Antidepressants, while great for getting my head above water, also kill a lot of feelings. I don’t belly laugh anymore and I don’t feel or experience joy. Instead, I feel the absence of all emotion. I realized this while sitting down at work to do a job I detest. It takes THC for me to truly be able to have a hearty laugh. It’s amazing how good the laughter is and feels.

I wish there were more effective treatments for major depressive disorder. The treatments that exist largely do not work optimally. Just newer drug formulations but little is being done to really study MDD. I wonder if that is because it’s not “sexy” or “profitable” medicine.

I wish I could be without these medicines but I cannot. I wish life could be easier but it is not. I’m just going to have to dig deep into some energy reserves.

I wanted to enjoy a simple night out with my special Denisse. It was completely and utterly ruined by a drunk man screaming obscenities about Puerto Ricans. Being Puerto Rican, Denisse became so understandably enraged and mortified. It took every fiber of my being to exercise restraint. I heard the words and knew where they came from. I knew if I had made a scene, it would’ve been worse all around. It’s a good thing that guy didn’t come near our table because then all bets would be off.

What in the hell is wrong with people!? Puerto Rico is a territory of the US. Therefore, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the US. I can’t believe in this century there are people whom still do not know this. I’m glad I’m more emotionally intelligent than I was in my more intemperate years. Had I been 10 years younger, I would’ve said, “F*ck it! YOLO! I may be going to the hospital after this but I’ll go with my head held high.”

I so badly wanted to rearrange the guy’s face. But to what end? Then Denisse will have to visit me in prison if she would even want to visit me at all. The wiser path was to let this go. Now if it were a case of assault, I’d have the guy pre-hogtied and ready for Wilmington’s finest to haul that guy away.

Now all I have to do is survive today. Every day is a struggle when you have mental health issues. The only easy day was yesterday. The aphorisms that come from the military are often really good and totally applicable to civilian life. Now to get cracking as I am already 30 minutes into my day.

This morning I’m feeling a lot of gratitude for my fiancée, Denisse. Without her in my life, I would be very much worse for the wear. I’m also feeling gratitude to my friend Jim for bringing us together. Denisse and Jim are very special people.

I’m also grateful to my friend Quanna. She’s one of the salts of the earth and I hope she and Denisse become fast friends when we all meet at Murph’s for the game. Quanna has this very awesome and unique laugh which encourages everyone to join in. I know she’s had a rough life but she chose not to let it harden her.

It’s also time to get a virtual private server spun up. I suppose 4GB of RAM, 4 vCPUs, and 200GB of storage space will be good. I believe this will be adequate for my initial business needs. I’ll use a minimal install of AlmaLinux 10.1. I would really like to do this today.

I did get the basic template laid out for my book, Boostrapping Your Own Internet: Learning About The Internet Through Linux and BSD Labs, with fonts and the like. I would also like to come up with some fun chapter names. More things on the todo list.

Life’s challenges keep getting thrown at me. I know I am complaining but it helps from keeping the frustrations bottled up. I would like one thing to go right for me professionally and I know that is not a large ask. Well I just need to be patient, make choices that are as informed as possible, and keep my eyes forward. I want to get started earning on Uber next week. I’ll find a way to make this happen. Worst case scenario, it will be the third week in February.

I was hoping to get some work done while waiting for Denisse to get her hair done. Having a lack of battery power and no available outlet for charging pretty much nixed that. I also really don’t want to go to work today. I want to call off. I’ll get away with doing as little as possible.

I don’t know what possessed me to offer to work the day after the Super Bowl. I’m not the brightest bulb here. So Monday at 8am will come awfully early.

Bare with me as I am currently processing a lot at the moment. I’ve now just reached a moment of insight. I realize why I failed at running my own business and it is because I did not think like a CEO. A CEO looks at their business operation from a top-down perspective, not from the bottom looking upwards. My previous attempts at running an IT consulting business failed because I looked at business operations from the position of a systems administrator with a narrow job scope and not a CEO. I’m kind of bitterly laughing now at how my mentor at the time must have been driven insane by my non-comprehension of this. I got mired in details that ultimately never mattered because they did not contribute to earnings.

So it is armed with this insight that I go forward. It’s time to learn how to write a business plan. YouTube can probably teach me how to do that. Maybe in my struggles to learn, I can develop content for others who are struggling. The world might be my oyster yet. Maybe I should simply google how to think like a CEO?

I still have so much to process and I need help with it. I’m still scratching at the surface of my insight. I’m trying to put this into accurate words so I can ask for help effectively. This probably was (and still is) a struggle of mine. I’m so used to not trusting others and taking a very paranoid look at life, that I’ve lost the art of articulating just when and what I need help with. Thankfully, this is not insurmountable. It’s simply a wall meant to be climbed.

For now, my LLC is simply for running my Uber contracting business. It will blossom into so much more.

My LLC is approved and open for business. I opened its checking account today and added the information to my Uber driver profile. As they say, it’s time to hustle. I don’t believe in working hard anymore. I don’t believe the lie. Working hard got me nowhere. Instead, it’s time to put the critical thinking skills evolution gave me into good use.

It feels like I am, at the very least, trying to make my way in the world. For now I’m keeping my LLC name close to the vest so I cannot be as easily doxxed. Of course it will eventually come out but for now quiet is key. I feel like forming the LLC was a huge first step. I’m going to be doing something a bit outside my comfort zone.

I don’t know if this is a sign of emotional maturity, more risk adverse, or if this is a sign of both because I’ve always plunged ahead. I’m being more measured in my approach. Could this mean that I will not be doomed to repeat history? I hope that I have learned from previous setbacks.

The title is actually what I need to do today. My brain does not want to power up and its operating system does not want to load. I know the large part of the inertia is coming from simply not wanting to make the trek into a job that I detest with a work environment I loathe even more. What I do have control over is what I can do before work to lift up my spirits. I know I am a little excited over the book planning that I am doing so once the old brain is fully powered up, to work I go.

I am also hoping that Jewish Family Services of Delaware gets back to me. I am not religious in the least but their mental health program comes very highly rated from people of all walks life. At this point, I need high quality talk therapy as I am not getting better on medications alone.

For this morning, I want to settle on a system for writing. Since I don’t use Windows (or Mac) at home, I have to find an app stack that works well. I think I will just end up using LibreOffice Writer. While it is not quite the ideal tool, I can make it work well. At least yesterday, I managed to settle on a good working title for my book, Boostrapping Your Own Internet: A Step-by-Step Journey Through Linux and BSD Networking Labs. Maybe I will have it in me to create a rough table of contents.

Who knows? Maybe I can end up picking up a publisher and this thing could go completely legitimate. It would make my day.

I think that I might be actually getting braver, a bit more self-confident, and caring less what others think anymore. I got written up for calling out of work last Friday. The write-up came to me via email and I was expected to sign. Not only did I refuse to sign but I wrote in the comments box, “I do not sign these documents.” That put such a smile on my face. I feel like I have power and beg nobody for work. Better, more independent days are in front of me so my eyes are forward.

ChatGPT helped me generate the working title for my book, Bootstrapping Your Own Internet: A Step-by-Step Journey Through Linux & BSD Labs

I think I will pitch this to No Starch Press. I really like that publisher and hope they’ll bite. But they’re not going to bite if I don’t bait the hook and cast the rod. This is a good goal for me.

I don’t know if this is the positive bias of ChatGPT or if I really have something here. I am choosing to believe I have a worthwhile and fun idea. Some chapter ideas popped up:

• Data center-In-A-Box
• Overlay networks/SD-WAN
  DNS: How does it really work
• LAMP/LEMP Stacks
• Landing From The Clouds
  VPN
• Community Networks
• Privacy 
• VOIP telephony: Being My Own Ma Bell.
• Beyond Vendors or How I Overcame Name Recognition. 
• High Availability Computing

I definitely need a day of relaxation after yesterday’s emotional roller coaster. Yesterday took a a lot out of me and I feel spent faster than a five dollar bill at a flea market. I would, however, like to carve some time out for one of my goals which is to begin writing the IT book that I had in mind. I think I’ll have ChatGPT give me a few starter ideas. This is something fun and creative for me so fun and creative can be the antithesis to depressed and barely functioning.

I don’t truly know what mental challenges today will bring but I ask that there not be any. I need a day where I can coast right along and at least keep my worries at bay so I can enjoy the present. There! That is the key! Living in the present today. No future and no past; merely today.

Since I had that segue thought of writing an IT book for street creds into teaching, I feel pretty encouraged. This will be a fun way of showcasing the importance (and even fun) of learning and knowing how aspects of networks and systems operate, beyond the way of simply learning one vendor’s methodology. We all know how technology vendors come and go. So this morning, I shall give the creative juices a shake and a stir.

This is the third blog entry I’ve written today in an attempt to keep my sanity. I am at work and finding my anger rising. This is why it is time to write and I know it will be calming. It’s times like the present that I get why people simply snap. We reach a point where we can handle no more. Fortunately blogging is a healthy coping skill. I will feel better after writing this. I remind myself that snapping gives my power away. I want to retain my power and control. Losing control means giving my power to the system. This just won’t and cannot happen. As bad as things feel, that’s all they are: feelings.

I’ve learned to question my feelings as another form of coping skill. Let’s just say I question my negative feelings. I look at them and ask myself if I’ve got an accurate perspective. The answer is simply that I do not and scapegoating this anger will not do. Writing about it is good though. I feel more relaxed but tired.

On the flip side, my mind is coming up with some positive ideas. I’ve been thinking about ways to make money that might simply work after a fashion. I did come up with a book idea that might be fun to write: Wicked Cool IT Labs. This would be a book for the curious and the person who wants to experiment with computers, networks, and servers. Somewhere along the line it occurred to me that this could be an indirect segue into creating an IT Academy.

Being a published author could give me some street cred as a teacher, especially if my material is good, creative, and fun. I could also do some podcasting. Maybe I want to write out a list of goals for my life.