2026-06-16
I've been struggling with an intense lack of focus lately.
This is especially poignant when my mood is a bit heightened. Things have been decent enough lately; being well-fed, having the material necessities for my lifestyle, and good standing in my relationships has been a privilege to have recently. Yet with these blessings, it can still be tough to get myself over the hump of getting through the myriad of different impulses that come throughout the day.
"Oh, I was curious about that, let me look it up. Oh, there's a new thing I wanted to do. Oh shit, someone sent me a message, let me read it. Hey, wouldn't it be cool if I undertook this totally huge project I just came up with three seconds ago? Uh oh, I forgot I needed to do that thing, let me do that really quick."
It's fucking annoying, man.
Even when I ground myself with routines, I find my lack of focus still gets in the way of executing them. For the most part, my days are grounded by getting ready in the morning, writing Cogito, attending church and other routine social gatherings, going to the gym, and the rest? Nothing on the docket. A lot of that time is taken up going down a stupid rabbit hole, yapping on Discord incessantly, or just trying to relax somehow. I also let myself get distracted by the dozen or so smoke breaks I take throughout the day, but there's so much good music out there to keep me entertained, I suppose. More than anything, though, I'm struggling with figuring out what I really want. There's a good deal of fear I have to work through to figure it out. Mostly, I'm afraid I won't hold myself up to my own standards; I expect a lot out of myself, and when I don't properly regulate my energy, so much of it goes in maladaptive directions.
At least the writing helps keep me grounded somehow. Even if it's a performative way to gather my thoughts, I feel blessed to have the opportunity to do so. I know that writing is something I absolutely want to do, even if it's a mundane blog. I hope I don't keep trying to chew more than I can swallow. My energy has been good, and I want to try and give myself an actual sense of forward momentum. I struggled for a lot of years with this idea of having to be productive, or to find an identity as some sort of provider. But I've worked through a lot of that—mostly through gaining perspective on what being a provider actually means. It's more than an income, and it's more than having a status as "guy with this job" or "guy who does this thing." There's not really anything I have to build, because so much of the infrastructure is already there. All I have to focus on is doing my part, no matter how small or large that may be.
It's all about the intangibles, and writing helps me stay wealthy in that way. There's always ideas floating around in my mind, and putting them out there in this form helps create a sense of value I think a lot of people feel that they're lacking, but don't always have the words to describe. Maybe it doesn't have to be this hardcore informative thing, or some kind of "brain food," you know? The way of having no way is a pretty cool way to way, right? No way! Anyway, it's just another simple day here—a low-cortisol experience with no major obstacles, and that's awesome. Still, there's a constant desire to seek and explore. Even though Nothing Ever Happens here on the internet, there's still so much potential in these small waves of text and images, and that gives me a lot of juice to keep going.
I've wanted to get more invested in software development, even though I have no desire to work in the field. Projects are just good fun, and the act of learning and making things is a great joy. I've wanted to get more in-depth with cybersecurity, whether it be through doing more CTFs or setting up simulated attacks in VMs or on a spare machine. The network stack is such a complicated thing, and I want to get better at analyzing packets, understanding protocols, and figuring out how low-level programs actually work. I hate looking at C code, but with how important it is, it's just something I have to work past. But hey, at least Rust is still on its meteoric rise, right? I had this other silly idea to make an interactive fiction game engine with Perl because Javascript fucking sucks and I want to build some part of my website with Perl, but we'll see.
Sorry for all the meandering today. Stay loved, friends.
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