Ikar

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.

I'm using the template I used the last time. 14/10/21 - 19/11/21 "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 been writing to one friend, exchanging a lot of ideas together, however I don't think there's any novel thought in that I could extrapolate from and write here. No progress on my blog. T: I've only been actively writing here on GQ to a few other journals/topics and my own diary. Nothing more than that. Possible direction/goals: Finish Past Authoring and the whole course. Write on my blog. Work on "Breaking Free Exercises" from the NMMNG book. Keep writing in my diary here twice a week. Books/Reading articles: L: I read a part of Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" I wanted to read for a while. Other than that, just the newsletters. T: I've not been reading anything much, only the occasional newsletter. I only watched a few lectures with Thomas Sowell. Possible direction/goals: Continue getting through the newsletters. Family: L: I've noticed that my mom is making effort to get closer to me, however I feel fairly indifferent towards her. I am not sure whether I feel that way because my brother and I learnt as kids to get by without her support to a large extent or whether it's just too early for me to buy into that she's making a turn to become more family-oriented, but I just don't seem to care so far. T: 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. Possible direction/goals: Continue working on bettering the relationships with my family. University: L: The uni situation is a lot more interesting now! More things to do, assignments to finish... Some of the classes are fairly interesting and entertaining, the other ones are the same tedium as they've always been. T: 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. Possible direction/goals: Find more sources for my upcoming masters' thesis. Work on the assignments in a timely manner. Exercise/movement: L: I usually make it to gym at least twice a week, on top of cycling a bit if I have in-person classes and the odd walk if I have more free time. I still feel the back from time to time from sitting too much due to work though. T: This month has been slower, yet every week I went at least once for a walk and at least once to the gym. 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. T: 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. 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. Women/dating: L: T: I've been meeting one girl for about a month now, both in a planned way but also running into her randomly. She seems shy, a maverick/lone-wolf to a great extent, but also quite honest. I think it's gonna be interesting. Gonna meet her on Monday and do something together again. Possible direction/goals: Set up at least two dates a month. Friends (men/women): L: A few guys and I formed a gym group, for which I am fairly happy and they're a good bunch to talk to, joke around and hang out with. T: One of the guys I've met at the geographers' meetup was quite interesting and I think we had good connection, although we're not gonna see very often, because we live in different cities. Made some time to meet in a coffee shop with one of my female friends too. Future goals/direction: - ----- Additional thoughts: The Wire is a great series! The geographers' meeting was nice, though nobody has any idea when will the next one be. ----- SECTION REMOVED - to make the report less cluttered and easier to read.

Day 938: I did the laundry, worked on a school project, prepared for English classes, wrote here and met with a friend in the evening. Day 939: I worked on a school project, visited my family and played billiard in the evening. Day 940: I had English classes, uni classes and went for a walk with a friend. Day 941: I had English classes and a social evening. Day 932: I picked my mom up from the spa, spent some time with my family and did some minor things during the rest of the day. Day 933: I had English classes, washed the dishes and went to an English speaking event in the evening for a while. Day 934: Today - TBA. --- I've been feeling fairly lazy the past week or so, but after I finish my classes this afternoon, I'm gonna work out, work on the monthly report and do preparation for English classes the next week.

I haven't watched anything resembling porn for a long time either. It just feels the more I am in the real world, the less I need to fantasize about unreal things. I've actually always found the idea of porn kinda funny, thanks to the disjointed concept of those situations. I mean, if I am driven to do something, I don't need goals or some arbitrary metrics to measure it - I just do it. I'm really not a fan of planning anything else besides my work-time. I think it's all good, as long as I don't end up overdoing something. I can see you are quite a compassionate person from what I've read. I think that I am not - I am more of an honest asshole. Here's my perspective on the situation: a) I don't think age has much to do with how compassionate or considerate people are. What can be learnt is to be watchful and observant of other people and notice things about them. Then one can act upon them or let them be. b) I take people for their word. If someone tells me that they are doing fine, I believe them. If someone wants me to "extract" their worries or problems out of them, I'm very unlikely to be around long for them to do that, especially if it's someone I don't know closely. On the other hand, I also understand if they don't want to share the problem in a group of people they don't know either, because who wants to be a center of attention for their problems. c) People are primarily responsible for their own problems and how do they go around solving them. I believe the primary program for most people is "I want X, so I go get X." and not "I want X, so I hope others will somehow notice the hints I give them and help me get X." The bottom-line is, the situation is about YOU. YOU feel better after sending that text and shaking off the unease of not acting on your gut feeling earlier.

It's okay to feel a bit out of place after finishing a long-term project. I felt like that after finishing my thesis and final exams. It will take you a few days to adapt. Myself, I'm feeling somewhat lazy the past few days, but then again, I don't feel anything really chasing me to the point of driving me anxious either. The main thing is to not overdo anything to my detriment.

I posted in a few people's topic around GQ, it's just that I don't find there's much to comment on my own life. It could be because I talk about stuff with people IRL, bounce the ideas back and forth and then there's no need to report on them here. Regardless, I always find a few minutes a week at least to put in a few lines about what I did.

Day 933: I had English classes, uni classes and played table football in the evening. Day 934: I had English classes and a social evening. Day 935: I had English classes, went to the gym and went for a walk with a girl in the evening. Day 936: I had English classes and a social evening. Day 937: I had English classes, went to the gym, worked a bit on a school project and had a relaxed day. Day 938: Today - TBA. --- I have not been writing much here. Mostly because things are going fine as they are. I'm quite enjoying the presence of multiple people in my life currently, both men and women and both new and old. The uni's been fine as well as English teaching. Gonna work on the monthly report soon too.

Welcome to the forums!

I see, I think we all have issues with that from time to time. Then again, I think it's important to take the chill pill sometimes and not sweat things too much. I can't imagine a single area in which my life couldn't be better, but I feel fine with most of them as they are. I'll focus on them once I feel they are becoming more change-relevant. I actually enjoy doing household chores, such as washing the dishes or doing the laundry. The occasional gym is also good. Cleaning I'll live with, haha. It's funny, but in a way I believe everything I do needs to be done anyway! I think that's why I made the "future direction" section in my monthly report. I can track how my goals evolve in all the relevant categories and also to give me ideas where to start at some point in the future.

Severe addictions very often have this life/death quality. A friend of my father once threw out his 25 year-old son on the street, because he wasn't doing anything else besides gaming and eating. His son got his stuff together, got a job and a place to live, but there was no guarantee that he would not just become a homeless junkie. As @BooksandTreeshas pointed out above, what you need to figure out is why your son attempted suicide and help him work on these areas. Excessive gaming is a symptom, not the root issue. I don't think it's cynical. I think it's true. If the "screen" is his preferred activity, it doesn't mean he can't do other things. Plus "screen" doesn't necessarily equal "gaming". He can do other things on the computer too. In my case, while I was gaming, I learnt English on such a level that it led me to start teaching English. I tried to make the most out of a bad situation and two and a half years later, I can surely say I am in a better place.

Day 924: I worked on a uni project, went for a walk, prepared for my English classes, watched "The Wire", cleaned my room, washed the dishes and went out in the evening. Day 925: I prepared for my English classes, visited my family, changed the tires on my car, got a haircut and watched "The Wire". Day 926: I had English classes, uni classes, went to the gym and went outside with a girl in the evening. Day 927: I had English classes, a uni class, did the laundry, went for a walk and had a social evening. Day 928: I had English classes and a social evening. Day 929 - Day 932: I went for a trip to Bohemia with people from the geography group.

Day 918: I worked on a school project, visited my family, did a few chess puzzles and played billiard in the evening. Day 919: I had English classes, uni classes, worked out at the gym and had a social evening. Day 920: I had English classes, had a geography group meeting and had a social evening. Day 921: I had English classes, wrote here, went for a walk and had a social evening. Day 922: I had English classes, wrote friends, had a nap, played football, relaxed and watched "The Wire" in the evening. Day 923: I had English classes, wrote friends, went to the gym, did some paperwork and watched "The Wire". I'm gonna have a relaxed evening. --- My friend invited a lot of new people to the billiard and the evening was quite interesting. I've been playing quite a bit of table football recently and I can say I'm quite okay at it now. I could've gone out with friends on Thursday (yesterday) as well, however I decided to not push myself, as I was tired from all the previous days I've been out.