Habits maketh man. It is written in the Hagakure "Even if one's head were to be suddenly cut off, he should be able to do one more action with certainty." That belief that enough determination and preparation will drive you forward though you are beyond reasoning.

The less extreme is also true. Even if one were to be pressured by an unfamiliar environment, he will probably do what his habits lead him to do. Even if he's not really paying attention, he could meander in the general direction of his destination.

Momentum of decisions, like rocket ship thrusters. In space, a push will send you along forever if you let it.

Good thing I'm not in space.

I think. It might be awesome up there; I don't know.

Work has been difficult. Challenging, I should say. It's time to admit that I like crisis. It's a very comfortable state. All sorts of momentum to push me along.

You're the apple of my eye/you're the apple of my eye
-Some song by The Foals

It hurts to type on this. Hands have been spoiled by my mechanical keyboard. Or maybe I'm just pushing too hard on the chiclet keys. No resistance like my machine keys. Soft and squish.

You're the apple of my eye.

Brain is on fire. The good kind of on fire.

Productivity in the 3rd Quarter is down, according to reports. Or a report. That big report that comes out that everyone talks about. They save all those giant reports and burn them for warmth in winter.

I'm trying to be more productive. Not sure how to cultivate it. It starts with sleep, I think. 7.5 hours of sleep gets me about 4 hours of "overdrive" before I slip back into normal mode. Overdrive is fun; I try to hold more and more tasks in my mind. Like a computer screen with a bunch of windows open. How many is too many depends on how much sleep I've had.

Eating a bunch of pie for breakfast also seems to help. Brain energy good for when it's on fire.

I was walking on the treadmill last night and playing Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. It's become something of a habit. I enjoy the game, and I enjoy the walking. Perhaps there is some part of me that still yearns to be a soldier. With infinite lives. It's a video game, but I think about my character representing a real person with hopes and dreams, and the years of training and struggle it would take to reach the elite ranks of special forces. Then my character runs around a corner and gets wasted by the enemy. During the dying animation the character's imagined life flashes before my eyes.

Pretty well quashes further thoughts of fighting like that again. It was pretty hard on the knees, too.

During the political party conventions, I turned off NPR. I'm interested in politics, but not so much the minutia. The little moments exhaust me. When the rhetoric becomes so calculated it's hard to be objective. Sales and Advertisement of ideas.f

What's most interesting to me is the speed of the rhetoric, the dialogue, the call-and-response. So many people are talking. It's almost like back in the old days of AOL instant messenger. Group chats, with side chats, so many conversations. We loved it.

It's probably all our fault. Heh heh heh.

Experiment Day 42: The Engine Core

I slept briefly but well. I dreamed in Italian, and in my dream I understood most of it. I'm at work now, a bit early. The sky was cloudy and it strained to turn from black to dusty yellow as the sun rose behind the mountain. The dust drifts upwards.

This is the hour I used to write. This is the hour in which I now write. This is the hour I didn't write. This hour is all hours.

In one of my journals, I used to start with the alphabet. I'd go Ahab Bradbury Chaucer Dickinson Edgar Fahrenheit Gloat Hamstrung Ipswich Journeyman Kilogram Lout Mosaic gNostic Ostrich Planetarium Quartered Render Slake Tongue Umpteenth Vigorous Wainscot Xygote Zeno's paradox.

Something like that.

My god I just went in to Livejournal. I barely recognize the place.

It's like wandering through electronic ruins. There was a world here. Now it's gone. Destroyed by the myspace and facebooks. We had to write, then. To show up in the feed. Photos were possible, but not the currency.

Not ruins, maybe, but the cast-off shell of something. What did we grow into? Molted old communications. Dried out husks of hubs. We were writers then. All hands on deck. Now we tap our thoughts, hen pecks. Our writing tools talk back. Whole writing systems spring from the tools available to the culture. Right to left, up and down. With how much care would we plumb our own depths if each text message took a chisel and an hour?

We're running out of things to wonder.

I was a fool to leave you, Liverjournal.

Experiment Day 2. Note to self: Remove the tiny clock on the corner of the screen. It tasks me.

A massive white pickup truck with a license plate that says "SHADWFX". I didn't see the driver, but I either love them or hate them.

Noise-canceling headphones were expensive, but worth it. They put in a solid 6 hours of work every day. The Bose run backup duty when it's quiet, usually in the early morning and following afternoon potlucks.

Reading...nothing right now. Finished a collection of short stories. "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. Probably keep it next to the Borges and the Vonnegut on the nightstand. They would get along. Or they have already gotten along. They are getting along?

Cloudbursts of rain, dusty and abrasive at first. The second rainfall, often in the evening, cleanses. We all sparkle.

Can I do this? Can I keep doing...this? The hours are available. There are wasted moments in a pile in the closet next to dirty laundry and unfolded but clean towels. Remember how to build. Top-down, of course. Hoist the most important sails, lash them to the highest mast, then build the boat beneath the wind and sea as we sail.

There are no long days, she reminded me.

Her gentle admonishments lie, unfolded, in the closet.

Experiments. Very important. Learn by trying. Learn by failing. Mnemonic scar map pictograms.

Perfect.

It's early. Is this time-stamped? I think it is. It used to be. Settings aren't important right now. Early enough that most of the world is out of my way. Drive to work in peaceful cool relative darkness. There was a time when I had no air conditioning, but I forget those days.

Experiments.

How long has it been? Sometimes it feels like I'll see you when I get home. In a dream I remembered your boots. I think you were them. Definitely the hat.

Concrete examples: Treadmill. Incline walking 2.3 MPH. Playing video games and walking. Doing nothing while doing something. Almost looks productive. Veil of ingenious. Momentum works two ways. I can't seem to keep moving, so I move the ground beneath me. My knee hurts. The world whirs beneath, and does not care.

There is no perfect experiment, I suppose.