That’s book 2 finished - How To Take Smart Notes. Full review coming but in a nutshell; good introduction to the Zettelkasten concept, if a little repetitive at times. 📚
Started a fourth book - The Muscle Ladder by Jeff Nippard. That’s one paperback, one audio book, one on my kindle, and one on my kindle app. Totally fine.
Finally got my hands on a proper cue. Won a couple of pool games with it already, looking forward to getting it on the snooker table
As yet untitled
Yesterday morning, I felt compelled to write. I woke up with a story in my head, and I knew if I didn’t get it out it’ll play on me for the rest of the week.
It’s as yet unfinished, but just starting it is enough to keep the beast fed. The question was whether to start sharing it now, know it’s both unfinished, unedited, and hardly original.
But art demands to be shared, and at the very least, I can compare it against alter works and claim an easy 500 word win.
And so.
The rain pelts my barrier as I surveil the scene a final time. All must be exactly as the dreams I implanted to prevent breaking the reverie too soon, ruining the careful work of months. It took too long to find a suitable subject this time, I don’t relish the thought of what it would cost to secure another. Already this shell wears thin.
Satisfied with my surroundings, I close my eyes and project myself outwards. Externally, I see a new mirror image of the dream self. The face half illuminated by the moonlight, half hidden by my wide brimmed hat. My overcoat hiding the shape of what lies underneath, my shoes appropriately black as the night. With a small effort, I stretch out my barrier a little further from my body to enhance the ethereal look of the rain not getting close to me in the slightest.
All is as needed.
Pulling myself back into my shell, I start to flex my muscles in well practiced order, from scalp to toes and back again, re-orienting my mind to this body. The process takes longer than usual, additional effort being required in order to will muscles into being. Patience, I remind myself. Soon we will be fulfilled again.
I glance up and down the street before checking my pocket watch. Five minutes to ten. Not long now. The street is empty, ensured by a combination of this deluge and my chosen location. Graveyards, contrary to popular myth, hold no real symbolic power in the world of the occult; they’re just locations conveniently avoided by most, largely unlit apart from the occasional street entrance like this one, and usually attract only the grieving and the dispossessed, both of which have their uses.
Additionally, nobody wants to go running after the screams heard in a graveyard at night. Better to just believe it’s a figment of the imagination.
Lights to my left alert me. Looking around, I see a vehicle coming. Life was so much easier before cars. Sharpening my sight shows three young men, none of which are the one I’m waiting for. The one in the front passenger seat is pointing at me and says something, the others laugh. I freeze the moment temporarily and commit their soul signs to memory before they speed away. They will come in useful later.
I check my pocket watch again. One minute to ten. I hurriedly put it away, focusing the body into the correct posture. All must be perfect.
And then, they arrive.
I slowly look up to see the subject and our prey. The subject wears thin himself, his skin pale, his eyes hollowed and dark, his hair ragged and falling out in patches. After months of work, the dreams have him so completely that he resists even blinking to stop seeing the afterimages. He huddles himself against the cold and wet, standing barefoot in his nightwear, staring at me in fear and awe whilst his companion is frozen to the spot.
I allow myself to smile, ensuring precision in every movement. I beckon them over with a gesture as the gate opens on it’s own behind me.
Finally, the feeding can begin.
Just realised I could probably replace the focus mode location setting with an automation and be better off. I set Workout to turn on every time I get to the gym, but it’s so inconsistent it’s almost pointless.
What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama
A collection of interconnected short stories explores relatable life challenges through the experiences of various characters and their interactions with an unconventional librarian, offering a light and enjoyable read despite some drawbacks in depth and translation.
I actually don’t think bendgate is going to be a problem with the iPhone Air. I think they’ve learned their lesson from long ago, and are keen to not get those headlines again. I’m more interested in seeing how long that back glass can last without a case.
Finished ‘What you are looking for is the in the library’. Longer post to follow, but I’ll be going bed thoroughly heart warmed 📚
Ok, didn’t have ProMotion coming to the regular iPhone on my predictions list this year. That’s a winner.
Only about 30 pages left of ‘What you are looking for is in the library’. Thoroughly enjoying it, although it’s still jarring how much the author needs you to understand how fat the librarian is. It’s not as gratuitous as Graham Norton’s writing in ‘Holding’, but still. Cultural divides 📚
34-32 Steelers. What a barn stormer of a game for week 1. Jets have nothing to feel bad about though, looks like they’re up for a strong season. 🏈
It will also bug me how crisp packets are unnaturally open in adverts. No-one opens them that cleanly.
Reading in progress
So I usually have between one and three books on the go at one time, depending on my emotional and mental bandwidth, and the time of year.
Mostly I can juggle a fiction and non-fiction book either digitally or paper, reading the fiction during the day and the non-fiction in the evening. But over the past few months I’ve been able to start enjoying audiobooks again. I struggle with them over the darker months; SAD really hits my concentration during the day, ruling out listening at work, and with the darker evenings I need my concentration to be on my surroundings when walking the dog, and not whatever story I’m listening too.
At the minute, I’ve got three on the go right now:
- What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama
- How To Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens
- Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Da Vinci has been a bear on my list for about eight years. I got it after listening to the Steve Jobs biography by the same author, thinking I could get on a biography kick, which turned out to be a lie. It didn’t help that it was another 17 hour read after listening to the 25 hour Jobs biography, nor the fact that while Da Vinci is an interesting topic, Jobs is both more recent and more scandalous.
Yet there it sat in my Audible library, taunting me, goading me.
I’d finally got back into audiobooks while walking the dog this Summer, mostly Warhammer 40k novels, Ciaphas Cain in particular, but thought it might be worth giving another go. I’m a few hours in so far, and it’s okay but I’m hitting a familiar road block of wanting to take notes but being stuck at the pace I’m given. I’ve started using the built-in clips function; we’ll see how that goes.
How To Take Smart Notes has been on my radar for a while now. I’m about 40% through it already on my Kindle, and it’s a real ebb-and-flow kind of book; easy to get through in parts, and then it seems I’m reading pages upon pages of the same point for 20 minutes. Zettelkasten is a system I’ve been interested in for a while, but always struggle to implement, although I’m getting the impression that’s more because of a distinct lack of filter between me and my zettel, and less to do with the system.
What you are looking for is in the library though is probably the one I’m enjoying the most. This one’s from my wife’s Did Not Finish pile; an adventurous one for her, as she’s much more into Kate Morton and books that go back and forth in a time line. It’s definitely not her style of writing; very manner of fact and almost plain, as opposed to descriptive and compelling dialogue.
To me though, it’s a book you don’t have to think about at all while reading. There’s next to no mental load, no call for you to really stretch your imagination. It’s a collection of short stories around the same theme - person is unhappy with an aspect in their life, they go to a community library, and the Librarian recommends a bunch of books including something that’s totally left field but also unlocks their answer for them. It’s sweet, it’s simple, and it’s uplifting. Perfect after a long day, or in today’s case, when I’m full of a summer cold.
If I had to put money on it, I’d say I’d finish Smart Notes and Library this month pretty comfortably, and maybe get Da Vinci done just in time for my next credit to turn up. Then I’m turning right back to 40k. I’ve forgotten how much my brain needs sci-fi, and it feels like it could use a reward.
Easily the second worst pool table I’ve played on (the first worst was also placed next to a pillar…) and the cues provided are for 10 year olds, yet I can play some of my best pool on it.
Others Life Skills, and the Plan
There were other candidates for consideration for the top three topics to focus on.
Music is a topic that’s been a huge crutch to me over the years. I’ve got 329 voice recordings and 70 files in Garageband on my phone, all half written projects from the last five years or so. Actually finishing them has a been a dream of mine for a long, long time now, but it missed the cut because of the financial and time investment I’d need to make that just tips it out of reach.
Another one was sports. It’s a thing I don’t often let myself enjoy, mostly because it means taking up the TV when it’s ‘us’ time, and because I end up spending my weekends doing things I wish I’d had the time to do during the week. This one didn’t make the cut because it felt both too passive and too broad, as opposed to snooker/pool. Again, that doesn’t mean not trying to spend more time on it, just that it’s less of a focus for me.
Then there’s the whole raft of things that I’m bundling into Life Skills; non-hobby activities that I need to spend more time on in order to pay for and fuel the hobbies I’m focusing on. Professional skills and qualifications, DIY, cooking, physical fitness, socialising. All still important, all worth taking time on, but they’re already baked into my day-to-day; I don’t need to be spending more time focusing on them, just maybe tweak how and why I do.
So all that said, what’s the plan again?
For each of the key three activities, I’m setting monthly goals in Beeminder. Beeminder gets you to set a goal, whether that’s daily, weekly, or monthly, and starts charging $5 per goal missed, then increases that amount for each additional failure on the goal. I can set an upper limit when that becomes a bit too much for the budget though, so we’ll see how that goes.
Initially, Beeminder allows you to set 3 goals on their free plan, which fits nicely with my 3 activities, so to start with, these will be:
- Finish one book per month
- Write four posts here per month covering one of the activities (500 word minimum)
- Practice pool/snooker 5 times a month
I’m going to stick to this for the first three months, then check quarterly to see if the limits need adjusting in either direction. Maybe I’m through books quicker and can move to two a month, for example, or our budget gets tighter and I need to re-think snooker. Maybe I get with the writing bug more and want to incorporate morning pages as a habit, or want to try the old NaNoWriMo challenge. But I’m going to be honest about my failures, and post a copy of the graph from Beeminder showing where I’ve passed or failed, and how much they charge me.
And I’m going to do this for a minimum of a year. If I still benefit from it, it’ll go on. If not? At least I’ve tried, and can try, try, try again with something else.
So that’s it. Regular posts will start this weekend, and then it’s full steam ahead.