This post has very little to say, but I need to write it anyway. It’s a long\u00a0ramble about where I’m at now, and where I want to be.<\/p>\n
So, that little video game project didn’t pan out so great in the\u00a0end. But you know what, that’s okay. I learned a lot about Python,\u00a0Curses, and getting things to work on both Windows and Linux. Here’s a\u00a0tip: It’s a pain, don’t bother. But as far as difficulties regarding\u00a0getting a console-based game to work cross-platform go.. The only\u00a0tricky bits were making sure the character encodings were set-up\u00a0nicely across both platforms. The down-right DIFFICULT part was\u00a0getting Curses to work on Windows at all.<\/p>\n
Anyway, that was in the past. It’s time to look forward! Another abandoned project, but maybe that’s okay. I spend more\u00a0time than I’d like sitting down regretting idle, wasted hours. The big problem\u00a0with lamenting wasted and lost time is that the lament is often a\u00a0waste of time itself. When I get in a slump, I remind myself that\u00a0I’m not number one yet, so I have to try harder<\/a>.<\/p>\n So I’ve started another endeavour. Yes, another one. It’s near the bottom of this post. I never follow\u00a0through or finish anything, but maybe it’s time to change that?\u00a0Looking back at unfinished project after unfinished project, it’s easy\u00a0to fall into the trap of losing faith in yourself. I’ve lost faith in\u00a0my own ability to finish things so many times, but I always manage to\u00a0claw back some self-discipline and self-respect to try again. However,\u00a0these salvaged feelings are suffering from diminishing returns. You\u00a0can only fall so many times before you stay down, right?<\/p>\n Over time, I’ve become quite good at starting things. And if it’s not\u00a0a huge thing, I can follow through without too much problem. For\u00a0example, roughly a year ago, I sat down with a Rubik’s Cube for the\u00a0first time. Within a few months of playing with it, devouring the vast\u00a0amount of cube-related information, I was able to solve the\u00a0cube. Fast. Like, forty seconds fast. Technically kind of slow\u00a0compared to proper cubers, but you know. That was easy, because it’s\u00a0just memorisation and repetition. After a while, you switch your brain\u00a0off and idly practice on the bus or train, letting your fingers do the\u00a0work while you think about what you’ll make for dinner.<\/p>\n There’s a few things about having learned the cube that bother me:<\/p>\n Why would that last thing bother me? Well, it’s such a useless thing,\u00a0completely inconsequential. It has not changed my life in any\u00a0way. If I used that energy differently, I’d have a finished game\u00a0(or maybe two) under my belt. At the same time, it’s okay. I want to be one of those amazing people who only do useful things, but maybe that’s an unrealistic ideal. Time will tell.<\/p>\n I have things I want to learn, things I want to do. Some useless\u00a0things, and some useful things. Knowing the cube? Useless, but fun.\u00a0It’s nice to watch people’s lips curl into a smile after they watch\u00a0me solve a cube. I want to learn a foreign language. I want to write a\u00a0book. I want to ride a unicycle (and maybe solve a cube at the same\u00a0time?). I want to be better at physics. I want a perfect body (I want\u00a0a perfect soul<\/a>).<\/p>\n I never really considered that there wouldn’t be enough time. I didn’t\u00a0consider that I’d have no willpower, or the attention span of a\u00a0hyped-up kitten. After a lot of thought, I’ve identified these as the\u00a0key problems:<\/p>\n The book ‘Mastery’ by Robert Greene claims that every human being has\u00a0a calling deep inside them, they just have to find it. They’ll just\u00a0‘know’ when it comes, and they will be able to draw strength from this\u00a0calling. It will be their muse and their motivator. It’s a romantic\u00a0notion. I haven’t found that thing yet, and to be honest, I’m not\u00a0really buying into the idea that it exists for even half of people,\u00a0let alone all of them. So that willpower has to come from somewhere\u00a0else, or that one thing has to be found.<\/p>\n I’m told by the Internet that a person needs 10,000 hours of practice\u00a0at an activity before they can be considered ‘a master’. To put that\u00a0in to perspective, you would have to train every hour of every day for\u00a0over a year to reach that number of hours. If you spent seven hours a\u00a0day working on your activity, it would still take over four years to\u00a0reach the lofty height of master.<\/p>\n So we can’t waste time<\/a>. If you’re going to become brilliant at\u00a0something, you have to work at it. The problem is that you need to\u00a0want it, and you can’t want to stop. That is so hard! It’s one thing\u00a0to persevere through pain and difficulty, but it’s another thing to\u00a0want to. Like, it’s the difference between studying because you need\u00a0to graduate and get a job, and studying because you want to actually\u00a0know the material and have a deep understanding of the subject for the\u00a0sake of it.<\/p>\n This means we need to find what we want to do, soon. Earlier than\u00a0soon, we’re talking like years ago. Probably should have figured out\u00a0at least one thing to focus on by now. I knew I wanted to go to a good\u00a0university, but that wasn’t an end goal in itself. I just had no other\u00a0plans. And then I had to get a job, because that’s just how life is\u00a0unless you’re pretty brilliant (or lucky).<\/p>\n I’ve rambled enough, so here’s the plan: I’ve put together a\u00a0timetable<\/a>. It’s not perfect, and it’s not meant to be. It is subject\u00a0to change. I will spend my time a little more productively than I have\u00a0in the past. I’m not going to try for miracles. I know better than\u00a0anyone that my weekends are likely to fall apart. I know I couldn’t spend more than a few hours a day focusing on things right now. Hell, there’s hardly three hours per night anyway.<\/p>\n So that’s at least one hour a week on a bunch of different\u00a0things. That won’t help me become ‘a master’ in any of these\u00a0disciplines. Or rather, it will. In about 190 years, I’d expect to be\u00a0amazing at all of the stuff in my timetable! The idea is to weed out\u00a0the activities I don’t find interesting, and give more time to the\u00a0ones I do enjoy. Some activities are ‘larger’: ‘Maths’ and ‘Tumbling’\u00a0refer to the full disciplines of studying vector calculus, classic\u00a0mechanics, contact juggling, riding a unicycle, and so on. I feel I\u00a0want to be good at something in those areas, I just need to find out\u00a0what. Others are more concrete, like ‘Blog’. Guess what time it is? The subject of each post isn’t set in stone, but the activity itself is known ahead of time.<\/p>\n Writing out the timetable was a horrifying experience. Subtracting all\u00a0the time for work, eating, and sleeping, I’m left with maybe six hours\u00a0a day, out of sixteen, seventeen waking hours.. But hey, that’s almost\u00a0seven right? If I can find something I’m so enthralled with, that I\u00a0only want to do that one thing.. Mastery is only years away.<\/p>\n The timetable is set for a reason. With past projects, it’s always a\u00a0very ‘if I have time’ deal. Or worse, procrastination has reared its\u00a0ugly head. “I’ll start this later, I need to finish this YouTube\u00a0video first”. At first glance, setting things in stone seems to be\u00a0detrimental to willpower as a whole. But I’m trying out a technique of\u00a0habits. I want to practice things regularly, at set times. Or at\u00a0least, in the same order. I want to take the choice of ‘what to do,\u00a0when’ out of the equation, and focus more time on actually doing\u00a0stuff.<\/p>\n For instance, it’s now 10pm, the end of my blogging hour. Next up,\u00a0I’ll be reaching out and talking to people. About what? And to who? I\u00a0have no idea, but the point is to just try. See what happens, maybe\u00a0end up with a more specific goal for next week.<\/p>\n I’ll sum up quickly: I’m horrified and saddened at at how terrible I\u00a0am, and how awful I am at stuff. In general. I have very little to\u00a0show for twenty five years of living. That Rubik’s Cube has become a\u00a0symbol of the pointlessness of everything I set out to do.<\/p>\n It’s not all doom and gloom. I said before that I always get up and\u00a0try again. And that’s what I’m doing now. I will work on my willpower,\u00a0and I will find a calling, something I want to do more than anything\u00a0else. And even if I don’t, at least I’ll have spent my time doing things I\u00a0want to do, and even some things that might actually be useful in the\u00a0future.<\/p>\n That’s it! The most narcissistic post I’ve ever written.. Since I was\u00a0like, thirteen or whatever, on the LiveJournal. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be\u00a0back next week. I have no idea what I’ll write about now, and that’s\u00a0both scary and exciting. If there’s no post here next week, I will have failed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This post has very little to say, but I need to write it anyway. It’s a long\u00a0ramble about where I’m at now, and where I want to be. So, that little video game project didn’t pan out so great in the\u00a0end. But you know what, that’s okay. I learned a lot about Python,\u00a0Curses, and getting […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
![so I have to try harder<\/a>.<\/p>\nSo I’ve started another endeavour. Yes, another one. It’s near the bottom of this post. I never follow\u00a0through or finish anything, but maybe it’s time to change that?\u00a0Looking back at unfinished project after unfinished project, it’s easy\u00a0to fall into the trap of losing faith in yourself. I’ve lost faith in\u00a0my own ability to finish things so many times, but I always manage to\u00a0claw back some self-discipline and self-respect to try again. However,\u00a0these salvaged feelings are suffering from diminishing returns. You\u00a0can only fall so many times before you stay down, right?<\/p>\nOver time, I’ve become quite good at starting things. And if it’s not\u00a0a huge thing, I can follow through without too much problem. For\u00a0example, roughly a year ago, I sat down with a Rubik’s Cube for the\u00a0first time. Within a few months of playing with it, devouring the vast\u00a0amount of cube-related information, I was able to solve the\u00a0cube. Fast. Like, forty seconds fast. Technically kind of slow\u00a0compared to proper cubers, but you know. That was easy, because it’s\u00a0just memorisation and repetition. After a while, you switch your brain\u00a0off and idly practice on the bus or train, letting your fingers do the\u00a0work while you think about what you’ll make for dinner.<\/p>\nThere’s a few things about having learned the cube that bother me:<\/p>\n\nI can’t tell you why I did it, other than ‘it looked kind of cool\u00a0and seemed like a fun idea at the time’.<\/li>\nI have absolutely zero use for a skill like that.<\/li>\nIt was one of the only things I finished.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nWhy would that last thing bother me? Well, it’s such a useless thing,\u00a0completely inconsequential. It has not changed my life in any\u00a0way. If I used that energy differently, I’d have a finished game\u00a0(or maybe two) under my belt. At the same time, it’s okay. I want to be one of those amazing people who only do useful things, but maybe that’s an unrealistic ideal. Time will tell.<\/p>\nI have things I want to learn, things I want to do. Some useless\u00a0things, and some useful things. Knowing the cube? Useless, but fun.\u00a0It’s nice to watch people’s lips curl into a smile after they watch\u00a0me solve a cube. I want to learn a foreign language. I want to write a\u00a0book. I want to ride a unicycle (and maybe solve a cube at the same\u00a0time?). I want to be better at physics. I want a perfect body (I want\u00a0a perfect soul<\/a>).<\/p>\nI never really considered that there wouldn’t be enough time. I didn’t\u00a0consider that I’d have no willpower, or the attention span of a\u00a0hyped-up kitten. After a lot of thought, I’ve identified these as the\u00a0key problems:<\/p>\n\nWillpower.<\/li>\nTime.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nThe book ‘Mastery’ by Robert Greene claims that every human being has\u00a0a calling deep inside them, they just have to find it. They’ll just\u00a0‘know’ when it comes, and they will be able to draw strength from this\u00a0calling. It will be their muse and their motivator. It’s a romantic\u00a0notion. I haven’t found that thing yet, and to be honest, I’m not\u00a0really buying into the idea that it exists for even half of people,\u00a0let alone all of them. So that willpower has to come from somewhere\u00a0else, or that one thing has to be found.<\/p>\nI’m told by the Internet that a person needs 10,000 hours of practice\u00a0at an activity before they can be considered ‘a master’. To put that\u00a0in to perspective, you would have to train every hour of every day for\u00a0over a year to reach that number of hours. If you spent seven hours a\u00a0day working on your activity, it would still take over four years to\u00a0reach the lofty height of master.<\/p>\nSo we can’t waste time<\/a>. If you’re going to become brilliant at\u00a0something, you have to work at it. The problem is that you need to\u00a0want it, and you can’t want to stop. That is so hard! It’s one thing\u00a0to persevere through pain and difficulty, but it’s another thing to\u00a0want to. Like, it’s the difference between studying because you need\u00a0to graduate and get a job, and studying because you want to actually\u00a0know the material and have a deep understanding of the subject for the\u00a0sake of it.<\/p>\nThis means we need to find what we want to do, soon. Earlier than\u00a0soon, we’re talking like years ago. Probably should have figured out\u00a0at least one thing to focus on by now. I knew I wanted to go to a good\u00a0university, but that wasn’t an end goal in itself. I just had no other\u00a0plans. And then I had to get a job, because that’s just how life is\u00a0unless you’re pretty brilliant (or lucky).<\/p>\nI’ve rambled enough, so here’s the plan: I’ve put together a\u00a0timetable<\/a>. It’s not perfect, and it’s not meant to be. It is subject\u00a0to change. I will spend my time a little more productively than I have\u00a0in the past. I’m not going to try for miracles. I know better than\u00a0anyone that my weekends are likely to fall apart. I know I couldn’t spend more than a few hours a day focusing on things right now. Hell, there’s hardly three hours per night anyway.<\/p>\nSo that’s at least one hour a week on a bunch of different\u00a0things. That won’t help me become ‘a master’ in any of these\u00a0disciplines. Or rather, it will. In about 190 years, I’d expect to be\u00a0amazing at all of the stuff in my timetable! The idea is to weed out\u00a0the activities I don’t find interesting, and give more time to the\u00a0ones I do enjoy. Some activities are ‘larger’: ‘Maths’ and ‘Tumbling’\u00a0refer to the full disciplines of studying vector calculus, classic\u00a0mechanics, contact juggling, riding a unicycle, and so on. I feel I\u00a0want to be good at something in those areas, I just need to find out\u00a0what. Others are more concrete, like ‘Blog’. Guess what time it is? The subject of each post isn’t set in stone, but the activity itself is known ahead of time.<\/p>\nWriting out the timetable was a horrifying experience. Subtracting all\u00a0the time for work, eating, and sleeping, I’m left with maybe six hours\u00a0a day, out of sixteen, seventeen waking hours.. But hey, that’s almost\u00a0seven right? If I can find something I’m so enthralled with, that I\u00a0only want to do that one thing.. Mastery is only years away.<\/p>\nThe timetable is set for a reason. With past projects, it’s always a\u00a0very ‘if I have time’ deal. Or worse, procrastination has reared its\u00a0ugly head. “I’ll start this later, I need to finish this YouTube\u00a0video first”. At first glance, setting things in stone seems to be\u00a0detrimental to willpower as a whole. But I’m trying out a technique of\u00a0habits. I want to practice things regularly, at set times. Or at\u00a0least, in the same order. I want to take the choice of ‘what to do,\u00a0when’ out of the equation, and focus more time on actually doing\u00a0stuff.<\/p>\nFor instance, it’s now 10pm, the end of my blogging hour. Next up,\u00a0I’ll be reaching out and talking to people. About what? And to who? I\u00a0have no idea, but the point is to just try. See what happens, maybe\u00a0end up with a more specific goal for next week.<\/p>\nI’ll sum up quickly: I’m horrified and saddened at at how terrible I\u00a0am, and how awful I am at stuff. In general. I have very little to\u00a0show for twenty five years of living. That Rubik’s Cube has become a\u00a0symbol of the pointlessness of everything I set out to do.<\/p>\nIt’s not all doom and gloom. I said before that I always get up and\u00a0try again. And that’s what I’m doing now. I will work on my willpower,\u00a0and I will find a calling, something I want to do more than anything\u00a0else. And even if I don’t, at least I’ll have spent my time doing things I\u00a0want to do, and even some things that might actually be useful in the\u00a0future.<\/p>\nThat’s it! The most narcissistic post I’ve ever written.. Since I was\u00a0like, thirteen or whatever, on the LiveJournal. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be\u00a0back next week. I have no idea what I’ll write about now, and that’s\u00a0both scary and exciting. If there’s no post here next week, I will have failed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This post has very little to say, but I need to write it anyway. It’s a long\u00a0ramble about where I’m at now, and where I want to be. So, that little video game project didn’t pan out so great in the\u00a0end. But you know what, that’s okay. I learned a lot about Python,\u00a0Curses, and getting […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mjdarby.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:YouveComeALongWayBaby2.jpg#mediaviewer\/File:YouveComeALongWayBaby2.jpg\"){kind=link}