[1]@puddingtime [2]sign in · [3]lmno.lol _____ _____ _ _____ ______ _ _ ______ ______ _____ _ _ _____ _____ _____ ___ ___ _____ _ |_ _||_ _|( )/ ___| | ___ \| | | || _ \| _ \|_ _|| \ | || __ \|_ _||_ _|| \/ || ___|| | | | | | |/ \ `--. | |_/ /| | | || | | || | | | | | | \| || | \/ | | | | | . . || |__ | | | | | | `--. \ | __/ | | | || | | || | | | | | | . ` || | __ | | | | | |\/| || __| | | _| |_ | | /\__/ / | | | |_| || |/ / | |/ / _| |_ | |\ || |_\ \ | | _| |_ | | | || |___ |_| \___/ \_/ \____/ \_| \___/ |___/ |___/ \___/ \_| \_/ \____/ \_/ \___/ \_| |_/\____/ (_) 🔥🤘🏻🔥 September 11, 2025 [4]Aspiration [5]Gasworks park metal structures Wow. First post in almost a month. I suppose it has been busy: Two long weekends away from home in SLC and Seattle, and a generally busy work month. Last weekend we went to see Thee Oh Sees in Seattle. That was 90 minutes of intensity. Al said it was her favorite show of the year. I'd place it a close second or a tie with Mutoid Man. We have tickets for one more show this year: YOB at Revolution Hall. I mentioned on Mastodon that I had just gone through and unsubscribed from a bunch of apps and services. DayOne was one of them. I thought about it a little at the time, but only to reassure myself that I had a few formats worth of backups, because I've been using that app for over 20 years and while I haven't been a diligent user, it has a lot of stuff in it. Yesterday, as I got ready for a meeting, I fired up my SuperNote tablet and had this brief idea of "oh, this'd be great for an interstitial log," then started a log page with a few entries from the day so far, when I stopped and thought "why am I doing this?" The answer was, "because I read about interstitial logging a while back, have tried it in a few contexts, and it has never really 'taken', so it remains this thing that sounds cool but hasn't had a habit built around it." So I stopped writing. And this morning I noticed my DayOne backup sitting in the transit folder I put it in, waiting to be put somewhere permanent, and I thought "oh man, how am I going to journal?" But the answer is, "I don't really journal that much." I write posts now and then when moved, but journaling isn't something I do a lot of, and I haven't made a habit of it. I don't think I want to make a habit of it. The same way I don't think I want to make a habit of interstitial logging. (On review: I have a particular relationship with the word want. When asked "do you want to ..." I try to reserve "yes" for things I have already considered and have decided to form an intention around. And on the back end, if I find myself saying, "I want to ..." but then never do it, I have sort of an existential relationship to the word: You aren't what you say you are. You haven't done what you said you want to do. You are what you do. And barring blockers, obstacles, and other matters of physics and circumstance, if you thought you wanted to do something, then never did it, but completely could have, can you really be said to have wanted to do it? At the very best, "not much." I don't think this is a popular point of view because people are increasingly suspicious of the idea that anyone actually has any agency.) So rather than wanting to do all sorts of things, I'm just sort of a sucker for the occasional "someone on the Internet says they do this thing and I think that sounds cool so I take a poke at it, don't really feel the value of it so much as I briefly liked the idea of it, and then there's this zombie file or application or folder full of something I'd hesitate to even call an aspiration." Someone I once knew said something withering about me regarding that whole loop, and I let their framing dominate my thinking for a long time. Maybe in the past four or five years, especially after I read Digital Minimalism, I began to think about it less like evidence of a character defect and more as evidence that I have moments of curiosity and interest, and am probably more willing than many (broadly considered) to just try stuff out. It's just me. I don't owe some outer authority any reporting on the matter. And that particular drive has put a roof over my head, put food on my table, and is paying for my kid to go to college. It has led me to some weird places, including Ft. Bragg drop zones, but it has also opened doors. If I've got an issue with the whole thing, it's more a question of how I want to spend my time, and if I'd rather be doing other things. So, the big unsusbscription/app deletion kick was good, because it did get a lot of brush cleared away: I not only turned off all those things, but made it hard to see them and either a. poke at them some more for no reason besides idle curiosity or habit, or b. decide to resubscribe. Which means when I think "Oh man, how am I going to ... " [some thing that never really took and that I didn't seem to want to make into a habit] there's a better chance I'll have an arresting thought, because there's nothing to go click and fuck around with. That's a good state to be in, because with nothing to idly do, I tend to go just a few places: • I pick up a book • I do something photography-related • I pick a game I can zone out with, which really means that I occupy my superficial awareness with a smidge of sensory exclusivity while I have a long thought about whatever I need to think about right now Those are all the things I want to do. 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