This was an unusually productive month where I've tackled many dormant projects. I think this is due to acceptance of loneliness and being mindful with how I govern my emotions.
Happy December 12! It's time for the last official Groundhog Day Resolutions Report of 2024, and there aren't any surprises to report. In fact, it's been a pretty good month marked by good emotional regulation and un-sticking several stagnant projects!
Reviewing the Month
In November's Report I had referred to two important insights about the nature of my loneliness, a List of Loneliness Mitigations and a Zombieland-inspired Rules for Surviving Loneliness.
After I had admitted with some embarrassment that yes I was lonely, I felt it was likely that loneliness was the condition that lead to suboptimal levels of communication and frequent everyday interactions; an enormous toll on my will to continue existing, making it a struggle to find a reason to get out of bed even in the face of the many tantalyzing opportunities that I rationally understood were within my grasp.
I had a much-improved outlook on life now, thanks to the California Trip where I reconnected with my cousins. Starting with the Rules for Surviving Loneliness I had made last month, I started to make changes.
Here's the How to Survive Loneliness List from last month:
- Rule No. 1: Environment matters.
- Rule No. 2: Be around people to share the small moments; connection builds over time.
- Rule No. 3: Find ways to draw people in with food.
- Rule No. 4: My goals are for making meaningful connections. I am not driven by material achievement.
- Rule No. 5: Shared aspiration to create together is my only source of clean energy.
- Rule No. 6: Most human interactions don't have longevity or meaning, so don't worry about the lack of it.
Applying Rule No. 1 - Environmental Improvements
The first thing I did was work on my environment, which had become cluttered and messy. It took a couple weeks for the kid-sized work table to arrive. I also bought some deck boxes and an outdoor table to create a secondary deck space to entertain guests. The deck boxes allowed me to store the gardening-related clutter that had piled up in the corner of the living room. I'm rather pleased with the outcome already, as the living room is now a pleasant place to rest or work!
Here's my laptop set up at the tiny table with the tiny chairs:
This table feels good given the size of my living room not being that large (10 by 15 feet) with rather low ceilings (only just 8 feet). It's small and cute, and it gives my legs a workout getting out of the chair!
I also improved my drawing environment by purchasing a Darkboard so I could draw on my couch with the iPad. I've been wanting to draw more, particularly since I had participated in our local game jam and was drawing spaceships.
Lastly, I finally rearranged my desktop computing setup to mirror the mobile setup. The primary monitor is now my LG DualUp monitor! This is a huge 2560x2880 resolution screen.
Applying Rule No. 2 - Be around people to share small moments
I've been going to Starbucks regularly, and have had some nice interactions with people there who liked my mobile laptop setup. More importantly, I've been more active in both the DS|CAFE Discord and local Game Developer activities. I share a lot of my day-to-day in the DS|CAFE and there have been several new members who have become regulars. This really has helped ground my day, and I have been sharing more silly things through photos and links that others might find enjoyable.
Applying Rule No. 5 - Shared aspiration to create together
An important insight from last month was that I really really miss working with other creative people who are driven to become better at what they do as a group.
A small step was made when I joined our local game jam, so now I have something I can continue to work on and discuss. My submission was barely functional, but I did resolve a ton of stuff for my Javascript-based game engine so it's a start! I've also started creating auxiliary artwork as I have been designing the main spaceship and sharing in our game dev discord for other folks in New Hampshire.
Applying Rule No 6 - Most interactions don't carry meaning
I've been mindful of this "rule", which has helped me relax quite a bit around strangers. As someone with various autistic traits, I struggled to find consistency and continuity in what people communicate; this really isn't how "normal" people think and talk. My late diagnosis has helped me realize that this is the case through lots of personal reflection, and finally I have found some measure of peace.
That said, I still do prefer deep, meaningful conversation with people who are "impeccable with their word"This phrase is from the 2000s-era book The Four Agreements. I interpreted to mean that my words should convey what I think and intend with what clarity and authenticity I could muster, a kinder and more socially-focused version of "Radical Honesty". That's just my private definition, though..
Brief End of Year Assessment
So, right now I feel like I'm in a good place both emotionally and am experiencing higher levels of productivity than I have in quite some time. I've come to peace with personal issues:
- relating to having several autism/neurodivergent-related traits that explained a lot of the disconnection I had experienced from childhood to now.
- relating to being transgender / non-binary and coming to terms with how that affects how I will live my life.
These are huge issues, and I didn't realize how much they were impacting me until they faded away this month. That said, I'd like to compare my current sense of accomplishment to what I started the year with. You can see a link to the original poster in the margin notes.
Sri's GHDR 2024 System Summary
from February 2024
My GHDR Reminder Poster PDF that outlined my starting goals for the year.
My takeaways?
- I started the year with specific mitigations to align my main goals (software mastery, e-commerce, community building) with the traits that gave me a boost of energy.
- I ended the year by acknowledging disconnection and loneliness as the underlying condition.
- I resolved my understanding that my way of talking and living is at odds with a lot of people, and that I should not worry about it (Rule No. 6) because it's not personal. Instead, I can find moment of everyday interaction that in itself is another way to build connection over time.
For the first time in many years I'm now fired up to restart my ambitious projects because I've rebuilt my sense of self-esteem as a transgender, neurodivergent, brashly demanding excellence-driven person who wants to chatter with other people about the topics we have in common, so sailing into 2025 I'd like to focus on that as much as possible.
Post GHDR Activities
Back in 2014 I wrote about ten year goalsI originally issued this as My Next 10 years of Blogging. In 2018 I realized I wasn't going to do them so demoted the goals as "aspirational", but as I look at the list now they are still things I'm wanting to do. in several areas:
- Make a Video Game
- Illustrate a Book
- Compose Music
- Achieve Creative Independence
- Develop Thinking Tools
- Fabricate Physical Goods
I obviously didn't complete any of them, but I find myself still drawn to them. I'd like to analyze these again and consider how to make them a part of Groundhog Day Resolutions 2025.
I've been also thinking about how it seems I'm about to start another epoch of Sri development that is accompanied by a shift in career. Here's the pattern I see:
- 1994 - gamedev/interactive design was the emphasis of epoch 1
- 2004 - interactive design/blogging/product dev/econmerce was epoch 2
- 2014 - community management/software development was epoch 3
- 2024 - something new?
I feel a strong urge to revisit each of these epochs and combine them all together. I'm once again interested in game development (1994) because I now have the tools to express ideas myself (thanks to 2014). I have a strong urge to blog again somehow (2004) because I think it's critical for community development (2014) that supports my notion of creative independence with people that have the same desire to create together (themes of 2022-2024). I've actually made some progress on every one of these wishful goals, so the interest is there. Maybe with the right community, I will also find the will.
That's a topic for another day, though. Thanks for sticking with me for 2024, and I'll see you again in 2025!
INDEX of GHDR 2024 POSTS
This year's single goal is Building The Colony!
Made a simple "functional area" diagram using Whimsical to help gather my thoughts.
I converted the Whimsical doc from yesterday to Affinity Designer.
Created new subsite at /the-colony/
Wrote stream-of-consciousness "vision statement" for later cleanup
Convert stream-of-consciousness into a "phrase cloud" for further deconstruction
Artifacts of The Colony: Pebbles, Seeds, and Rings
Created a "refined phrase cloud" grouped into five categories, based on boot 05's work.
Extracted "foundational" statements from yesterday, but they didn't leave a strong impression. Punt "why" to tomorrow's post.
Created a "Selfishly Sri" printable assessment to gauge outside interest.
Reducing scope from Colony to Outpost.
Desired results are distilled down to two main ideas, which will cover the next couple of months.
A slow start to the year, as I focused on paying work for most of the month. Set four directives to achieve this mont
The set of analysis notes that I authored with ChatGPT4 to refine my understanding of "prosocial motivation"
New goal is to start connecting with future chatty collaborators, as my brain runs on "prosocial motivation" and meaningful human connections.
Delving further into my "predominantly-prosocially motivated" profile (PPMP), and how to turn this into action given the dilemma of "needing the energy from a group to start a task" being at odds with "needing to start a group so I have energy".
The task of "talking to someone in-person about PPMP-based community" didn't happen. Happily, I had several empowering insights along the lines of wealth, doing what is good, and accepting myself that I think will help with that.
A new approach to "reduce uncertainty" instead of "pushing through" tasks, I take the time to define the mission and audiences more carefully.
Change of emphasis to All The Animals Are Friends as the anchoring concept for communicating my ideas!
Recognizing the seemingly-impossible task of doing tasks that no one else is looking at with me, I recast writing as the primary goal. Without the camaraderie of connection, I just am unable to motivate.
August sucked. I had no energy or drive. Perhaps I need to prioritize my own communications and work needs for once.
September was really low-energy and sluggish again. Rather than worry about sustainable systematic productivity, I should just admit that I'm lonely and let productivity handle itself?
The depression of September faded as I visited family in California. I theorize 6 "rules for surviving loneliness".
An unexpectedly productive month as I applied several of the "rules for surviving loneliness". My outlook for 2025 for personal productivity feels positive.