I've got a lot of stuff rumbling and tumbling around inside me right now.
Mentally, and physically.
Physically, I've been doing a full lion diet elimination for awhile and slowly trying to add back things to see how my body reacts.
Yesterday I ate 1/2 tbsp of raw honey, which I guess my body just does not agree with. I've heard it has something to do with fodmaps and the fructose in it. Either way my insides were burning and I'm still feeling the fire a day later.
It reminds me of why you shouldn't give honey to babies, but that's because of the bacteria present in it that can cause botulism. Ironic given the general internet's advice that honey is anti-bacterial.
Maybe I'm allergic? Maybe it's botulism? Maybe I'm just a baby. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The honey that hurt me
Mentally, I've been biting off a lot of life and chewing it with gusto. So overall, pretty happy.
So here's a list of the projects I'm cooking up. Each one is based on a problem I've had and a solution that I've come up with that I think has value for myself and hopefully for others as well.
Project 1: Flame Journaling
This is an action-focused journaling web app with a feature of publishing your results to others.
My Problem: I was pretty stuck in my life and not sure what to do. So I didn't really do anything. I needed a way to get myself out of the mud, but I had an overwhelming amount of problems and a lot of fear of taking action.
My Solution: Over the course of several months I iterated on a series of action-focused journaling prompts that I used almost every day. They gave me a structured way of making immediate changes to my life, which I feel has been a huge success, and I still do one of them a week.
Not only did I want to find a way to give this journaling process to others, but I selfishly want to read other people's problems and solutions too!
The main idea here is that we as humans are all very similar. Whatever problems I have, other people are going to have those problems too, or at least very similar ones. Whether the problems are emotional, physical, relational, philosophical, financial, or whatever.
How it works, simplified:
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You focus on one specific problem going on in your life.
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You work through the guided journaling prompts until you eventually decide on an action you are willing to take to change it. At this point the Journal is in the "Flicker" stage because you haven't actually done anything yet to make the change happen.
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You go and do the thing you said you would do
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You return and reflect on what happened, what you learned, etc. This evolves your journal from "Flicker" to "Flame."
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You can then choose to make your "Flame" public for others to gain inspiration and benefit. I've got a YouTube channel setup as well and plan to have "Featured Flames" from the community.
This is what I'm spending most of my time on right now. I've got a website up and should be live in a couple of weeks.
Here's a teaser of what the journaling flow looks like right now:
Flame Journaling Example
Project 2: Sugar Sherlock
My Problem: My #1 health issue is type 1 diabetes. I've lived with it for 27 years so far and have used every piece of modern technology available to try to control my blood sugars, but to little avail. I've also had to face many gastrointestinal issues over the years that have resulted in extremely unpredictable digestion speeds and glucose spikes.
My Solution: In 2019 I did something crazy. I decided to make a meal plan where I ate the exact same things every single day, with the same routine, at the same times. It was the best control I've ever had in my life. However it was NOT easy. Diabetes is already a level 9/10 difficulty disease. This lowered that difficulty to maybe a 4/10. Much much better, but it still required a great deal of thinking, effort, and training.
Many years and more experiments have passed and I still haven't reached anywhere near the same level of control I had back then. So I decided to revive that project and have been seeing the same promising results again.
There are a lot of mysteries to diabetes and one's body. It feels like playing 4D chess where the rules of the game change every day. But with time and attention you start to learn the rules of how the rules change too. So that's why it's like a detective game, thus "Sugar Sherlock".
I've been doing this in spreadsheets, but would really like a web app that I can use instead. So I'm working now on figuring out the designs for what this system should look like.
I've also shared my spreadsheet-based process with another friend of mine with type 1, but they are also using an automated insulin delivery pump at this time too. So I look forward to hearing what they learn.
Here's an example of what one of my spreadsheets currently look like:
The "Sugar Sherlock" system
Project 3: You Need a Routine
My Problem: One of my "Flame Journals" I did was focused on the fact that there are so many projects, books, games, anime, and other things I want to do with my life but just can't seem to find the time to do them.
My Solution: Using the "168 Hours" method of time management. There's 168 hours in a week, and I basically created a spreadsheet of "time budgeting" where I listed out all the things I wanted to do with my time and how much time I'm willing to give to it. It was an EXTREMELY rewarding and helpful process for me, and even more so now that I'm actually doing it all.
Every week I review my time budgeting and what I liked/didn't like about the previous week and update it accordingly so I'm making time for what matters most to me.
Here's an example of what my last week looked like:
168 Hour Planner Examples
So now I want to share this process with others.
I plan on creating a basic web app that guides you through the time budgeting system. There's a lot of going back and forth between your own calendar and your priorities list and little features that would make a dedicated app a lot more enjoyable to use rather than spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are 'good enough' most of the time, but a proper product could make things even better.
Project 4: Speed of Zen
This is a video game. Recently I've been learning Unity and gamedev for the purpose of bringing this to life.
I've always loved the "time moves when you move" mechanic from the game Superhot. I even created a 2D version of the game back in college, and I always wanted to turn it into a full game.
My current vision is a top-down sandbox zen garden. You control a small pebble in the sand, which leaves behind a furrow in its wake. Enemy pebbles (or whatever it ends up being) appear and fire projectiles that leave varying kinds of patterns in the sand. I'm getting some inspiration from bullet hell games I love like the Touhou series, but I'd like this game to be more meditative and satisfying.
The faster you try to move, the faster time moves - punishing frantic behavior and rewarding concentration. I'm thinking that defeating enemies requires you to draw an Enso circle around them, at which point they get 'purified' into a rock or pattern left in the sand.
I'd love to feature different weather, landscapes, lighting, etc. It's a simple, but complex enough set of features that make learning it very fun.
This past week I was studying more about fine sand physics and how to optically simulate the way light casts across peaks/valleys.
Here's one video I really loved that has a similar feeling to what I'm going for:
Books
This past week I've been reading:
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Heal Pelvic Pain by Amy Stein - Five years ago I had this terrible swelling and pain in my right testicle. It was just constant 24/7 throbbing pain. I've seen 3 urologists and had 2 ultrasounds done, all come back normal or as a "hydrocele" and they say there's nothing they can do. Last year I saw some random post with someone that cured their issue who said it was actually a problem with the pelvic floor and they recommended this book. Sure enough, the moment I do the stretches in this book, the pain and swelling immediately disappear. Nuts. Thanks internet stranger.
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Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner - I'm studying Japanese seriously again every day and I've heard really awesome things about the ideas in this book, so I'm excited to dig into it.
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The Myth of Mental Illness by Thomas S. Szasz - Apparently this is a pretty classic book and I like studying the history of medicine and how diseases are treated, so this was up my alley. I'm most interested in seeing the world of mental health through the eyes of a psychiatrist in the 50's / 60's.
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The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young - I finally finished this book. It was far more technical than I expected! Not as technical as the Manual of Insight, but pretty up there. Overall it was decent. I wanted more details about his ideas of proper progression of meditation. He briefly touched on his "Gone" noting technique, but a lot of the book felt like I was just listening to a mishmash of buddhist technical concepts ripped out of their traditional frameworks and glued together by Shinzen trying to make a more appealing product. He's extraordinarily insightful and self-aware, but I felt like I didn't learn much.
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Manual of Insight by Mahasi Sayadaw - This is like the bible of insight meditation. It's thick. It's dense. It's also amazing and scholarly. I like it, but it takes me forever to read. I'm almost halfway through it, and just chew away at it bit by bit. My meditation practice has been steady, but my concentration is very weak. I am likely going to have to rework my weekly practice to give more time to settle my restless mind that is so occupied with all these books and projects.
Song of the Week
I've been a huge fan of the Touhou Project culture when I was in high school. The games were fun, but I was always impressed by the fact that everything is made by a single guy. The music he made was especially wonderful, and it spawned an entire subculture and memes on the internet. "Bad Apple!" probably being the most famous.
There are times when the internet feels small and like we're all in the same place seeing the same things. Other times it feels massive and sprawling, and you end up finding a gem of something wonderful in a place few eyes have seen.
The Floating Cloud Acoustic Band is one of those gems. Just a random group of goofy people that sold their cd's at Comiket.
This is one of my favorite songs they made:
Thanks for reading :)
-Jason