Thoughts

I don’t write on Nerdgineer often, other than shaving my Shave of the Day posts. I like to think that I am making changes in my life, creating a better version of myself. I’m not sure that I am though.

I previously started reading through The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and while there are some good ideas in there, they haven’t become engrained in my life. The idea is still there, but I feel like it is somewhat just a fad tapping into the bandwagon of swearing in books and their titles.

However, a YouTube recommendation opened my eyes to Stoicism through a video by Ryan Holiday. I can not remember the exact video, but it opened a rabbit hole right in front of me.

I have been on another spending spree buying books written by some of the original stoics (actually their English translations), as well as Ryan himself. The books I bought include:

• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Martin Hammond)
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Gregory Hays)
• Letters from a Stoic by Seneca (Robin Campbell)
• The Daily Stoic (Ryan Holiday)
• Lives of the Stoics (Ryan Holiday)

So I fell down the rabbit hole with these books, and I have started reading them. I am also listening to podcasts where passages are read, and then the speaker shares their thoughts on that particular passage.

I’m feeling as though I might take on a position here of sharing my thoughts for these passages based on a combination of my reading and thoughts on them, the thoughts of those I listen to, as well as the translators for the versions that I am reading.

My gut says that this will become another one of my fanciful ideas that I start, but in three months decide that it isn’t working for me and stop writing altogether.

So there are some real questions I need to answer:

• Do I start writing to potentially stop in 3 months?
• Do I not write at all and rely on my memory to change?
• Do I try to call myself a stoic and write as a way of enforcing my new stoic identity?
• Something else altogether?

I have become somewhat of a journaler for the last 2 or so years, and I have found that I am very much negative leaning when it comes to my mental state. Yes I have been diagnosed with depression, and I am seeing someone about this diagnosis. However on the side I have been journaling to see where my thoughts take me on an almost daily basis.

One thing that has been pointed out to me is that I dwell on the negative things in my life, I seem to direct my fucks into the wrong things.

So as with some people, we buy books with the intention of reading them, but find ourselves distracted by the things around us. I have done that. I’ve bought a number of books that talk about giving less fucks about the things in our lives, and directing those fucks to things that actually matter in life.

The list of books I have bought so far include:

• F*ck Feelings – Michael Bennett and Sarah Bennett
• The Life-changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck – Sarah Knight
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – Mark Manson
• Everything is F*cked – Mark Manson

Of those books I have bought with the intention of reading, I think I have read about 1.75 (total) of them across three books. I’m certainly not the strongest reader or following through on my intentions. ‘

Maybe now that I have written this I can hold myself somewhat to account and follow through on reading all of them and taking something away from each of them, and then applying it to my life.

One method of taking note would be to write down the points that stick out and mean something to me as I read through, them, so maybe I need to look at journalling through these books (and others) as I read them.

So it looks like I have the start of a plan of trying to get my life back on track in 2022. Let’s see how this goes.

The idea of writing regularly on a blog has intrigued me for many, many years. I have always wanted to maintain a blog of some substance, but I have not been able to maintain it for anything more than a few articles. My interests wane after just a few short weeks before my mind moves on to the next interest.

This does not just apply to writing, even here I have drifted away from regular traditional wet shaving after a solid 8 months or so of documenting each shave. I have moved onto virtual cycling on Zwift. While I do not post every one of them here, I do keep a documented log over on my Strava profile. I’ve been working on 3 solid rides per week, with incidental warmup rides as well.

So I would like to write something, even if it is somewhat jumbled. This can be that first entry, a blurb of thoughts about my writing history (or very much lack thereof). Whether it makes much sense or not, whether there are any readers or not, let me just put some words out there and see what happens. Maybe I can make this a semi-regular thing.