life – Page 5 – untitled atm

075 – must I write // pt 2

Pt 1: Here

We’re on the way to being 75% done. I’m doing some reviews because this is the last quarter of this goal. I was looking at annual insights and I actually only wrote 5000 words in 2022. (Compared with 35K in 2021 and 25K in 2023). Wtf was I doing in 2022? I know Feb-May was pretty busy with the move but I’m surprised that I barely wrote throughout the year. I remember 2022 being okay too. I don’t know then. Maybe I was doing other things. Maybe I was living. Maybe I was growing? Is what I want to think, but I’m not a 100% sure. 5k words is like a seventh of 35K words. This is just incredibly surprising to me. Maybe at some point I just lost awareness of this goal I had in mind?

I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Anyway. It doesn’t matter. I am a bit sleepy so I must write fast tonight.

I am clear that I like to write, a lot. Quite a lot. I’ve gotten better at it too. I like writing in short spurts, in flowy afternoons, on anxious days, on depressing days, on great days too. I do prefer writing in a notebook than on a laptop but of course I can do longer-form writing on a laptop.

Authenticity is a value of mine. Which needs clarity. Which needs writing. So I must write.

I’ve been doing more poetry and songwriting lately too and all of it also flows easier. I don’t know if these type of posts directly contribute to any of it but I imagine they must. How could they not? At worst, they’re reducing the gap between your brain (you) and the words coming out of you. And I’ve noticed this happening when I’m doing songwriting, I’m able to come up with truer-sounding lyrics without thinking much about it. So I suppose, that’s pretty great.

But an evaluation on why you must write is also an evaluation on what you want from life, at least in the medium-term, if not the long-term. Since I perceive inner and outer life through writing, these are the questions, problems, opportunities I want to explore in the next medium-term phase.

My relationship with gender, sex, femininity and masculinity
My relationship with courage— how do you find more of it, how do you build capacity, how do you balance it with not pushing yourself too much
The balance with myself, my creative pursuits, my “search” for love and maintenance of existing relationships
The balance with music, writing and limited time
The balance with creating things and sharing things (most recent explorations here)
Do I want kids? If so, do I want to bear children or do I want to raise children?
Do I dare to dream? Dreaming has become a little scary lately, do I want to be a realist instead? Or where do I want to be on this spectrum?
I feel a sense of responsibility towards my parents and (sometimes) the society. How much can I take? What are my values here?
There are certain things I don’t even imagine I can do based on the version I have of myself. What are these things? Knowing them wouldn’t hurt. Whether or not I choose to pursue any of these (based on #2 and #7) will be a question for the future me, but it might be worth exploring what kinds of wants and desires I have. (Soul-based, not ego-based).
I’ve been enjoying reading a lot more again (over the last 6 months). I want to continue to read more. What kind of books should I look for. I want Ocean Vuong and Sally Rooney type of words since they always really inspire me to write more. So I think this is worth looking into.

Maybe that’s it for now. I think writing is the easiest way for me to get in touch with myself. I used to be critical of why I go through these qualitative analyses and evaluations when I should be jumping to lists and action items immediately. But now I’m realising these explorations, rambles, etc are the equivalent of what two or more people would do in an ideation and brainstorming session. What are the things we want to be working towards, what is the general vision, etc. Filtering all this down into action items is a separate task. Writing is the first step. Writing is what brings things from inside into the conscious awareness, at least.

I know I may be repeating myself a lot in this post but I think I need to write the truth over and over again to make sure I can (eventually) internalise it. I may or may not have said this before, I cannot remember.

If I wanted to, I can write everyday for the rest of December and wrap this project up. I used to always maintain that this is a “quantity first, quality later” project and do I want to change tact at this point? Why should I worry about the quality now? If I wrap this up I can also start thinking about the other projects in my awareness. I don’t know, let’s see. I’m not sure yet. I was in survival mode the past week so I don’t want to push myself too much either.

This wasn’t fast and it took me slightly over an hour. But we’re done and that’s a lot of progress too! Happy Monday, folks. 🙂

072 – easing up

Today was tough. I want to sleep but I also want to write so that it doesn’t feel like a complete waste of a day. Obviously, it’s okay for a day to be wasted also, in the grand scheme of things, if that’s what’s easier in the moment. But I feel like I’ll be happier if I do something, just anything.

I’d woken up a bit late today— at noon— but had had a perfectly decent start to the day, except it just took a nosedive around 3pm. I got my period and was hit by an anxiety attack out of nowhere.

It wasn’t zero awareness, I was trying to ride it out using writing, music, grounding techniques etc and waiting for my parents to come back so I could talk to them. But it was still quite tough. And the rest of the evening wasn’t much better either. I think I still feel like I’m in my head a bit. I think it feels really uncomfortable to tune into my body. I don’t know why. Is it possible that I subconsciously opted for mental pain to avoid the physical discomfort? I don’t know.

Okay, let’s make some space for the anxiety. What am I worried about?

Definitely experiencing some body dysmorphia. I’m catastrophizing. So what’s the answer to this? Okay, right now— it’s fine, and I’m going to restart medications soon, and note that whatever is meant to happen will happen. If you’re meant to face the worst, you will. Maybe it will mean that the universe has other plans for you. We’ll find out. But we can’t worry about that right now.

I also thought I was experiencing some gender dysphoria. I’m not sure if that’s what it was and I don’t know yet. I took an online quiz and the results say it’s not that likely. However, I do need to make some space for some of the thoughts related to this because they’re obviously not coming out nothingness.

A job, I think. But okay, I think I can keep this aside until March.

I’m also a bit worried about my parents. They get really worried about me and they have their own troubles to deal with as well. Ah, I wish this was easier.

Too many events, people and commitments. I hate Indian weddings. They always stress me out so much, I’m just going to stop going to them from next year onwards. I can’t take it. Okay actually, I just realised that I’ve never officially added them to my fear ladder, maybe I just do that instead. So that I know that when I am attending one, I’m actually doing an exposure and so it’s okay for me to expect anxiety. On the flip side, I’ve been doing some decent amount of exposure therapy anyway so I should be really proud of myself and I don’t need to be doing all kinds of exposures all the time. So I think I can afford to skip the event tomorrow, I really have enough to drive me crazy already.

And my primary goals really are existing, maintaining sanity, music project (10 original songs), writing project— so why should I make life more difficult for myself by attempting to do a lot of other things?

Yes, I think making life easier is a good strategy for me to follow for the remaining part of this year. Let’s not try to do too much. Let’s prioritise health (mental and physical) over everything else. I think I can (want to) also keep social media intake a bit on the lower end.

Connected detachment.. man that’s really the thing I want to get better at. Obviously I care so much about everything and I think I like that, it’s one of my strengths, but I really want to be okay with things not working out. Like caring about things is fun in and of itself, the outcomes shouldn’t change anything.

Speaking of, here’s some fun progress updates on the music front:

Half-completed a decent song yesterday, I was writing about silly things but then the song got pretty substantial out of nowhere. It also felt like a proper click, when you find words or sounds that really feel like they’re capturing the essence of what you wanted to say. And I’m really enjoying the process.

Discovered some interesting chords and sounds today while trying to sing about the anxiety stuff earlier in the afternoon. I think it’s cool. I’m done with 5/10 songs and I think I can definitely write 2 more in December. So that’s exciting!

I really think sometimes I’m just running around in circles. But I know there is some movement, it just comes really slowly sometimes. Let’s just end this on this note.

What are some silver linings from today?

Did some writing, made some stronger/newer music (I think) because of stronger feelings
Was able to reach out to therapist, parents, friend before things got too out of hand
Limited my information intake, didn’t give in to worst fears
Communicated a bit with my grandmother also, might be a good step in terms of mental health and sanity
Feel like I’ll be alright by tomorrow and if not worst case by Tuesday. Which is great progress considering something like today would have taken me quite a few days to recover from maybe until a couple years ago.
Body dysmorphia (not going away but I can cope with it), gender dysphoria (will look into this and avoid triggers), people and events (will cut down), job (will push this a bit more).

Also, big thing – I actually feel quite better now. Feel like I’m back into my body a bit.

Alright, let’s ease up! Stay sane xx

062b – grief is not generous

Everything feels a little different now. The news of Matthew Perry’s death is hitting hard. I read the news in the morning and went back to sleep, hoping I’d wake up to a different reality.

I rarely feel this way about celebrity deaths (Matt Haig states the same sentiment in one of his very fresh posts). In fact he’s already expressed some of the things I’m feeling today / right now so maybe this is repetitive to anyone’s who’s reading this. But it doesn’t matter.

I rarely feel this way about celebrity deaths but maybe Friends was different. Even when I’d made real, made-to-last friendship bonds, Friends was still precious. Our friendships deepened over long character and episode discussions and many, many rewatches of them.

In school, I’d relate to Chandler a lot.

This May, I saw the reunion movie (after a long break from the series) on a flight to Bangalore, which I was on to visit my college friends, after a sufficiently long gap. I told them when I met them how fitting it was that we (well, most of us anyway) were all obsessed with this show during college and now here I was watching the reunion movie almost a decade later since we first became friends.

It’s all a lot.

I know a lot of people I know are feeling a lot. But I don’t know why that’s not making any of this easier.

I suppose grief has a way of taking all your attention, all your resources. Grief is not generous, I’m realising.

There’s also other contexts of the world (or our own personal lives, in many cases) that we cannot ignore. But we must grieve each story, each loss: whether we do it individually or separately is upto the feeler of said feelings.

Or maybe “big specific deaths” also bring into focus the fragility of life. You get tense about the things you haven’t done, the stories you haven’t told, the people you haven’t spent enough time with, the grudges you haven’t let go of yet, the nice things you haven’t said to the people you want to appreciate, all of that. And yet, will you change? Will you take the courage to do even a little bit of everything you haven’t done? I’m going to do it. I’m going to write love-letters (or e-mails) to all the important people in my life today. Or at least, as many as I can.

October seems like it’s becoming the season of goodbyes.

Wake me up when October ends, I think?

059a – values exploration (pt 1)

A while ago I discovered a values-exercise by the New Happy (which is a venture (??) I really admire) and I’ve been meaning to get to this for a few weeks now. Did a first iteration of the exercise but I’m not feeling fully settled with what I have. Want to explore this dissatisfaction through writing.

Here’s my top 10 values:

Faith
Courage
Learning
Authenticity
Choice
Compassion
Gratitude
Kindness / Love (I’ve clubbed these because I think that’s okay)
Health

I was super confused about what should take the last spot but these were the ones I found appealing: Peace/Art/Balance/Nature/Enjoyment

One that I’ve rejected (this didn’t even make it in my top-20) was Stability. But every time I have an anxious night or an anxious day I wonder if I should make it a value. So, okay, this is the first time I’ve had more of a medium-long-term “unstable” period in my life anyway. Which means that I don’t know whether Stability is a value I need (want) in my life or not. So, I suppose I can give myself more time ie 6-8 months to hopefully have an answer there.

Currently, when I distilled my top-10 to top-5, I came up with this:

Authenticity (This is the only one I’m a 100% confident about)
Gratitude
Kindness / Love
Health
Learning

This actually feels okay. Accepting that I don’t know enough about myself yet is also fine. Putting it in words, ie what it is exactly that I don’t know helps a lot too.

There’s of course the research to keep in mind too, the resource mentions that research tells us that the values that are most likely to make us happy fall in the following categories: achievement, stimulation, self-direction and benevolence. Which means that if I want to trust the research only, I might not actually need “Stability” as a core value if “happiness” is what I want to maximise in life.

What feels unsatisfactory so far is if these values are enough for me to have a life/lifestyle that’s exciting enough for me. The short answer is they can be. I can still pursue enjoyment, fun, excitement and all the jazz but just not at the cost of these things. Right? I think so. Let’s see. Feeling some blockers here. Like I’m listening to some “shoulds” as opposed to just what is.

I think I’m also conflicted between wanting a “happy” life and an “easy” life. Because of my generalised anxiety and my experience with the lows in the past, maybe I’ve convinced myself I want an easy life. But the truth is (I think), I don’t think an easy life can necessarily be the happiest life. It might cause some dissatisfaction down the line. So, yeah this might be worth thinking about more. Where do I want to operate on the easy-difficult spectrum to maximise my position the happiness-sadness spectrum? (Ah, good one.)

Okay, enough to think about. Will continue this exploration another time!

058b – movement

It’s been a rough couple weeks. I wrote in the last post that there are a lot of parts of my life that I feel aren’t working, and that changes need to be made. I think, even though the things that I’ve had to “change” or the process of the change has been quite painful, I think it’s all for the best.

I’ve decided to quit nicotine and it’s already been two weeks, and I think it can stick. I’m reading Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking to help me with this and I think a lot of the things in it make sense. The whole idea is to cut the desire at the root. We always try to escape the craving but the whole point is to really examine the craving and be okay with sitting with it. I’d been trying to do some of that by myself too but I think having external guiding material is much more effective. The other thing that helps it the regular reinforcement of how the craving is genuinely a bit of a false craving. We think nicotine is pleasurable but apparently it only feels pleasurable because it kills the withdrawal caused by the previous round of it in our body (or mind).

Parallely, the task of moving on from a romantic interest has also been thrust upon me. (I underplay this, she was more than a romantic interest, I think.) But.. I think it’s fitting that I’m quitting two things at once. It’s kind of similar, isn’t it? I mean, even though I know that one comes from a more genuine place (ie, heart, soul, etc), I think that aspect of like/love isn’t that hard to deal with. It’s the addictive part that’s harder to deal with.

So overall, with both the things it’s about cutting the desire(s) at the root. I think I’ve been coping pretty healthily. Talking to friends, journaling, using music as an outlet, all good things. Only food is suffering a bit so I need to make the healthier choices when it comes to that, and I will, from tomorrow. (Yes, yes, I know “from tomorrow” is the classic avoidant phrase, but I really will).

A close friend is moving to Delhi and I’m really excited to have him around. I’ve been feeling a lack of social support/circle overall and it’ll be nice to have a bit of an addition to my existing people.

Finally got a couple really big house-tasks done and that’s been a major stress-reliever. There’s a lot more to do (I guess there always is), but I’m trying to lean towards action as much as possible. I think it has to be done regularly, ie the choice to pick action over thinking, it has to made regularly, in majority of the moments. (For me, at least, since I err on the side of overthinking).

(Side realisation: I used to dislike the word “overthinking”, because I thought it implies judgement, and maybe it does, but I’m getting less defensive about it. And I’m accepting that yes, there is a difference between thinking and overthinking, the same way there’s a difference between processing and rumination. There’s definitely limits needed to “thoughts”. For many of us, I’m sure).

Anyway, good stuff. I feel myself growing. (This is hilarious but I genuinely feel it AH)

Alright, let’s go October xx

058a – must I write?

I was reading “Letters to a Young Poet” once again (after almost a couple years) since I was going through a pretty strong “I’ve no idea what I’m doing” week and I’ve been meaning to come back to it for a while now.

At the very beginning, Rilke asks the young poet (and I suppose all poets, in general) to ask themselves a very basic question — must you write? And only if the answer is a resounding yes (a “fuck yes”, if you will), should you continue. Only if “you can’t not”, should you continue. And if you really must, then you should give everything into designing a life for yourself that allows you to write.

For the longest time now, I’ve been very clear about the fact that I do need to write to feel happier. I like to write (in various forms) and I know that I’m more at peace when I regularly get to do so. Yet, when I asked myself this question again, for the last few days, I’ve been doubtful. Must I— really— write? Can I survive without it? Even if I could, would I like to? I don’t know.

I know that I see things more clearly when I write. Whether it’s events that are happening inside me, or outside me, writing is the one tool that allows me more perspective. Of course, words can only takes us so far, and they’re not a substitute for the lived experience or the event itself, but they’re the next best thing, for me at least.

And now that I’m here, actually writing, I think.. yeah, I can’t really live without writing. I mean, I can go without it for a few days, but I can’t imagine not writing at all for a whole week, definitely not for a whole month. I’d probably go crazy. Maybe I shouldn’t second-guess this. Socrates supposedly said that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. And I think I believe that. And I think writing allows me to do that the best.

Speaking of, I’ve been sick almost for a week now and it’s really taken a toll on my mental health too. Recovering now, though, although I do have some hard questions to return to once I fully recover. There are a lot of parts of my life that I feel aren’t working, or that I’m not very satisfied with, and I’m at the point where changes do need to be made, otherwise the frustrations might just get unmanageable.

Hope your week has been better than mine!

057b – need a break from constant evaluation and thoughts (read: anxiety)

August and September have been hard. I think truly, the “adjustment” to India began only in August. Living by myself is the only way I can really compare different locations and so May-July didn’t really give me the signal I needed. And boy, living by myself here is definitely hard. Safety (and associated things) is the core problem. Weather is second. Everything else I can still cope with. Or tolerate at least, for the good things.

Anxiety has been way too high. I think January-May was a relatively low anxiety period despite everything, because I’d “made the decision” to move, so I was essentially just enjoying life. May-July was okay as well. Lately I’ve been feeling really scattered, anxious, emotionally fragile, dependent, all sorts of things. I might need to consult my psychiatrist and get back on meds soon. Might help with the next few months.

Even though I have gained some clarity with respect to the question “how do I like to spend my time”, action is still something that proves to be tough on a daily basis.

I think I’m also tired of the “evaluative” thought-process that’s been constantly occurring in me over the last few months. With geography, with the things that I do, with relationships, everything. I really want to just be more present. Like sure, you have bad days and good days, or you have good things and bad things in most days, doesn’t always have to mean something. Yes, I’m doing some data collection but that’s not all I’m doing. Living is primary, capturing signal from living is secondary. And it will be subconscious, I don’t have to actively do it everyday. Reflection is important and I can keep regularly making space for it but I can’t keep reflecting while I’m experiencing. Might need to look a little more into the how of this.

I’ve also been a little unwell but it’s been tough to be easy on myself, because I’ve been so easy on myself over the last few months. I feel like that’s not fair and I shouldn’t have to “make up” for enjoying life but there’s definitely two parts in me that have been fighting on this quite a bit.

To summarise:

[Ick] How to take a break from constant evaluation and reflection, while life is happening? Ie how to be more present and in the moment?

[Ick] How to build more emotional resilience?

[Task] Schedule a session with my psychiatrist, maybe get back on anxiety meds

[Yum] The clarity wrt my creative outlets still persists and I’ve started vocalising it more in front of people as well, so that’s nice.

Alright that’s it from me. Intention for the week is to go easy on myself, hope y’all will do the same with yourselves!

057a – some clarity

It’s been a difficult week. Anxiety has been super active, and I’ve found that it likes to focus most on two subjects: career and love.

The interesting thing to realise is that my anxiety doesn’t focus on geography as much lately. (I think this could be a sign that India is working well for me, potentially. However, I know that it could be conditional on the fact that I have kept my daily frustrations minimised to a high level. I think I do feel more number of smaller, daily frustrations here and yet feel more of a long-term overall groundedness. But if the frustrations were more for any reason, there is potential for that to rock that feeling of overall stability, of course).

re: career

I’ve gotten more clarity on this as well. I’ve found that music and writing are the two forms of creative expression that I gravitate most towards (for various reasons which I know very well but don’t need to list out here). I can legit sit at home and play, sing and learn music all day, and that’d keep me at peace and also happy and also satisfied, fulfilled. If I were living in a vacuum, I’d probably continue life the way it has been over the last couple months for at least another couple years. But because we live in a society, and money is a thing, I’m thinking I’ll start looking for part-time, remote jobs (what kind, I don’t know yet) starting January. This would still allow me to continue to spend on creative pursuits, I think. And then I can always reevaluate.

I also think I’m not a big fan of the term “career”. I don’t think I’ll be working on building another career, so to speak. I’m probably more aligned with the idea of jobs, yes, when you need money, and otherwise of course spending your time meaningfully is important, and for me that meaning can be derived from the little things. In the current phase of my life, majority of my “work”-time would be devoted to creative expression, whether or not I share the results with the world or not. It’s what allows me to best explore my inner world (and maybe even the external world), and it’s what gives me the most joy and meaning. Whether or not it’s enough for long-term satisfaction is something I’ll probably know with more time, but for now this is enough.

re: love

I’m learning to focus more on the present, as opposed to worries about the future. This is obviously valid for life in general too, but can sometimes really show up with relationships and dating stuff. I’m learning to work on some of my anxious-attachment symptoms, therapy has been super helpful with all of this. I’m learning to listen to my body and my gut as opposed to my mind. My mind is very loud, tuning into the body is often the only thing that helps me be closer to what I really want.

Time to head out for my vocals lesson. Cheers!

055a – “morning pages” but it’s just frustration

Mornings get incredibly tough out of the blue these days. I guess it’s just teething issues but I think when you’re not expecting certain things to happen it’s tougher to deal with them. Although of course our true strength is determined by and the maximum growth of course happens with the unexpected. I think I’m used to people only coming around when I know someone is supposed to come around. I was woken up today by a couple of doorbells by random errand workers and it just completely messed my morning up. I’d slept pretty late anyway so this made it quite worse.

I’ve been struggling with the amount of dust in the house, which causes me to be really alert and active when the house-help comes to do the cleaning and stuff. I’m also struggling with how much of mom’s voice keeps echoing whenever house-stuff is happening. Like I think in a vacuum, I wouldn’t even care about half the things, but her voice is so loud (figuratively) that I end up caring about 10 more things than I usually would. House tasks are endless, I haven’t been able to accept this yet.

I think alone time isn’t alone time when it’s being used up by tasks and chores. For it to be really quality alone time, I need to have more brain and body space to do nothing. Or to do things that help me feel more connected with myself. Like this, for example.

I have therapy today after almost two weeks, looking forward to it. I’d been thinking of reducing frequency from weekly to bi-weekly (to save expenses a little bit), but this gap made me realise I’m not ready to do that yet.

Physical activity has taken a hit over the last couple weeks because of the move, which I think is also affecting me quite a bit. Need to get this started again. Food has also taken a bit of a hit simply because I’m finding I feel quite lazy to cook or even assemble food, I might need to just spend the funds and keep a cook for my own sanity. Let’s see how that goes.

Social, dating, creative pursuits are going pretty decently, can’t complain much over there.

I think overall, I definitely don’t feel as much loneliness or isolation here (ie India), and general “big picture” anxiety is lower too, but I do feel more stressed and frustrated by the little things on a daily basis. Jury’s still out on what’s worse. Will be a major determinant for geographical decisions.

I got scammed by some fake caller the other day and I thought I was over it but somebody asked me a question about it just now and it triggered major “self-inadequacy” feelings in me (ie how could I be this stupid etc) which is making me realise I’m not completely over it. Ah, well.

Anyway, that’s it from the last couple days. Hope your day’s going better than mine is!

054a – life is tough but i’m having a lot of fun

Thoughts have gotten a little tough since the first of the month.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I moved to an apartment a few days ago, and transitioning + the amount of maintenance work to be done has completely killed the little productivity I had in me. I don’t know whether I had unrealistic expectations wrt moving, like maybe realistic expectations would have been accepting that adjustment does take some time, regardless of how comfortable or convenient you might have imagined the setup to have been.

My parents have been quite helpful with the move actually, and that for some reason has been introducing some guilt in me as well. Even though part of why I’d originally picked Delhi over other cities (like Mumbai or Bangalore) was literally that I have more support and resources available here. Not sure why then, when it comes to leaning on the support and resources, I feel conflicted. It might partly be because I’m more used to leaning on friends, etc. and maybe a part of me somewhere believes I need to be more “independent” as an adult. Maybe I feel like it’s kiddish to lean on parents for support. Part of me just feels guilty for taking their time and energy on things I can (I think) do by myself, even if I’d probably do them much slower if I were completely on my own.

Essentially, August feels like it’s not going to be very productive in terms of personal goals etc. (This may not end up being true, but currently it feels that way). Although I know that moving by itself was a big personal goal, so maybe— just maybe— it might be fine if I don’t “achieve” other things this month.

I do have a few music goals I still want to try to achieve this month, however. Main problem is they’re dependent on me having a decent work-setup (with a desk and mic). Maybe I can prioritise that this coming week.

I came to my parents’ house for the weekend and earlier was very annoyed at the prospect (thinking it’ll take away my whole weekend and that I have things to do etc) but it’s actually been quite nice. The fact that I’m here writing this post because I finally maybe feel “comfortable” enough to write is also saying something. It’s saying that I do need to make sure to get the setup I need as soon as possible. I’ll also get to do a drums class tomorrow so that’ll be nice, hopefully.

I feel like I’ve been focused on the fun stuff more than anything, and that’s the primary reason I’ve been feeling guilt about productivity etc. Like I’m legit enjoying life a lot at the moment (even with all its tough parts), but that makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong. Like.. I don’t deserve this, for some reason. I don’t know, maybe I can focus more on this in the next post. Can’t get into the whole thing right now. Should sleep.