Whew, that last blog post on the Guide model was really lofty! Coming back down to earth for a bit, here are some things that have been energizing for me lately:

Haiku

I installed Haiku on an old netbook I had sitting around. It’s been really fun to use. If you like playing with computers, it’s a neat operating system. Not Linux, not Windows, not Mac, just something different. There are some productivity apps that are available for Haiku that you won’t be able to experience anywhere else.

Sometimes my intuition tells me I need to do my journaling in some different system, in some different way. Switch things around a bit to achieve a new mental POV. I did some journaling in Haiku and it’s neat. A self-contained little single-user desktop experience.

Orthodox File Managers

OFMs have always interested me superficially. This week I decided to dive in and learn one (Midnight Commander) and start taking notes, compiling my own sort of tutorial. In compiling this I realized that I will be writing more of my own personal computer software soon, which was motivating and felt exciting.

This also led me to the next item…

A Unified Experiencing Template

In the last few years I’ve enjoyed spinning up a frameworks system which has been gradually evolving into a “template” I can apply forward to new experiences. The general template looks like this: Unified Experiencing Template

I find that this format helps me:

• Really get the most out of my experiences
• Be more intentional, less over-perceptive (Ni/Se getting all the attention and not being e.g. very analytical, etc.)
• Employ my imagination early on in a learning process
• Remember things! Sometimes I don’t circle back to a hobby for months, if not years.
• Move lessons forward, from logged-experience, to helpful-idea, to organizational-framework component, to theory with form and dimension
• Have something concrete to look at and think—hey, I did it! I experienced this and I really got something out of it.

Above all, I noticed that in frameworks without a log, I kept coming back to the log as a beneficial idea: Getting my thoughts out, typically grouped under Te or extraverted thinking activity. This forms a field of information / thoughts / feelings from which to harvest tips, strategies, organizations, etc.—it feeds right into introverted thinking (Ti).

I don’t like that To-Do doesn’t really communicate the question, “what really sounds fun here?” so I will probably work on that aspect some more.

Asking Questions

This New Year’s Resolution for 2019 has been pretty funny. I have started noticing environments where the qualitative result of asking a question is heavily weighted toward “poor” or even “yikes why did I even ask.” For example, I found some helpful posts on a subreddit and asked a follow-on question. And while those posts I saw were really helpful, the answers I got to my questions were just really immature, or obviously problematic.

While thinking about this experience I took away a huge lesson for January: Seeking an answer is a real red herring! I don’t always need an answer from someone else, but what I do need is to make the question objective—to put it outside of myself—to just ask it. From there I find that no matter the answers I get from others, I immediately open myself to new learning experiences and generally make good progress, even if on my own. That’s one reason why “Questions” is now in the template linked above.

Summary

So: Some specifics, and some broad strokes, mixed. Anyway, these things are giving me some energy and helping me make energy investments for the future. I hope they help you, too!

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