everything we can be and ordering us to chuck relationships as soon as something difficult comes up.

Alright, no more numbers of days in this journal, just a few sentences/stats for the last few days: Gym/walk number: 2 My German Erasmus application is probably not going to work out. I think I goofed around too much and didn't communicate with the people in November. Sold a chunk of my drums, so I have only a few pieces of equipment left. Worked on the university project. Jammed with a guy playing the guitar with me singing and drumming in an improvised way. Turned out the situation with the girl I described above was more nuanced than I thought it would be. Visited my grandma on Friday after work, because I wanted to talk this over with someone I trust and I needed to get my plan together. The case is still active and I'm vigilant. I'm actually enjoying this situation. All in the game.

Awesome! Enjoy yourself for a few days after all that hard work.

Day 937: I had English classes, uni classes and worked out at the gym. Day 938: I had English classes, did some work for the uni and had a social evening. Day 939: I had English classes, went to the gym, went for a short walk, went for sushi with my brother and had a social evening. Day 940: I had English classes, worked on the uni and had a short chat with a few people in the evening. Day 941: Today - TBA. --- So I'm done scouting one girl, found out that while she's fairly straightforward, she's the type to fuck first and unlikely to talk to later. I probably wouldn't have met her again if I trusted my gut after the first time we were outside, but I wanted to be sure because we did have fun after all. I dodged a bullet with that one, because I wouldn't want to be with anyone who is untrustworthy. I'm past chasing pussy for all the wrong reasons. Coming to think of that, the only person I put some effort into knowing and building the tension prior to sleeping with her was my X, after about a month via online chatting. With others I just slept with randomly and then talked or built the tension for "nothing". It's a long road ahead of me to find the relationship that I want.

Day 934: I had English classes, worked out at the gym, prepared for my English classes and wrote the monthly report. Day 935: I went for a hike. Day 936: I worked on my Erasmus application and I visited my family. --- Slow days and fast days. Everything and nothing at the same time. The less I do, the less I want to do, especially if there's little/no progress. And the more I feel unfocused during the day and restless at the end of days. For whatever reason, I think spending a whole day on a hike and then half a day with my family is just too much sitting on my ass and not doing anything productive. After these activities, I don't feel like working on anything in the evening.