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Jumping the Chasm: Pedro Goes From Auspexel to Exeldom


Exeldom

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So this is where it starts.

Yet like in any start, there is a departure context. A beginning.

Let me begin by saying you hi and thanking you for your attention, fellow Game Quitters: Hi, Thank you,

How are you doing?

I hope you are doing fine for I am doing fine. But another kind of fine.

My life is good but it could be better. This is why I believe in Cam and follow his mission to hope to see others step up to themselves and to hope to get me stepping up to myself as well.

  • Pedro, I, will be posting my journal on this thread. Expect to see some incoherence in my writing and journaling style as I still do not have the best idea of how I'll structure this, and I might have worse days to write. I will be writing and iterating until eventually a better model for the journal I feel like makes better sense and obviously conforms with what you think is meaningful.
  • The story of who Auspexel was will be told progressively in the same fashion as Exeldom's life will be described. It is impossible to tell you how I am improving my life, how I desire it to become, let alone start the change and leave the old self behind if I do not tell you who Auspexel and Exeldom, the past self and the future self, are. I have a mild idea of them as I lived one and dreamed of the other. I hope that through making it a narrative I can better explain how I got here and involve you in understanding the human and personal side of this mission. After all, our life is a story. It would only make sense to turn myself into a story.
  • My experiences will come with questions for you to ponder on and to call you on action in your own realities. It's impossible for me to know all the right questions to ask, much less to know the right answers. I have journaled and written before and every day I did I always had new insights. By throwing them around in the journal I can make them your own. Because sometimes all we need to revolutionise our life is a better idea. I invite you to comment on them so we can get to even better conclusions and apply them in our own journeys.
  • As new ideas for this develop I might be evolving the structure. I honestly have no idea of how Colourful this project is going to be but I'm sure I'll find a way to spice it up every now and then. To keep my willpower and your interest on track. Else it would be a disservice. If it starts to become one, you better tell me to type with a jalape
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Der erste Tag - Day Zer0
Sunday Special: The Morning Mission / The Miracle Morning
Pre-day and pre-feedback statement
Plus special bonus: next day reflection
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
I am reviving today a long forgotten passion: breakdancing.
It's always been a sunken cost "I haven't started early so now it's impossible" kind of activity but one day I decided to try.
I don't know why but I gave up on it past a few days.
But I know you only fail when you quit. So I'm not quitting.
Instead of checking it on coach.me besides 20 other goals I never fulfilled, I decided I can be satisfied with it by just starting simple:
I'll start with the backspin: www.youtube.com/watch?v=izg50nID8as
What could possibly fail?
I've got no space on my room!!!
But it's OK, I can do it on the weekends at my grandfather's house. I do not have to tell myself I have to learn the windmill in a week in college and call myself a failure otherwise. There are other activities too, and time is precious. And until I learn the backspin this is where I am at. We have to be realistic and allow for habits to spin us into evolution. I've done Chains CC for half a year and I tell you I would have never thought I would be working out daily and finished all Shaun T's workout programs when I checked in my first day. I never started chains with the intention of being perfect everyday. Some days in other activities failed and I broke the chain as a hurtful reminder. It was kind of a gamification of the process of making habits.
Still when I look back I see that the workout's chain is the longest and I really value the progress I have made by trying a little every day.
But how do I integrate it into other serious activities, like starting a business, drilling my music and applying learning techniques for study?
I am still unsure, else I wouldn't have stopped doing Chains CC. Or Give it 100. Imagine how different my life would have been if I hadn't made up excuses for not learning the backflip. Being just another word on the bucket list which one day I'll be too old to uncheck. And there are no gym bars at university to practice it :/. The power of regret.
I feel like breakdancing and the other things will never go very far unless I return to the "never break the chain" mentality.
So, let's put our shirts on for the backspin!
Websites mentioned for goal accountability:
Edited by Exeldom
Adding a title.
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Der zweite Tag: Day 2
Thank God it's Tuesday
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Hello guys,
I might be posting less on journal day nights as I have more free time in the mornings so I will be recapping the day the very night and I'll post a more complete description, reflection and Auspexel/Exeldom stories along with the anticipation for the day in the morning.
It's Tuesday already and I have to tell you this is one of the most challenging days of the week: it's nor Monday, when some remind themselves of their pitiful lives and the workweek ahead or some, like Eric Thomas, feed on its power, nor is it Friday, when those same mediocre people feel relieved to stop working and escape their life by dedicating their weekend to bars, television or any other dreamless activity.
And, for some of us, that was/is gaming.
And apparently that power either persists through Tuesday or it drains you for the rest of the week. So it's the first day of the week you have to WIN after Monday.
Quite important, huh?
So...
Today
Today I woke up at around 7 PM, went to the PC to contact with an important friend.
Afterwards I opened Evernote and started writing yesterday's blog. I also checked some UCAS applications (I'm gonna run for a Music course in the UK and I'm taking care of the application process, I hope this turns out to be the thing I've always dreamed of doing and took the responsible bold action toward it!) and surfed around the Web reading up on investment. I had breakfast after writing, as I had told myself "I am NOT having breakfast until I finish this!".
A wise man once said "The way you do something is the way you do everything", I had remembered while I was working out half an hour after breakfast. I felt that there is much more in a workout when you give it your ALL in every burpee.
Now imagine doing that WHILE listening to Knowledge for Men's episode with David Anderson, "Think Less, Make More" (really killer title for a killer workout)!
I was sweating, feeling alive, like I usually when I work out, one of the few activities when I really feel alive. which makes me think how can I incorporate the enjoyment, the motivation and the talent I have for working out. It's like I utterly fail at achieving greatness in life and following my habits and working towards my long term goals, but somehow I manage to have no problems working out 4 to 5 days a week, if not 7. It's part of self discovery, it seems.
 
I spent the rest of the day in college and went to the school folklore band's first audition for beginners and I got into the highest voice class! I feel both glad that my passion for singing has some real proof and responsible for training it (I have a surprise for your this halloween!!!!)
Anyway, that was today's adventure. Tomorrow I will be writing some more "Jumping The Chasm" character bios.
 
As for now, remember, the way you do something is the way you do everything.
 
\end of transmission \next
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I said the same thing at work to my coworkers.  I love the reactions I get for saying things that are harmless yet completely out of the norm.

Three things I'm grateful for today:

  1. I am grateful for the strength of mind that makes me rejoice on the very Tuesdays and see them as a blessing
  2. I am grateful that I wasn't admitted in the college's biggest entrepreneurial association (much to my dismay >:()
  3. I am grateful for the fact that there are more days in the week!
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Der zweite Tag: Day 2
Thank God it's Tuesday
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Hello guys,
I might be posting less on journal day nights as I have more free time in the mornings so I will be recapping the day the very night and I'll post a more complete description, reflection and Auspexel/Exeldom stories along with the anticipation for the day in the morning.
It's Tuesday already and I have to tell you this is one of the most challenging days of the week: it's nor Monday, when some remind themselves of their pitiful lives and the workweek ahead or some, like Eric Thomas, feed on its power, nor is it Friday, when those same mediocre people feel relieved to stop working and escape their life by dedicating their weekend to bars, television or any other dreamless activity.
And, for some of us, that was/is gaming.
And apparently that power either persists through Tuesday or it drains you for the rest of the week. So it's the first day of the week you have to WIN after Monday.
Quite important, huh?
So...
Today
Today I woke up at around 7 PM, went to the PC to contact with an important friend.
Afterwards I opened Evernote and started writing yesterday's blog. I also checked some UCAS applications (I'm gonna run for a Music course in the UK and I'm taking care of the application process, I hope this turns out to be the thing I've always dreamed of doing and took the responsible bold action toward it!) and surfed around the Web reading up on investment. I had breakfast after writing, as I had told myself "I am NOT having breakfast until I finish this!".
A wise man once said "The way you do something is the way you do everything", I had remembered while I was working out half an hour after breakfast. I felt that there is much more in a workout when you give it your ALL in every burpee.
Now imagine doing that WHILE listening to Knowledge for Men's episode with David Anderson, "Think Less, Make More" (really killer title for a killer workout)!
I was sweating, feeling alive, like I usually when I work out, one of the few activities when I really feel alive. which makes me think how can I incorporate the enjoyment, the motivation and the talent I have for working out. It's like I utterly fail at achieving greatness in life and following my habits and working towards my long term goals, but somehow I manage to have no problems working out 4 to 5 days a week, if not 7. It's part of self discovery, it seems.
 
I spent the rest of the day in college and went to the school folklore band's first audition for beginners and I got into the highest voice class! I feel both glad that my passion for singing has some real proof and responsible for training it (I have a surprise for your this halloween!!!!)
Anyway, that was today's adventure. Tomorrow I will be writing some more "Jumping The Chasm" character bios.
 
As for now, remember, the way you do something is the way you do everything.
 
\end of transmission \next

I don't know honestly what's wrong with the web version of the blog but I can't edit my posts and sometimes big chunks of text disappear. I don't know if my posts are fully shown and that's weird, because it was meant to showcase full information.
Anyway, here goes the bios of yesterday:

 

 

 
Auspexel
"As Auspexel wasn't yet the kind of guy who would grab his brother's GameBoy Color and make a serious game (as he would press New Game every time he turned the console on, much to his brother's fury), he was perfectly ready to embark on the PS2 adventure. As he and his brother went with grandma to the game shop, a Worten he recalls, they browse through the games and his brother shows him "Ratchet and Clank". 
They had never seen a PS2 box yet. Such an incredible feeling. 
They wondered how it felt like buying a PS2 game, and they checked the text on the back of the box. "WANTED" written in several languages, including Greek, which Aux (Auspexel) never forgot? So many weapons to destroy that green tank, and... Woah, there is a bad guy named chairman Drek! What about his brother, who said that there was a robot on the back of the yellow fox?
It was so easy to ask for that box to our spoiling grandmother, and so it was. If you've ever wondered at which points in life our decisions really shape our destiny, look no further than the first game..."
Planet Veldin
 
Exeldom
 
"What do you mean mom? I can choose from 20 songs in that cd... and play whichever I want anytime I want? Oh wait, there's two? I wonder if they have different songs!
Then it was an exciting feeling to just lie on the couch reading the names of the album's songs for hours and hours while the CD played on the pc with those cool windows media player visual effects. It brings him back to his childhood days, happy living in the room between his mother's warm and lovely bedroom where he slept when feeling cold in the winter and his own bedroom, where he kept his toys, his games and his childhood memories. The furniture would never feel the same again. Not without Coldplay playing on the CD. Or Lighthouse Family reminding him of the best side of his father. Or Underneath Your Clothes, at the distance of a click :D ! Such was Exeldom's early childhood. That until he discovered MTV..."
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Der dritte Tag: Day 3
Thank God it's Wednesday
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello guys,
The 21th of October was the first day of its kind in university.
I have taken a day off for the first time during the week, as I didn't have classes. So I stayed home till 16.
In the morning I had a few lucid dreams, as coincidentally I had been talking to my roommate about the potential of lucid dreaming and sharing some dream stories. Funnily I once thought, as a dream enthusiast, that dreams represent repressed parts of our subconscious. And I knew that when I got into uni I would be dreaming every crush one by one all over again. Needless to say it took one day of college to start dreaming.
But 21 was a special day in that I have finally dreamed about perhaps the most important of the crushes.
Despite being the shortest of the dreams, the scenario was opening a fridge and checking it with her, while I opened up conversation with: "You're not gonna find anything new there you know. But it's cool here, oh yes, it's really chilling". She nodded and mentioned an Oreo cookie she had left hidden behind the door shelves such that I had to back off to spot it.
That was the short moment, but the interesting part is that I'm having short crush dreaming moments all the time. And that kind of foretells me what I should be doing.
That's why destiny told me to read some of the GQ Challenge right after writing the dream down.
I read a concept I had already known: The 5 biggest regrets of the dying. Let me ennumerate them for you:
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I constantly struggle with 3 and 5, while I never want to experience 2 and 4. And 1, well, 1 IS the big challenge of life. It is a constant turmoil that many of us never really get to.
So I decided to use that as my iPad's wallpaper, so that the next time I see the girl today, I hope I stay true to the big 3.
Other stuff I did today
I had lunch at home by 2 and then got on with my best friend by skype.
I don't know if you know him already:
 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAr86E5qY_GzopxdMRKBn1Q
 
In the quality of best friend in music and entrepreneurship, we talked about his newest business idea, a website he's building. I'm very excited that he let me in the business, yet things are still very fuzzy. I guess we are both too much of visionaires with a big idea yet we haven't yet really defined what it is we're doing. I don't even know what he hired me for and I'm still discovering his mission so as to make it mine as well and find out the processes required.
It's "tough" being a mature entrepreneur. It takes something I don't yet have, and that is the second part of Cam's mission: not only to get toxic gaming out of your life, but also to enable you to live a better life after detox. And, like Coldplay say,
"That's the hardest part" :)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAGbq3A9HfA
 
Afterwards I packed my bag and went on a never taken bus route all the way up to Alcântara, where a big friend of my martial arts master is giving classes. It took me 2 hours to get there but I didn't regret it: Kempo is in my blood, my heart, and perhaps it is the activity closest to gaming where I have the biggest "10 000" hour ratio. I was good at it and I'm not gonna let university derail me from my 8+ years of practice. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I am benchmarking gaming on life. If I was good at gaming, then I can be good at anything. And especially if I've been doing that thing since I was 10.
I loved the class and the master was super super friendly. We even made a few exercises where we had to use our force to carry our teammates. Such a lesson in teamwork!
I got back home by 9, writing yesterday's bios on the train, and I wondered:
"How many days like this will I have?" "How can I learn to grasp these days and feel both liberated and excited to work on my future?"
"What has the void of gaming left for me to fill, and what do I fill it up with?" "How can I keep doing the things I really like and should do to become a successful high potential man?"
"How do I manage my time?" "When will I start feeling the rewards of this kind of life?" "What type of hard work should I be starting?"
These are the questions only time, but focused time, can tell.
 
p.s.: As for today, day 4, 22 of october 2015, time of writing: 10:23, I am intrigued, as I will be doing a blood donation. I hope I don't get dizzy and manage to go through the classes and, we hope, finally get to something with that girl.
 
You guys like quotes, I guess. So here it goes
"Courage is a skill" - Cam Adair
 
\end of transmission \next
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Yes, a few technical bugs still ongoing. We have no idea why your journal is having the issues it is, but my developer is working on it. In the mean time, I'd recommend saving each of your posts (in this thread) on your computer as well. Everything should be fine moving forward but just in case.

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In the morning I had a few lucid dreams, as coincidentally I had been talking to my roommate about the potential of lucid dreaming and sharing some dream stories.

A few? That's impressive! How do you define a lucid dream? Are you using any particular techniques?

Totally with you on martial arts. I can't wait to get back to the tatami myself.

Edited by Tom
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I define a lucid dream as a dream where you have at least a mild notion that you're dreaming and thus you start acting as if you were aware of it. Sometimes you wake up, sometimes when you're advanced you can actually control what you do there or even change the environment  (I'm still not very good at it).

I think it's the best way to live the 8 hours of sleep we normally think of as wasted time.

But what if we used our dreams as 8 hour visualisation exercises :D ?????? Seeing our desired life every day at night! Wouldn't it also be exciting to wake up eager to go after our day but ALSO the night?

 

 

 

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Der vierte Tag

Day 4
Hello guys,
I've had a two folded day.
On one hand, I feel a bit sad that I wasted too much time in the morning checking stuff, nothing too concrete, instead of studying, sleeping, going shopping or just sleeping a few hours more. Or arriving early to the blood donation, if arriving at all.
I had scheduled to wake up at 7:30 and leave at 10 to arrive at 11, make the donations, have lunch by 12:30 and getting to classes at 13. 
However, like my planning usually goes, it was nowhere near that. 
I woke up at 7:30 (I found an accountability partner for waking up during this week!), logged on the PC and proceeded to writing bios. But somehow along the way I wasted a LOT of time arranging my bag, daydreaming and browsing the web. I feel like, although I had a quite peaceful morning which is good amid a student's life, I feel like that, without studying nor "businessing", a morning is not worth enough to "push that slight edge", you know? It was a cool morning, I finally added the new songs to the phone I was delaying for weeks, I called my uncle, but I don't want an average morning because it doesn't make me any better than what I am right now. I do not like just getting by. 
There HAS to be a solution to my problem of daydreaming.
So I left at 11:20 with barely no breakfast and no plans to have lunch. I arrive on campus at 12 and go to the blood donations. It takes an hour, a few questions and sustaining the transfusion sting's pain to contribute half a litre to someone who might need it. I think we all have biological capital we can give to someone who barely has their body in order. 
While waiting for the transfusion to conclude I grabbed the "Challenge" to distract myself from the tickle inducing, bubble sucking sting, and so I start day 1 of the challenge. I had written a few answers before donating, so now I was taking conclusions out of the "why am I doing this, why is this important to me", while I spoke with a man about martial arts, which I mentioned I practiced. He told me it was a sign of true martialship if I was able to hold the pain and be a little calmer, as my feet were shaking and I was laughing from the pain. That, coupled with a line in the book that said that "to not look or do any days forward can be thought of as an exercise in discipline", I hold my calm till the end.
I then go to classes having to hold my bags with only the right hand, which is harder when you have an electric bass around you for the whole day. It is hard. I had Calculus with a nice old man talking about derivatives, which is my favourite maths subject, then Digital Systems with a Serbian teacher whom was so nice he shut students up by laughing colourfully at them and then we had another DS class with a teacher on how to program in VHDL. Which is not hard, at least not harder than absorbing 96 slides of information in a single class. Ouch!
I had my last class of the day with the crummiest teacher on campus, which made me just open up "The Slight Edge" and proved to be a moment of reflection about what I was really doing with my life at college. It's both helpful and detrimental, but that is out of the scope of today's journal.
I am writing this on the way to my bass Jazz class, so I'll be leaving you with this for now. 
I just hope that I can manage to develop this "slight edge" and start feeling positive had desired changes in my life and thus I keep writing this journal committed and unwilling to let this procrastinated life procrastinate itself again, thankful of having returned to writing for real, and greateful for the conscience to know it was time for some "selfless self actualisation", and maybe that is the real challenge everyone is facing right now."
 
Auspexel
 
"After having assembled for the first time what seemed to be a magically, fun imbued set of colourful ps2 wires for the first time of so many years to come that he would be the family's official weekend console (dis)assembler, Auspexel and his brother join in to try out the Ps2 on their grandmas Mitsai TV box. 
But hold on! Their father got them a demo! 
As far as Auspexel can remember, a demo used to be those not so shiny black boxes that came with several short games, so we could play a game until we loved it and then the game stopped always at the same point and there was some commercial telling us to buy it. Some games were a letdown, some were dreams one had never got to keep, and soon some demos would be repeats of our games. But for now we only had one of them, and it came within a paper envelope. We were creeped out by the PS2 loading screen, in fact, Auspexel was creeped out every time the console came without a disc, where the shiny balls inside that spinning ring showed up with such a creepy noise on a black background. Boy, that was what Auspexel feared the most after turning on the red button towards becoming green and making that disc spinning noise. 
But when it didn't creep us, it was the very source of our afternoon lives. That demo had a very creepy blue X over a dark background selection screen, where we could either play the first demo, the Airboard, where Bro was exceptional at, then there was a smackdown wrestling game which Auspexel didn't quite understand and always had the same characters. But the game that fascinated him the most was one in which the character started in a crater like sandy entrance to a cave and had to walk around a tunnel maze while running away from tall, white and creepy enemies. The game was very hard to get past a part where the character had to fight a boss and defeat him by stabbing his shiny weak spot.
But that wasn't a very easy task for a 7 year old boy whom had never held a knife in his hand. And probably never would until the next demo, which had been offered by grandpa with the first of many many PS2 magazines that were to come.
And boy, did he NOT read them."
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I define a lucid dream as a dream where you have at least a mild notion that you're dreaming and thus you start acting as if you were aware of it. Sometimes you wake up, sometimes when you're advanced you can actually control what you do there or even change the environment  (I'm still not very good at it).

I think it's the best way to live the 8 hours of sleep we normally think of as wasted time.

But what if we used our dreams as 8 hour visualisation exercises :D ?????? Seeing our desired life every day at night! Wouldn't it also be exciting to wake up eager to go after our day but ALSO the night?

Understood. Thanks for explaining. I have a stricter definition, ranking my dreams as lucid, half lucid, and fully lucid.

Since you too are interested in lucid dreaming, take a look at Lucidipedia. I keep my private dream journal there. Its author Tim Post also did a TEDx speech.

All the best :)

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Der Tag dass ich verlost habe - Day 9
Thank God it's Wednesday
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello guys,
I admit to have missed nearly a week of journalling.
And it happens. Sometimes we either aim too low and we don't enter the habit of journalling because we find it meaningless and we don't think The Slight Edge is working for us, or, like it happened to me, the delivery is too high for me to write a volume of text of such responsibility like my journal every day, specially when the first day in which we lack the time to do so comes and then we feel disheartened for not meeting our expectations.
But the best thing to do is to Respawn. I'm not interested in quitting anymore. I'm willing to learn from this and in a few more weeks I shall look back and rather have thanked for the force to come back and not have any regret of not starting again. Because, as time passes, we look back and it was so easy to write a bit every day and the benefits didn't cost any pain. So, NO SUNKEN COST FALLACY. A few days are but a part of my mission I have no problem getting the track back on. It's so easy to do, but it's so easy to NOT DO.So. would you rather have an easy success or an easy failure???
And so this journal entry will be longer not by trying to compensate a mixture of irresponsiblity and lack of time due to spending the week moving to my new house, but rather to sum up the biggest lessons learned since this past weekend.
Sunday: I returned from the Pitch Bootcamp on Saturday (mentioned in day 6) and went to  my grandfather's home for the weekend. I was on fire with the things I learned at the bootcamp, namely that "he who is ashamed will starve". I still remember that one to this day, and I hope it helps me decide whenever I feel afraid to.
Philosophy aside, I wanted to do something else than gaming to fall asleep and so I grabbed a puzzle I had never been able to solve (link at the end of the entry). It is a very tedious puzzle to do in which you connect bug trails that start and end at each of the pieces, and you must fit the pieces so that the bugs are always facing the same way and the trails start and finish on the edges of the board. And it's a 6x6 board, so I thought it would keep me entertained until I fell asleep. I was fortunate to have the idea of applying logic gate terminology to the resolution of the bug puzzle, which finally gave practical and improbable meaning to the things I learn at university: I would translate a side of the piece meaning "here a ladybug enters, then a bee and an ant exit" to "ÃBC", which made it simpler to match the side to the only piece in my hand that would match it. I finish half the puzzle before falling asleep.
 
But the interesting thing was next day when I finally finish the puzzle, salvo one small issue: A CORNER PIECE WAS MISSING! And now the dilemma was:
  • I finally "finished" a puzzle I was never capable of accomplishing without copying the online solution on my own terms, in my own flow, my own method and my own responsibility. BUT
  • A piece was missing, and I was still unhappy with the state of my puzzle. It was Incomplete!!!
What does this sound like to you?
Are we people to live complaining about the pieces we simply don't have to fit in the puzzle rather than feeling complete with almost the full arrangement achieved by our own efforts?
 It felt like that missing piece was a lesson of destiny.
I spent the rest of Sunday afternoon "having a weekend", which makes a bit more sense when you are an adult, but absolutely no sense when you need to be working toward greatness. I made a workout while listening to Les Brown (it's wicked amazing. Remember: you pay for what you don't know) and went swimming even on a rainy day. It feels great to be free in our madness.
I tried to sing a song I wanted to learn but I had yelled the previous day (I was pissed for missing the bus and I started yelling and karma came back to me, I had no voice and Sunday was my only chance to rehearse it - we have to make choices and live with the consequences) so I was forced to quit. I read a bit and spent the rest of the day not writing the journal, which is bad, and late at night I decided to play a game of League of Legends with course colleagues.
short FAQ: Hold on a second: you PLAYED A VIDEO GAME?!
Yes I did.
I find a greater enjoyment in playing once a week with real life friends, helping them win the match and showcasing my gaming skills than playing 24/7 in hopes of having a rank good enough to tell my friends how dedicated of an addict I am. I'd rather show them how dedicated of an addict I'M NOT. I was fulfilled for the week and when I lost the last game I actually felt bitter for the time lost and so I quit. It's good to have your share. YOUR SHARE.
Monday and Tuesday: I spent the rest of the week attending classes, skipping journal time and working out while listening to Eric Thomas' motivational tapes.
I think we humans in the age of instant everything and abstract knowledge specialisation are missing a key factor in our identity: MECHANICAL PROFICIENCY AND MASTERY OF A CRAFT OR SKILL. iT is crucial in anyone's hard skill profile and bodily connection to artisanship. It makes you effectively handy at something. Back in the day my grandfather was a master of several handmade tasks and activities, and mankind evolved on the sole basis of physical mastery. Yet nowadays kids either game, doze off on Facebook, or they fall into this small minority of people who still live the physical life. This includes people in sports. Perhaps this is why kids who play sports from an early age, people who DO something, not just KNOW something or PROGRAM/MANAGE something, are at an advantage in fulfillment and skill. And Eric Thomas NAILS IT when he links success to the physical necessity of breathing. "If you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful." (link to the video and fable at the end of the entry).
Who hasn't ever felt like an achiever after having done something physical for the first time?
Scoring a goal
Throwing a boomerang
Riding a bike
We are practical creatures thrown into an age of automation. But our very happiness, our very intelligence, our very health and relationships are genetically tied to the body. It would be impractical to think a person can be successful without FEELING it from within, without FEELING what they are doing. At least to me, I am closer to the ideal of success after sweating my pants off in a workout and feeling that I can use my body's energy and hustle to propel me closer to achievement than it is to spend 5 years "struggling" abstractly with a form of "mental workout" which is studying with little or no connection to my heart's content. You can't feel your body sweating when you're studying. You're just tiring your MENTAL MUSCLE further. And isn't life mentally hard on us ALREADY? Wasn't it hard enough to rationalise that we NEED to be successful and game addiction free? We need to be doers, makers, action takers. Not overthinkers, fakers, whining achers.
 
I suggest you all grab a physical skill. It might have no meaning to you other than enjoyment whatsoever, but it matters to get physical with some of your passions.
And if that physical test used to be the unit commands in a video game, I'm pretty sure anything more intense than that will fulfill that NEED of yours better than you have ever imagined. And it's not weird to show it to your friends and crushes!
Unlike video games.
 
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Left:
 

Eric Thomas' speech: "If You Wanna Succeed As Bad As You Want To Breathe": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLcJHC9J7l4

 
 
 
Auspexel?
Exeldom?
 
I will start writing their bios again in November. I want to do this on a less regular basis so as to prevent another burnout. And to heighten up the drama :D
 
\end of transmission \next
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We are practical creatures thrown into an age of automation. But our very happiness, our very intelligence, our very health and relationships are genetically tied to the body. It would be impractical to think a person can be successful without FEELING it from within, without FEELING what they are doing. At least to me, I am closer to the ideal of success after sweating my pants off in a workout and feeling that I can use my body's energy and hustle to propel me closer to achievement than it is to spend 5 years "struggling" abstractly with a form of "mental workout" which is studying with little or no connection to my heart's content. You can't feel your body sweating when you're studying. You're just tiring your MENTAL MUSCLE further. And isn't life mentally hard on us ALREADY? Wasn't it hard enough to rationalise that we NEED to be successful and game addiction free? We need to be doers, makers, action takers. Not overthinkers, fakers, whining achers.

I agree and disagree with what you write. I'd put body and mind at the same level of importance. Our body develops sooner so it's easy to forget that we all had to go through painful and boring fundamentals such as turning around, balancing on two feet, articulating speech. What you call "mental workout" is exactly what it is: building good mental habits, resiliency, logic. It's working on the outer layer of the brain, the part that evolved last, the one which makes us human. And just like with the rest of the body, sometimes we don't particularly enjoy the exercises we perform but they are invaluable for our full development. I can't agree with your statement that "mankind evolved on the sole basis of physical mastery". Keep working on all levels and you'll be a happy, balanced individual.

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We are practical creatures thrown into an age of automation. But our very happiness, our very intelligence, our very health and relationships are genetically tied to the body. It would be impractical to think a person can be successful without FEELING it from within, without FEELING what they are doing. At least to me, I am closer to the ideal of success after sweating my pants off in a workout and feeling that I can use my body's energy and hustle to propel me closer to achievement than it is to spend 5 years "struggling" abstractly with a form of "mental workout" which is studying with little or no connection to my heart's content. You can't feel your body sweating when you're studying. You're just tiring your MENTAL MUSCLE further. And isn't life mentally hard on us ALREADY? Wasn't it hard enough to rationalise that we NEED to be successful and game addiction free? We need to be doers, makers, action takers. Not overthinkers, fakers, whining achers.

I agree and disagree with what you write. I'd put body and mind at the same level of importance. Our body develops sooner so it's easy to forget that we all had to go through painful and boring fundamentals such as turning around, balancing on two feet, articulating speech. What you call "mental workout" is exactly what it is: building good mental habits, resiliency, logic. It's working on the outer layer of the brain, the part that evolved last, the one which makes us human. And just like with the rest of the body, sometimes we don't particularly enjoy the exercises we perform but they are invaluable for our full development. I can't agree with your statement that "mankind evolved on the sole basis of physical mastery". Keep working on all levels and you'll be a happy, balanced individual.

Maybe a thought that combines both body and mind: sometimes the daily workout goes well, sometimes it's a drag. The rate at which we improve varies. With physical activity, we get direct feedback - how something that eventually becomes better can still fluctuate from day to day. That must be the case with our mind as well, but we don't always realize there how we improve. So physical activity is a form of proxy to how we as a person improve.

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We are practical creatures thrown into an age of automation. But our very happiness, our very intelligence, our very health and relationships are genetically tied to the body. It would be impractical to think a person can be successful without FEELING it from within, without FEELING what they are doing. At least to me, I am closer to the ideal of success after sweating my pants off in a workout and feeling that I can use my body's energy and hustle to propel me closer to achievement than it is to spend 5 years "struggling" abstractly with a form of "mental workout" which is studying with little or no connection to my heart's content. You can't feel your body sweating when you're studying. You're just tiring your MENTAL MUSCLE further. And isn't life mentally hard on us ALREADY? Wasn't it hard enough to rationalise that we NEED to be successful and game addiction free? We need to be doers, makers, action takers. Not overthinkers, fakers, whining achers.

I agree and disagree with what you write. I'd put body and mind at the same level of importance. Our body develops sooner so it's easy to forget that we all had to go through painful and boring fundamentals such as turning around, balancing on two feet, articulating speech. What you call "mental workout" is exactly what it is: building good mental habits, resiliency, logic. It's working on the outer layer of the brain, the part that evolved last, the one which makes us human. And just like with the rest of the body, sometimes we don't particularly enjoy the exercises we perform but they are invaluable for our full development. I can't agree with your statement that "mankind evolved on the sole basis of physical mastery". Keep working on all levels and you'll be a happy, balanced individual.

But to say the least, I believe that even in mental activities there is a need to get the body going with it to make sure we associate positive visceral feelings with it. That's why I do my goals better when I write them down rather than pile them up in my head.

The mind should guide the body to do the right proactively benefitting actions, except in the case in which the mind doesn't want the best for us. In that case getting a bit more physically involved can help.

I'm getting to the journal soon, I'm writing the previous day's entries.

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