GHDR Report 1111: Travel vs Loneliness

⊕captionI caught this glimpse of the Chicago skyline bathed in light of the rising sun on the way to California.

Last month I admitted I was far lonelier than I had been able to admit out loud. I had kept myself busy both with theorycrafting how my creative interests intersected with potential audiences around me, and had even discarded the idea of pursuing tangible goals with quantifiable metrics. I was deeply hopeless under the veneer of courage that kept me waking up every day.

Last month, I made a List of Mitigations for Loneliness based on my Concrete Goals Tracker's design. The general pattern was to share and invite people into my activities, express myself more, and try to work my way up to more interactions per day people.

I didn't track what I did or keep points based on the list, as I was so low in spoonsSpoon Theory equates metaphorical spoons with energy, with various tasks demanding a certain number of spoons. When you run out of spoons, you are out of energy; planning for this is an essential concern of those who apply this mental model to their daily life experience. that I just tried my best to simply get out of bed every day with some semblance of purpose despite my lack of enthusiasm for work due to various project circumstances out of my control. And so it went until my dreaded vacation to California commenced in late October.

It might seem strange that I was not looking forward to vacation if you are not an anxious traveler like me. While I'm able to get everything planned and get on a plane, I associate travel with negative childhood experiences so my brain and body have strong reactions that I can't "not have". Knowing this, I can endure the anxiety but it's not a good time. Thankfully, the feelings go away once I'm on the plane and any contingency planning for disaster I've done is out of my hands; only then do I relax a bit and start getting excited about the adventure ahead!

I had a wonderful time visiting with extended family in California. I had enjoyed my visit the prior year and reestablished connections with relatives I hadn't seen in quite a few years. The newness of the locale and uncertainty I had about the relationships---especially given that I was masking my transgender state with the older relatives---had put me under some stress. This time, though, I was familiar with the locale and had a better idea of how to spend the time. I was happy to see that my cousins were doing well despite the hardships of the previous year.

To prepare for a week of excess, my cousins and I visited the cigar shop we had discovered by accident the previous timeThe staff at Club Aficianado Cigar seemed to remember me due to my hat! before hitting the Cantonese BBQ placeFrank's BBQ near my younger cousin's house, offering my favorites soy sauce chicken, white ginger scallion chicken, and roasted duck; we had stumbled upon their "soft opening" a year ago..

We grilled meats, smoked cigars, drank bourbon, and watched ZombielandI'd seen Zombieland when it released, but had forgotten how much fun it was with the various "rules of surviving a zombie apocalypse". on Halloween night while eating popcorn, peanuts, and sour candy. It was really great, and provided a stark comparative datapoint to my lonely existence back East.

How to Survive Loneliness: Sri Edition

On return to New Hampshire, I was so refreshed that I rearranged my entire living room, an onerous task that I'd procrastinated starting for years. This was unusual for me; usually after a long trip I am exhausted and have to "take a vacation from the vacation". Something in me has changed, perhaps. In Zombieland-style, let me declare Sri's Rules for Surviving Crushing Loneliness:

I noticed how much more usable space my cousins' homes had compared to my cramped condominium. In particular, I was enamored of a Pottery Barn Kids Craft Table that they had adapted into a coffee table that they could eat at while watching TV. The tiny chairs were sit-able, and I found that it was surprisingly comfortable to work at.

⊕captionPottery Barn Kids Craft Table (48in x 30 x 24). The chairs have a seat height of 14 inches.

Hence, I am motivated to make several changes to my living space. It looks and feels much better than before. I also ordered some deck furniture so it would be easier to smoke cigars and drink bourbon for the next time my cousins come to visit.

I noticed that it was really nice having people nearby when I woke up. We were all working in the morning, but the small interactions while making coffee or discussing later plans were welcome. There was no grand scheme or sense of urgency to "get everything done" while we were all in the same house as had been the previous year. This was far more relaxed, and it was reassuring in a way to know that I could co-exist with others in such a way.

I had been practicing this somewhat by going to Starbucks every day for the prior month, and it had helped me feel more even-tempered. The co-housing daily experience, though, was quite different. How can I recreate this?

I had found a Five-Minute Baguette recipe on YouTube that I wanted to try, and used this trip as the opportunity to try it out on fellow foodies. The result was very good, and we decided to serve the bread at a dinner we hosted for all the relatives before we left. There is no bread baking tradition in any of our families, so serving good bread hot out of the oven made an impression that spread even to the elders. It felt good to be the source of this ripple of interest.

⊕captionFirst batch of baguettes. 5 minutes of actual mixing, no kneading, popped into 480F oven after an 8 hour slow rise.

The above rules are pretty general, forming what I'd call a "basic template for being a social human". By addressing these issues, I've improved my feelings of connectedness and thus alleviated the feelings of boredom. Every small interaction reminds me that I'm human and can relate to others. That said, there's also the deeper needs that I haven't yet fulfilled.

I think this requires explanation, but I'm not sure I can really convey how weird and backwards it is.

I believe that I am not motivated to do anything at all unless I can share and enjoy what I'm doing with other people. I've been exploring this idea since mid-2024, calling it my Primarily-Prosocially Motivated Personality Profile. The gist of this is that I simply like to be around people who are engaged with sharing their interests and ideas to the degree where they want to build something interesting and cool. This is an exceptionally strong motivator, and in hindsight everything I've learned to do has been to be a better support vessel for creative shenanigans. Which leads to another rule:

I've talked about this many times over the year, with the current idea called The Colony and The Outpost respectfully. This energy is often lacking in freelance projects with low levels of communication. I miss the days of being in the computer lab with my middle-school friends trying to make stuff, the computer game studios I worked in, and wandering the halls of different departments in art school. In these cases it isn't the environment as much as it is being around people who are really committed to creating in the face of their own doubts. This goes beyond the basic requirement of Rule numbers 1 and 2.

As someone looking for commitment to creating with intensity together, I've been mistaken about the need to look for it in every interaction. This trip, I put this into practice and didn't worry about people remembering anything I said or even being that curious about me. That's fine...it doesn't mean they don't like me or find me weird and unrelatable. People like me who count themselves in the neurodivergent lived experience camp have had to deal with these feelings since childhood. I'm learning that I don't need to look for things that aren't there. People are usually perfectly content to having grilled meats, popcorn, and talking about movies, and it's often enough!

That's what I've got so far. These are important "Sri Truths" that I'll want to keep top of mind as the critical framing for pursuing more social activities.

The Month Ahead

This is the last month of Groundhog Day Resolutions, which ends on December 12. I think following the above rules are a good start to see where it goes. That said, there are a few other things I'd like to address:

• Join the local makerspace - I've cancelled my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription and will be putting that money to the makerspace membership. Instead of looking for intense connections or explaining myself adequately, I'm going to think of it as a place I can go to see what people are up to (Rule No. 2) and see how that goes.

• Run some game jams - My local game development group is hosting our first game jam on Itch.io: New JAMshire 2024! I've never done one before, so it'll be a learning experience. Instead of worrying about doing everything right and to expectation, I'm going to chill and see where it goes without overplanning (Rule No. 6). My cousins and I also do a mini one in California, and my compatriots in The DSCAFE Discord are talking about doing a hack-a-thon or something else.

• Explore friendly markets and public spaces - An enjoyable part of the vacation was visiting stores and talking to the people selling things. I'd noticed that I'd been enjoying this more so than an introvert such as myself should; when mentioning this to a relative, they laughed kindly and said from the way I was holding a conversation I was a "poor excuse for an introvert". I'm sure these spaces exist, and empirically I know that spending time in them will elevate my mood (Rule No. 1).

There's a lot more that's happened. The best way to keep up with everything I'm up to is to join the Discord...it is ground zero for sharing Sri Cheers and Lamentations daily! If you've enjoyed reading this, you might enjoy our Discord.

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

INDEX of GHDR 2024 POSTS