@travelyan.bsky.social Dearest Trav, love the new album. You have probably already heard of old demoscene shit but in case you haven't, I highly recommend giving it some listening. www.demovibes.org

Insignificance appears to be negative but this is an incomplete truth. The less you invest in the world and the less capable you are, the less you need to do. Power and will are responsibilities. Not to the world but to yourself. And the less you respect your power and will the unhappier you are.

I'm grateful for having a roof over my head. I can only imagine being homeless during the winter in Finland. I'm grateful for my grandmother. She is 94 and won't be here forever. I'm grateful for dialysis. Machines keep me alive.

I'm grateful for today.

The person I am in the future - whether it's tomorrow or ten years from now - is not me. I get one day, one moment. Therefore I am not entitled to the fruits of my labor - it is a gift for that future person.

Do not work for the respect of future others but for the respect of future 'you'.

Let's play a game of Ice or No Ice.
If you guess right you get 10 points and keep standing and if you guess wrong you get no points and face-plant on the ground.

James Clear's Atomic Habits is interesting. One of, if not *the*, top-sold self-help books today.

The logic of Clear's minimal viable change seems solid - figure out the smallest possible action you can take towards the habit and start from there. This makes beginning things as easy as possible.

My favorite thing: pillow - my second favorite thing: blanket.

The brain creates its own reality.

I'm not claiming that the table I'm looking at doesn't exist. I'm merely saying that there is no discernable way to separate what is (noumena) from what appears to be (phenomena).

The brain is a filter and you have control of that filter.

The brain and our awareness have an interesting feature and correlation - the more you focus on something, the more you become the target of your focus. Now, you may stare at a table all day but never become flat and four-legged. But the sensory experience of focusing on that table does get intenser

Think of yourself as awareness. Think of the brain as both the place for that awareness to live and as the source of it. Things visit this awareness (stimulus) and they affect the area where the awareness lives. You are not just content (the place and what's in it) but context (awareness).

Our attention is constantly externalized in modern society. Meditation teaches us to turn that focus inwards.

You don't have to meditate to gain some of the benefits of it. Practice noticing how you feel. Try to name the emotion. Don't analyze or judge, just look.