I slept so well last night! I think it was legitimately because of a high dose of THC. I slept straight through the night. Everything feels so peaceful and relaxed. I know what I did was merely a bandaid for a gaping wound that major depressive disorder is but I needed relief. And I just realized that this is maladaptive. 😬

I really want to get more of the benefits of meditation so I don’t rely on substances. I know I have to walk very carefully here. I could use THC short term to help with some of the benefits of meditation. I know the ancients experimented with substances to augment or help people struggling with concentration.

I feel strangely motivated and positive today. It’s a good feeling. Since I feel motivated and I dare say creative, I will tackle some work on the website for my business. Even if I just work with AI to help get ideas, I’ll consider it a success. I don’t need a large bar to success here. I’ll be satisfied with any progress.

I need a day of rest today. I’m not exhausted but I am tired from working 40 hours in 4 days. I’m not really used to this so I need a recovery day. Concentration continues to be very difficult. I found myself whiling away the hours mindlessly on social media at work yesterday. It wasn’t the most productive day.

I’d like to get some work done tomorrow morning so I will do that. Time is going by fast and I don’t want a window of opportunity to close. I need at least a minimal launch of my website. I’m finding myself stuck in perfection being the enemy of progress.

I would like to at least get more organized about the process. Geesh! Here I am in a stuck state. I want to be kinder to myself. I’m so hard on myself that it is a progress blocker. My therapist would advise me to engage in some self praise; find the good inside and bring it out.

Today will be a self-care day. I will catch up on sleep and be ready for a productive morning tomorrow. I just realized that I have a discussion tool that I can use to “vibe out” a website design. I don’t really need AI to help me code out a website. I need help with the design. I know I’m getting into uncharted waters. This is where AI could help me flesh out things like layouts, color palettes, etc.

The trouble is that AI doesn’t feel natural to me yet. I have to think about how I can utilize the tool to achieve some results.

Another day and another security shift. But this one I don’t mind because it is 8 hours of peace and quiet. I only really have one duty which is to sit at the lobby security desk as the building is completely locked down. This will give me freedom and time to work on my business. It is a shame that I don’t really have the concentration to do much at the moment. That doesn’t mean things won’t change later though so I’ll ride it out.

Right now I feel like zoning out. It’s been a minute since I’ve put in a 40 hour work week at a job so I am feeling pretty tired. But I really don’t mind the site where I am at and the extra money is helpful. I know I want to be able to get a car of some sort again – even if it is a shit box on wheels. Ideally though, I am thinking of a Chevy Bolt EUV Premier. I don’t have to muck with things like gasoline or oil changes. The transmission on those things is a 1 speeder with forward, reverse, and park which means less to really fail.

At least the coming week won’t be quite as long as I will only be working for 32 hours. That should be more manageable and I will be getting paid this Friday. Pay day is almost always a good day. I say almost because of the amount of taxes being taken out of the pay check. It makes me grumble because the wealthy get away with paying a lot less than the working class do. The opposite should be true, but in ‘murica, that’s rarely the case.

I want to work on my business but it just isn’t going to happen at the moment. I need some more freaking sleep!

I really needed extra sleep today and it felt good to get some. I had an odd dream where I was watching tornadoes go by like a freight train. It wasn’t frightening however. It was kind of fascinating and beautiful. I also dreamt that the moon came out during one of the storms. Again, it was oddly peaceful.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday trying to understand why I could not, for the life of me, figure out why my self-signed security certificate did not work. I need an internal certificate authority for some apps never meant to be accessed externally. Well that problem was solved when I tried not specifying key usage on the authority certificate.

Now I’m ready to do some development work. I’ll be more in production mode today and less in troubleshooting. I have created a 10 year certificate authority and issued a whole bunch of certificates for various internal apps/processes.

I have officially reached the point of top geek for having my own internal authoritative DNS server and private certificate authority. It’s been kind of fun and a lot of learning.

I’m tired but happy that I will be going to work at the site that I like. I don’t mind providing security at local government building on weekends. I’m all by myself from 3-11 which means I can relax, take my time, and watch some movies. It will be getting paid to relax.

I think this afternoon I may work on my business for a little bit. I’ve set up a development environment on my laptop and I’d like to get a basic website designed. Then I can deploy it and check off an item on the todo list. Even if the first version is basically an electronic brochure, I am okay with that. I don’t want perfection to be the enemy of progress.

I started meditation this morning but couldn’t really do more than five minutes. That’s okay and a good start. Part of the problem was an upset stomach this morning so I couldn’t truly get comfortable. But again it is progress.

Now if Walmart will simply deliver my food!

This is going to be one long rant so just skip it if you don’t want to read. This day has been craptastic. My job sends me to the wrong site so I have to pay extra money to go to the correct site. I ask if they could give me a little help and the answer is almost always no. This will be the last double shift that I ever do for this company. They can figure it out.

The only reason I agreed to do the double shift in the first place is because I was under the impression that I wouldn’t have to stand from 8-4. Now when midnight rolls around I am going to be tired beyond all reason. I hate that companies think they own me. Two words: fuck that. The only freedumb in America is for one to be exploited.

More people need to stand up for their rights. Damn I am in a foul mood! I feel like baiting someone into an argument. I’m in rare form and spoiling for a fight. I wonder if I am just going to snap. Yeah wouldn’t that be a sight to see.

At least I have something to look forward to tomorrow morning. I cannot wait to sit in zazen for a bit. It’s been a long time since I’ve practiced Zen meditation so I don’t expect any immediate benefits. In fact, I may have difficulty letting everything flow through me unheeded and unacknowledged. Zen takes a certain amount of patience and stoicism. I hope that it will be like riding a bike and I can pick up where I left off.

I guess if I could manage 15-30 minutes that would be great. I want to quiet my mind and this is the way. Medication does not work as I’ve been diagnosed with treatment resistant major depressive disorder. Meditation was the answer a decade ago. I remember after doing it for a month I began to have tangible benefits. I remember being utterly relaxed and filled with joy and gratitude without any substances.

Basically, I need to take actions. Instead of telling myself I am going to meditate eventually, I’ve come up with the exact time frame.

I am proud of myself for a step I took yesterday. I went ahead and ordered a Zen meditation bench. It was a small and simple step towards better health. I know I really want to start Zen meditation again and make it a daily routine. The small and simple step of acquiring a tool will help tremendously towards establishment of this routine. I feel a sense of accomplishment for doing this.

Anyhow, the bench will make it possible for me to sit in zazen comfortably for decent periods of time. I am a bit infirm and unsteady at the moment so a tool like this will help to ease the establishment of the routine. I am seriously super excited for its arrival on Thursday.

I think clarity of mind, body, and spirit will unlock all kinds of future opportunities and open doors that could be almost limitless. I am so glad that I watched E-motion 2.0. While I don’t agree with everything in the documentary, I am a fan of taking information that jibes with me and running with it. The documentary convinced me of the importance of a healthy mind, body, and spirit.

I see myself doing meditation when I wake up in the mornings. This will start out the day with clarity. I am convinced that I can overcome some of my sickness through taking care of myself at a basic, wholesome level. It’s my hope that through concerted meditation, I can free myself of the burden that life in America can be.

This morning I am feeling physically better than yesterday. I am not nearly as nauseous which is a big relief. It might explain why I have more motivation to do a few things. One thing I would like to do is some technology setup. I would like to get my desktop switch live and going so I can setup my desk phone as there are not enough ports on my router. I may do that this afternoon if boredom creeps in.

I wish I knew why Ozempic was really causing me so much grief because it worked so well. I will have to work with my doctor and the practice social worker to get qualified for something else. From what I understand, Zepbound or WeGovy could be better for me. Either way, it’s going to take some discussion first. I need to make an appointment to see my primary care doctor.

I did take an important step last night which I am proud of. I began shopping for a Zen meditation bench and found a likely candidate for $39 on Amazon. I know that I want to be serious about regular meditation because it is empirically proven to have profound physical and mental health benefits. So I am very happy that I began taking a serious look at what I would need to make this happen.

I had more time to process the documentary that I saw last night called E-motion 2.0. I might have actually gotten a little bit more out of it than I first suspected. It got me seriously thinking about regular meditation and working towards good physical health through eating better. It is entirely possible to eat more nutritiously without having to spend more money for premium foods. Something about the documentary got me over the inertia over routine change. I needed something exactly like that.

If regular meditation could help reduce the anger, depression, and anxiety that I feel, I hope years of my life could come back. I hope that I could reverse some of the damage done to my body. The body is, as the documentary correctly notes, designed to heal itself. It would be great if I could even get a small reduction in the amount of pain/discomfort that I experience daily.

I just saw a documentary called E-motion 2.0. It wasn’t bad and I gained some insight. However, the film had a decidedly anti-western medicine. I believe that both western medicine and eastern medicine can coexist and augment each other. The film left me wondering if I made a concerted effort at meditation, could it unlock some joy or inner peace? The trouble is I never did it long enough to gain lasting benefits.

I’m setting a goal for myself to meditate 2-3 times per week. When I mean meditate, I mean in the unguided and silent form. I know it will take practice and patience. But the effort will pay off. At least it did in the past so I think it could work again.

The one thing I did not agree with in the film was blaming pesticides and GMOs. To be honest, without the benefits of GMO we would have trouble feeding our population. Obviously, we should eat more nutritiously and foods lower in saturated fats but an apple is an apple, even if it has been genetically modified somewhat. It will still contain beneficial fiber and vitamins. Usually the anti-GMO and the pro so-called clean eating crowd have an angle they want to sell you on.

So I am somewhat cynical but it comes down to balance and I know I am leading a life out of balance. I’m paying the daily price for it. I’m in a constant state of discomfort, and to an extent, pain. It’s a downward spiral that I want desperately to stop. Ironic how depression makes this seem infinitely harder.

I am going to have to speak with my doctor about a medication change from Ozempic to some other GLP-1 inhibitor because I am now pretty much nauseous all of the time. I don’t think I can tolerate this stuff any more. I put up with it for a good long while but no more. Well that much aside, I am doing okay if a bit on the tired side. I seem to be always tired which I don’t know if it is depression or I am legitimately not resting well.

I don’t know what is in store for me today. I don’t really have any grand plans and I certainly don’t have the energy to really do that much. No sense in forcing a square peg into a round hole so I’ll ride out the inertia. I did learn a lot about Linux containers in the past two days. I have a good website development stack set up in a container so I am ready to go when I have the concentration.

I am really having trouble concentrating. As much as I like the show, The Madison, a Taylor Sheridan masterpiece, I keep losing track of the story line because it is complex. I am going to give it a shot again but this time keeping anything that could distract me out of the room. The show flips time frames quickly so it requires concentration. There isn’t much more to write about today because even writing is not booting up my brain at the moment.