GHDR Report: Confronting Loneliness

⊕captionStill holding it together.

In this month's Groundhog Day Resolutions (GHDR) Report, I'm sad to report that my attempt to improve energy through increased sensory stimulation has failed. I had noted in September's report that it was the lack of connection that seemed to underscore my ongoing lack of energy. Unfortunately, creating connection also requires energy. This is quite the dilemma.

In my attempt to improve energy, I had come up with energy-generating and energy-conserving stratagems:

• prioritize meaningful connections with people over work
• increase sensory stimulation by going outside the house
• indulge in interesting rabbit holes rather than be enslaved by work responsibilities
• eliminate projects that did not generate immediate and meaningful results

The most successful stratagem was getting out of the house by going to the local Starbucks. My mobile laptop rig has been refined to the point that I can be 80% productive with it compared to my multi-monitor standing desk setup, so it's pretty easy to work with. While this did keep my energy levels up during the day, it still was an effort to get moving and experience some people energy. Toward the end of September, however, my desire to move grew less and less since there was no actual "connection" happening.

Debugging Disconnection

I had written a whole bunch of stuff to analyze the reasons that I'm feeling unmotivated and disconnected for this post, but it occurred to me that I could express it more simply as I am experiencing loneliness. There's a scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan which I recently rewatched, where Kirk is reflecting on the death of Spock:

David Marcus:

Lieutenant Saavik was right: You never have faced death.

Kirk:

No. Not like this. I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.

David Marcus:

You knew enough to tell Saavik that how we face death is at least as important as how we face life.

Kirk:

Just words.

While my experience with lacking motivation and productivity isn't as dramatic, the feeling that I've been tricking myself into being productive has a similar vibe. I'm always coming up with stratagems and reasons, modeling scenarios and orchestrating workarounds that allow me to function for just one more day.

I've never just said I'm lonely. I don't want to feel weak and alone, unable to plot my own course in life. I don't want to be helpless or admit defeat.

Having now said this aloud, it is now obvious to me how silly it is to NOT just state this as fact. I don't have to be dramatic about it. I'm not the only one.

The Search for Sri

The past few years of Groundhog Day Resolutions have been about factors that underlay my productivity systems given three main life changes:

• reluctantly shifting emphasis to being a better software developer to pay the bills
• navigating issues related to gender transition, and diagnosed autism/generalized anxiety

If I evaluate the past few years of GHDR in this context, it has been highly successful in helping me work through all these issues. I didn't realize, though, that this was what I needed to work through at the time. I think that maybe I've had it all backward in thinking that focusing on my own bespoke systematic productivity would deliver me satisfaction.

The times that I successfully created a new physical or downloadable product have been pretty rare. In hindsight, these products have only been done when I've had the feeling that connecting with people was possible. The entire idea of creative independence was about having the financial freedom to spend more time connecting with people. The hard lesson of the past few years is that I have very specific requirements and accommodations for the kind of community that I'd find really fulfilling. I've learned a lot about myself and how I relate to different parts of society, and that is perhaps the main claim to victory for this year's GHDR.

Rephrasing for dramatic effect:

I'm not a "bespoke collection of systems and processes" optimized to understand and communicate with people. I'm also not an entrepreneur seeking creative independence. Those are just traits I have.

More simply, maybe this is what I am:

Ramifications for the rest of 2024

As a lonely human being, I think the natural thing to do is to try to form connections. I've tried to be independent of that need as a form of protection against the kind of discrimination I felt as a weird neurodivergent closeted trans minority kid living between cultures, and I've let that control me more than I realized.

In summary, I think I've been playing a conservative and defensive Game of Life. It's been characterized by fear of rejection since at least 2016 when I first started to transition while dealing with professional and neurodivergent challenges simultaneously. I think I've largely resolved most of these issues now through the GHDR reflections of the past few years, and that perhaps puts me in a good position to do something new.

REJECTING THE OLD FOCUS

I don't think I need to focus on professional software mastery or building a colony, develop products or create tools to build communities as I have been in past Groundhog Day Resolution years. These have already become known strategies that I will continue to pursue. Groundhog Day Resolutions itself is the system that helps me internalize these habitual thoughts; there's no need to further systemize them as drivers of action. What I lack is the motivation to act, and I know from my prosocial motivational profile musings that this comes in the form of other people. I can't initiate action with just myself.

ACCEPTING SRI

I'm a human being that enjoys intense communication spanning multiple creative interests, and I want to be a producer of such experiences. As I've said for the past few years, this is the necessary context I need to be happy and productive.

At the heart of it all is this loneliness that I need to mitigate. It's a universal human need, and despite my unusual traits I'm still a sort of human. The only way I know how to do that is to be as muchly Sri as possible in as many places as possible. My best writing and my best design has come from indulging in my own sense of humor and interest. Rather than attempt to create safe, conforming materials, I should aspire to create the weird stuff first.

The Month Ahead

I'm a bit doubtful whether I can actually turn the above insights into something productive in a quantitative sense like "number of blog posts written" or "new people spoken to". I am, after all, still sensory-starved and lonely from missing the kind of connection I described above.

For purposes of creating an easy sense of accomplishment, I'll use a variation of the Concrete Goals Tracker's Points List.

• I shared a "Sri Thought" that resonated with someone else!
• I invited people to join into a Sri interest or activity!
• I expressed something a bit ridiculous and weird because I thought it was fun or good!
• I accepted or initiated a successful explorative conversation of any length!
• I shared a "Sri Artifact" like a blog post that got a like, download, or share!
• I was approached by someone who was curious about something I said, did, or made!
• I shared information about another person with someone who I thought would be interested!
• I introduced someone I knew to another person!
• I visited someone else's facility, group, organization and had a chat!
• I did something that could be seen by more than 25 people at the same time, or got more than 5 quantifiable reactions.

These are pretty good low-hanging fruit and should be easy to count. I intuitively feel that internalizing these ideas will help with the connection and loneliness issues eventually.

The other stuff (work, community building, etc) will continue on because they are always continuing when the above conditions are met.

That's it for this month. Thanks for reading!

INDEX of GHDR 2024 POSTS