2025-03-23
There were lots of ups and downs, but ups have proven to be more impactful.
So, where to begin? How did I get to this idea that I should limit my social media usage? The answer is simple - social media.
Yes, I caught this idea of stopping the intentless scrolling of Bluesky, Pinterest, and Telegram, as well as stopping binging YouTube, on the very platform I spent most of my time on.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TMP...
i need to spend less time on screens..
— jack (@j4ck.xyz) March 9, 2025 at 1:54 PM
[image or embed]
Then, YouTube recommendations got me to this talk of Cal Newport on TEDx Talks. This was my inflection point. My E-Day.
So, as I watched the video, I realized more and more - hey, this guy is actually onto something. I've done some napkin math and came to conclusion that I spend 5+ hours in fleeting and senseless engagement - from YouTube to Bluesky to Pinterest to even fucking Telegram (for dear American readers - in Ukraine, Telegram has a special place, and it has nothing to do with furries. Throw that "Telegram is for furries" stereotype into trash bin, thanks).
After finishing watching the video, I immediately thought "fuck it, I'm done with social media for the next two weeks at least." The closest analogy to what I felt is the Emergency Day from Gears of War. Sera's world was devastated by Locusts overnight, and my decision also was impulsive and unexpected, hence the name of what I would otherwise call Day 0. And of course, as every unhinged teen would do, I announced this on my main platform.
alright. - I'm going to not scroll Bluesky for about two weeks (possibly will extend) - I won't post until the next weekend - it is related to my Neocities page
— Bohdan Pavuk (@bpavuk.neocities.org) March 9, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Immediately after writing this skeet, I proceeded with logging out of my Telegram, which has grown into news source, forums folder, entertainment source, etc.
And you know what? I was not bored in the "zeroth" day. I tracked a backlog of things I would do if I had more time, so I started emptying this list. It is mostly linked to game backlog, but there was one outsider in this list - Godot Engine.
Since I had no idea on what to do in touche, I jumped into Godot. This was fun. Unlike YouTube's own search, Perplexity's one is capable of finding good tutorials on any topic, so I was supplied with high-quality learning material. Gladly, Pinterest's search is capable enough for reference sear- oh, wait, did I mention YouTube? Pinterest? What? Didn't I just break the oath given an hour ago?
Well, that's the dilemma - if I had set up hard-blocking, I would have lost not only the way to distract myself, but the primary gamedev learning resources as well, so the only blocking mechanism I could rely on was my willpower. But that was totally enough - I could reap the benefits without absorbing junk. My goal was to stop mindless scrolling, and that's it.
I also noticed that I became planning ahead as if I was playing chess with my life. Even before diving into Godot, I knew that I'm about to finish the E-Day with bath and watch The Flow tomorrow. Knowing what I desire to do tomorrow allowed me to invite friends to watch. Only one of two accepted the invitation, but the day would still be good.
I gained much-needed tempo. It allowed me to act with deliberate and less frantic pace.
The first full day without social media was interesting. It cost me no effort to not open Bluesky on morning, breaking the morning ritual. Instead, I savored my breakfast, listened to the music, and went to school as usual.
On maths lesson, I noticed that I applied much less effort than usual despite that day's lesson theme being harder and I also had a somewhat better performance. But I got a quite disturbing message from mother - her health condition rapidly worsened, as if she had a panic attack, the very same one she experienced when the war has just begun, so I had to depart without even notifying a teacher or headmaster because FUCK YOUR FORMALITIES, MY MUM IS SICK. Classmaster knows that if I depart early, then it's something severe, so he didn't get in my way.
When I came to the hospital, I saw she is okay now. She got her treatment and we decided that neither I return to school nor she comes back to work today.
This weirdly aligned with one of the concepts from the Slow Productivity book I was reading before hiatus - seasonal productivity. It states that we should sometimes take unexpected day-offs as one of the means to keep our productivity sustainable. My mum was onto something - she taught me of this years before that book was even published. She also oftentimes added that "or else, our health will organize the day-off by itself, which feels much worse," and she was right.
We had a nice, tranquil walk around the city. We were discussing health along the road, touched many interesting topics, but here is something that brought me the insight for the rest of my life:
We were discussing health benefits of avocados, and at some point, she got curious about what else we could add to mushed avocado to make it tastier. Neither of us had an idea, so I brought up ChatGPT, which has recently extended Advanced Voice Mode limits for free users. I asked it, and the interaction felt so natural for both me and my mother that she decided to ask some follow-ups, and I got struck:
This is the prime example of tech that gives attention to me instead of taking it.
It has nothing to do with AI, AI can both vie for and give the attention. Compare Character.ai/Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT/Gemini, you'll get it. What defines the attention-giving tech is that it doesn't get into your way (hello, Microsoft), doesn't distract you, doesn't prompt you to come back (hello, c.ai, social media), and is simply here, always ready to help you upon your request.
So, once we came back home, I proceeded with my day. Flow was awaiting. Discord was ringing. 5 PM, it's time.
And you know what? I couldn't believe what I was sleeping on! It was released back in May 2024 in Cannes and November 2024 in Ukraine (likely as a part of worldwide cinema release), and it's fucking March 10th, 2025 at the time of me watching this thrilling cuteness concetrate! Da-a-a-amn... Quoting The Battle For Your Time by Dino Ambrosi on TEDx, "in attempts to fight FOMO, you are missing out on life." I couldn't dedicate just two hours of my time when I could binge Brodie Robertson's rants on Rust in the Linux kernel. I couldn't plan ahead to invite a friend. I thought I am busy, but I lied to myself and didn't even know this. Shit, I can't stop swearing because the situation was THIS dire!
Even though I was astonished, the time is still moving, so does this blog entry. The rest of the day was spent quite lazily. I explored Godot APIs, drafted a quick and dirty Breakout clone (going live very soon!), and understood why OpenAI is so obsessed with nature footage in their promos lately. They want to be at the forefront of attention-giving tech - something that lets you take your time back and do what human can do the best - connect with the real world. Yes, even touch grass.
On 11 PM, I decided to listen to the music instead of scrolling. I had a saved video with track I wanted to find to add to my playlist, but guess what? "I never found time for this." Yes, to simply open the video and launch Shazam or ask Gemini about what is playing at the moment. Now, I "had time," and you can't believe what gem did I found! Hypnotic, isn't it? >:)
My whole family was listening. Younger sister didn't like it, mum recalled how she blasted similar songs when someone tried to shame her for me being too loud more than a dozen years ago to show what "too loud" actually means, and I was indulging in this bass until 12 AM. And I slept much, much better than usual. No information overload -> better sleep!
Morning was spent with a bit of Perplexity Discover. Yes, this is a feed of news, meaning that mindless scrolling is a possibility, but there is nothing too much to scroll. Tech & Science category there gets three new Perplexity Pages every morning with approximately 5 minutes of reading each, which is enough for the morning newspaper.
This morning was far from rushed as well. Ginger tea, slow breakfast, a dab of news - I got used to it on the second day as if I craved this routine subconsciously.
Then, was a usual day at school, but with reading and music instead of scrolling and YouTube. Nothing interesting... until the last lesson. It was given away for our leisure because teacher had an important Google Meet at the moment. I observed the classroom for a moment, and one part was scrolling TikTok while the other was caught in Reels or Bluesky. No one was even gaming, except a few classmates. This was sad.
From the first glance, I was no different - I was sitting in my phone as well, but I was writing how my day is going in Obsidian only to share it here, with you, my reader.
And what else did I see, you ask? Shackles. Shackles embedded in their brains, keys hanging on their necks. That's the best way to describe what I was witnessing. I'm not telling I am the absolute embodiment and manifestation of free and open mind, though. And I quickly moved on with my day. Only classmates themselves are responsible for their actions and wellbeing, not myself.
At home, after some rest, I resumed refining Breakout in Godot, and when it came to the ball collision logic, I regretted that I only paid attention to algebra and not geometry, because what I was doing was either geometry core or on the crossing between algebra and geometry. This didn't spoil the evening, though. But what did was an air raid alarm, now undividable part of Ukrainian culture. It only ended at 12:45 AM. Yet, the day was still net positive. Exhausting, but positive.
On the first lesson, I got another interesting realization about a specific kind of attention-giving tech - AI agents.
Remember OpenAI Operator? Promised but delayed agentic Siri upgrade? I think this is where the technology is heading, and for those obsessed over digital wellbeing, it allows to take needed actions in the internet, remain updated on news, and reduce the screen time, or at least, like I did, repurposed the "useless" screen time into reading, coding, and other activities.
Before I detached myself from social media, I could only think about its applications here and now and was like "boo, ChatGPT Pro is required for Operator and it costs $200/mo and it is already blocked from most sites... boo, Apple is lazy with Siri...", but I did not take time to look into the future, which is my fucking responsibility as a programmer - to look into the future and adapt to the latest technology, or at least be ready to receive it upon wider availability.
Now, I firmly believe that, eventually, in about two-three generations of electronics, most of us will have access to Operator-like systems. Moreover, we already have such systems within ecosystems. Say, Google Gemini can already use Google Workspace to add events from Gmail to the calendar, and possibly even pull the live stream link from YouTube if the event is hosted there, through multi-step actions, and these capabilities are free.
Yet, AI system should always be a separate product with voluntary integration, and here is where I'd like to point out Copilot and Gemini. Microsoft Copilot is forced down people's throats, while Gemini can be turned off everywhere it exists. Google is almost on the right track with this approach.
Also, fun observation: my phone's battery life had improved so much that I only have to use power bank on the fifth lesson. Before that, I had to use it on a third one already.
And even at that point of my social media hiatus, I was sure as hell that I want to continue - abundant free time means I can fill it with whatever else, and that my life is fully compatible with Slow Productivity principles:
Although I am not an office rat worker, meaning that I am unlikely audience
for this book, I can still apply these principles to my personal projects
because it is still a knowledge work.
Also, this has prompted me to take care of Discord - to mute everything besides friends and Splitgate 2 updates (they are rare but extremely exciting). And my email also was a huge clusterfuck of buckshot marketing. Was.
Likely just a placebo, but both Thunderbird (my email client of choice) and Discord both felt snappier and lighter. Reddit and GOG are the only promotion messages that are allowed in my email now.
Speaking of Reddit, I opened Google AI Studio to see if there is anything new, and found something that made me cuss in Russian - Gemini 2.0 Flash native image generation. I could send an image of Eiffel tower and tell Gemini to edit the photo so that there are two, three, or even five Eiffel towers! It could recolor green classic Doomguy in blue!
This immediately prompted me to open r/Bard subreddit and see the reaction of the community. The key differentiator here is intent - I sought not just fleeting minute entertainment, I sought reaction to what happened at that moment. It cost me no cognitive effort to stop scrolling beyond, by the way.
Also, I noticed that something is going on on habitual level. I am picking the right dose of social media and treat them as tools, and it becomes a habit.
Everything is cure, everything is curse, dose decides
It's like I was eating too many apples every day and hissed on constant viscous and sour taste in my mouth, but suddenly, I stopped eating apples this much.
Another example could be Pinterest, which I used that day to get some nice photos to build a model card I would eventually turn into 3D model. Pinterest is a go-to for creative inspiration, but I had to tap the search button as quickly as possible to evade home tab with recommendation feed.
I spent the rest of my day trying to make a somewhat anatomically accurate 3D model of male human, but despite having an absolutely crystal-clear image of what I want to get, I still felt paralyzed. I know such things aren't done overnight, especially at 11 PM. And I thought I retained some muscle memory beyond viewport manipulation from my earlier attempt...
Anyway, it's time to sleep.
Alright, that day had a quite interesting beginning. Imagine this - you move along your day and see a very Wolfenstein/Nazi-esque symbol on, say, a hood of a Jeep. Say, an eagle with open wings standing on framed Ukrainian Tryzub. That's exactly what I saw while walking to school. Normally, I would take a photo and post it with caption like "someone loves Wolfenstein too much," but I took my time to search what this symbol is specifically, and it was a fucking Party Eagle with Tryzub instead of Nazi Cross. No matter what the driver tried to express that way (perhaps hate towards Russians and anything Russian), I still wanted to dent this car with bare hands, like Hulk or DOOM Slayer would. That's the worst contamination of Ukrainian symbolics I have ever seen.
But this is also a prime example of something else - what we see online eventually seeps into our lives. There are far-right forces in Ukraine, but I didn't expect to see these in the city I am residing in. What's also funny is that if there is at least one far-right shithead in the city, everyone who came from Eastern half, including myself, is usually fucked. Maybe, they were just passing by?
Anyway, the key lesson here is that you should have a personal ideology strong enough to not get into tenets of extreme ideologies like Nazi or Communism. Gladly, for me, digital and real was always disconnected greatly enough to not let anyone's opinion shape mine. Many a person told me this also makes me hard to talk to ;)
This time, I have nothing to tell about my time at school, but shortly after, I got a striking realization - old single-use tech emphasizes intent.
iPod doesn't shove ads up your ass, unlike Spotify and YouTube Music. It also doesn't require internet, allowing uninterrupted playback. A paper notebook can't send you notifications and upsell paid subscriptions, unlike tablet with Notion. Same can be said about streaming vs DVD. Intent and flow always remain intact, and my social media break was all about actions with intent
There is always a middle ground, though - self-hosting your DVD rips, filling an SD card with music, and maintaining Obsidian vault for notes, which is what I do.
But what do I think of this as a software developer? As it turns out, old tech and internet of the past always were the best source of inspiration for me, and to create something of a single purpose, I don't need to even think about it. Taste guides me.
My taste is like Outsider's Mark for Corvo Attano - it's something that always was there, with me, both inside and outside. I can't quite explain it, but any creative person with taste understands what I am talking about.
Oh, and, speaking of DOOM, that evening, I thought it would be nice to feed some demons with pellets, bullets, and grenades, so I began downloading DOOM Eternal on 7:50 PM.
Oh. My. Effin' goodness.
I wanted to open YouTube while it was downloading so much, you won't believe me. Effin' 90 GB of downloading, which, in the best-case scenario (no one is watching YouTube, Megogo, or Netflix; I am not actively using Wi-Fi for other activities) translates into 2-3.5 hours of waiting at least. Add that I had to sacrifice some movies and Dishonored 2 (another awesome game) for this and you suddenly see how appealing instant-delivery content is.
But there are cheats in real life, believe it or not, so I decided to take a nap. This way, I skipped half an hour of waiting, while the rest was filled with music.
This power nap translated into enough energy to rip and tear until 2 AM, but I don't regret this. I never will.
I finally freed time to play a full fat AAA-class game.
And I really craved that digital blood on my face, the way to release the pent-up frustrations. Human is (sometimes) a predator, and after releasing mine into virtual environment, I never felt more at peace.
Nothing interesting up until 12 PM. Gemini got another update, so I decided to leave a feedback on the only place Gemini App team at Google actually listens to - Reddit.
Yeah, another "breakage" of the hiatus, but remember my words about intent? My intent was to post as if I was writing to Google employees personally, using Reddit as a feedback channel and not a source of entertainment, and I stayed true to the initial intent. This is what I would categorize as mindful social media use. The European Commission as an account on Bluesky, but do they scroll? No, they just post some weird, cute, and wise promotions and make important announcements. The Commission treats social media as a tool, so did I. And, spoiler alert, this strategy has proven itself well throughout the whole hiatus.
I still can use social media, but only to gather feedback. Do you know how exciting new GitHub Issues are for me, especially in projects I am making? You don't? To me, an issue that makes sense to report or a good feature request is almost as exciting as another mind-blowing Gemini update.
And I think it would be a nice time to play Gears of War once I finish DOOM Eternal. I have time for this, after all. Attention Is All You Need.
And for real, I feel like my attention span is much, much longer. I almost stopped forgetting planned things, I can see my near future (month or so) much clearer, and it feels like I always know what to do. My performance at school nearly doubled while it feels like I am still doing nothing special, all while gaming more than ever.
Yeah, I needed that cork for my head to stop this nasty leaking. Another video by Brodie Robertson is not worth it.
Alright, let's snap back to the tangible part of life. During the rest of the day at school, I secured some opportune moments to put my live performance skills at test, both are related to the subjects I don't like in general, but have themes interesting for me personally involved. Two tasks - one report for biology lesson, about biodiversity, and another about healthy food and chemistry behind it. Biodiversity has a direct connection to ecology and the ideas on how to preserve our planet, and healthy foods? Who doesn't like eating and feeling good after it all while taking care of our long-term health?
Seriously, the best Friday of all the 2025 Fridays so far.
As for the rest of the day, I was frequently switching between a walk and DOOM Eternal up until... 2:35 AM. Yeah. This Slayer really likes depths of Hell. Or too excited for Wednesday of the next week because that's when chemistry and biology project deadlines occur, I guess?
Nothing unusual - sleeping up until 12 PM as a side-effect of a good Friday night, voice-chatting with friends, doing unskippable side-quests from mum. Again, DOOM Eternal, this time until about 7 PM, then the rest of the evening was sacrificed to Blender gods. On Fedora, though, AMD ROCm is fucked-up a bit, so I couldn't use the GPU for rendering at its best quality and performance.
By the way, a detached observer may say that I'm caught in a months-long cycle of trying Blender then abandoning for various reasons, from technical to personal. Gladly, now, 3D won't simply get optimized out of attention span, so I think I will stick around. Lack of something more interesting and abundant free time make 3D a very compelling option now.
Also, ROCm makes me think of dropping Fedora and switch to Kubuntu once I kill the final boss of DOOM Eternal.
And while scribbling all these notes for the hiatus journal, I noticed how natural the stylus interface is. I can simply take this magic sheet of glass called "Galaxy Note 8," take the stylus out of it, and scribble on the screen right away, without unlocking, without notifications, like on the real paper. Isn't that beauty?
For me, it's not just beauty, it's inspiring. That's what I want touche to be - something as seamless.
I've done some more 3D and my friend sent me new video by Alan Becker. Just watch, it's incredibly important and totally related to my hiatus, no irony.
DOOM Eternal and live performance preparations made the evening. Perplexity made information gathering so much easier. But what was not so easy to take was one phrase thrown at me by Samuel Hayden - "You can't just shoot a hole in the surface of a planet" (spoiler: DOOM Slayer actually does exactly that; he needs this to get into one old and forgotten city where his current target resides). It reminded me of lots of "you can't just"-s I heard throughout my life since childhood. Only mother was supporting every desire and idea I had. It didn't sit right with me. If not for Hayden's importance for the rest of the game, I would destroy the remnants of his robotic body. But I also chuckled once I realized that every success was a silent "fuck you" whispered directly into the ears of non-believers. "You can't just treat code as texting LEGO" - that's what I do daily. "You can't just straighten your spine with exercises, you require a surgeon" - uhm, cast you to the Void because I've done exactly that, I guess?
Tomorrow will be much more busy, though. I had to sacrifice the day at school for plans of mine and my mother! More on that in Day 8
And here is the agenda, executed perfectly, just as planned:
9:30 AM - reserved a spot at barbershop. My hair needed some maintenance from hands of a real pro.
10 AM - heading out to the hospital, mother got some serious allergy to pollen. She couldn't stop sneezing. It's so funny that I even began counting consecutive sneezes :))
12:30 PM - yes, we spent two hours in queue. We left the hospital at this time. Nice walk, lots of talking, some shopping. The highlight is a new clay cup, as well as some other clay dishes. A walk with mother and without a slight detour to the shop is not a walk >:)
1:30 PM - a little stop at home. The new cup not just looks, but feels awesome!
2 PM - I arrived at the barbershop!
And here is where everything deviated from the plans. I had to wait for forty minutes for the hairdresser to finish, but who said I would let this time get wasted!? I opened Perplexity and Obsidian on my phone and gathered a lot of interesting info about biodiversity, I even almost finished my performance plan!
I knew I would have been able to continue everything on my PC thanks to Syncthing. Since every Obsidian note is Markdown file placed somewhere in the folder, I could use anything for work synchronization.
When I got back home, I was more or less able to use my PC at 5:30 PM, which is, although later than expected, still enough time to draft a script for the chemistry live performance.
I researched a bit here, a bit there, then at about 7 PM, I've gone doing Slayer things, as well as spent some time in Blender. I'm close to the ending of DOOM Eternal, and once I'm done, I'll be free to switch to Kubuntu.
I've got a bittersweet realization while negotiating with my mother that morning - not everyone believes in the value of focus, and most people tend to understate or diminish the damage social media can do to attention span. This is sobering, to say the least. I may sound like some kind of a cultist to most people right now, but if I do, then this message is not for you.
Remember Cal Newport's video from the beginning? On day 9 of my hiatus, I realized that he is 99% right. That 1% part is some minor exception like using YouTube for tutorials, Pinterest for references, or Reddit for feedback. I won't "evangelize" the focus beyond this message, but if someone asks my "success secret," I'll tell that this is combination of focus and curiosity.
The rest of the morning went as is.
On the second lesson, though, I got another interesting realization - I want to break free of school because it's a concentration of unhealthy habits, and this wish is subconscious, or at least it was until I spotted it that day.
I fool you not, every time I did exercises for spine after a few lessons, everyone (except most of teachers) looked at me like at some kind of delulu, in every school (and I changed a lot of schools!). It was disturbing, so much that I dropped this habit in seventh grade despite staying true to it since... Forever, I guess.
Most of the classroom at that moment were either smoking electronic cigarettes, discussing plans on what to drink this weekend, or simply scrolled TikTok. What a fucked-up place.
There are some positives, though - I won't waste my life, and no one among my true friends ever will, or else they are simply not my friends. That's why I'm alone, but I'm glad to be an exception that prioritizes wellbeing and meaning over fleeting joy. If you point out gaming, though, then try to look at it like at an intricate mix of sculpture, music, architecture, literature, and gameplay. Without some games, I wouldn't have been this resilient, and nothing can fill the inner world so greatly as a good game can.
What follows is a good example of what I would call "wasted life."
Since 1 PM, I was sitting behind the same desk as my total antipod. He wears all-white, even his hair is white, while I'm all black. He enjoys a strong drink on weekends and manages to discreetly smoke amidst the lesson, while I... you can guess it. He always tries to get into center of attention, and is considered a funny dork in our class. I manage to get into attention yet I express desire to escape from classmates' attention, and... I am also a funny dork :) Also, we both had good marks when we only began learning at school, then plummeted once we both found out about what we want to become in this life.
What's interesting, though, is that we both are smart, but each in their own way. He would run the underground business and not break a sweat. He would easily tackle code, but he won't do this because it's boring for him. He would rather pay someone like me for code. I, on the other hand, see underground business as rather boring and somewhat dangerous, but I would still do this if it was necessary.
And I see him more as alternate version of myself - what if I was more social? What if I was not inclined towards my definition of wellbeing?
And at about 2 PM, I noticed that he managed to vaporize from school half an hour ago. I would, too, but I have great problems with the subject - military basics. Since I am Ukrainian, I am expected to know it well, and since I am male Ukrainian, join the army once I stop my academic pursuits, perfectly by not even beginning them at all. I am also expected to join the university/college, perfectly adjacent to military thematic, but boiling in this hell for the next 3+ years? For Clayton Carmine's overbuffed pecs' sake, fuck no. I'll spend this time pursuing any of two dream jobs - technical writer or Android programmer (perfectly both, because I love both). Then, with enough money, escape the borders. Between law and my own life, I'd choose life.
Then, just in one hour, I've got the most detailed picture of my escape. This looming threat gave me enough panic attacks, it was the time to focus. It is too much to share it here, but when I was done with the plan, I felt like I just built the mountain with flick of a wrist.
I would need to shift gears towards Android knowledge refinement. Google has deleted Codelabs for Android Views basics, leaving only Compose (which I know and love, but Views are still widely used), but Internet Archive exists. Reading and actively applying "Groking Algorithms" can be useful - despite what I've built, I still can't calculate the big-O complexity properly. I was rather focusing on architectures than algorithms.
I rarely experienced this level of planning - when I know what I will do on next week. Feels like I am both building and walking up my own stairs.
After school, though, I've done some more 3D stuff. Tried sculpting, and oh my goodness, touche feels awesome in sculpting! At least, compared to mice. This was my best-feeling time investment so far.
My report on the chemistry lesson went awesome! I was not quite preparing for the report because I wanted to prove that everyone can research what they eat. And that's exactly what I was doing - wandering around the classroom and dissecting the contents of any food item my classmates named using AI tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT Voice, as well as researching the effects of these microelements on human organism, all while eating banana (which is a nuclear bomb of potassium). The chemistry teacher was intrigued - she never saw someone learning while presenting, and this was my point - to show that learning and research is easier than ever before.
90% of the classroom didn't give a fuck, though. Usual dynamic as for school. My primary target was teacher and a few health-conscious classmates. They even put their phones on a table and listened, which is actually very meaningful. Idea is seed, and I'm about to grow woods. It takes time and effort.
Also, on that day's PE lesson, I perceived enhanced mind-body connection. Despite having a toned body, I can't pull up even once, but I thought that I simply should do more exercises for abdomen and pectoralis because those are the most likely weak spots, according to Perplexity. Months ago, working on these has proven futile, but I didn't ask myself why.
Only today I felt like trying again, and this time I immediately noticed that neither pecs nor abs were stressed. My back and lats, though, actually were, and pretty much so. Focusing on myself gave me another angle of view.
On the biology lesson, though, no one gave an absolute flying fuck except the teacher. This report was less focused on real-time research and instead on following the pre-made script. Also, this was our last lesson and everyone was tired/bored, so no wonders.
After this fulfilling day, it was the time for no less fulfilling evening. More progress on 3D, as well as DOOM Eternal. Khan Maykr was a quite challenging boss.
Also, when I opened YouTube to get another tutorial, one video at recommendations feed swayed my attention - it was about Gnome 48. For me, this update is huge because of three things:
For the record, I was on KDE Plasma, not on Gnome desktop environment, and I was planning to switch distros for ROCm support, so why not switch DEs as well? The plan was obvious - switch to base Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu, and I was going to switch distros the next day.
In a fitting setting - the IT lesson - I came up with a quite comprehensive list of things to back up and methodology to restore it all. After school, the distro switch was a breeze. Feels so good when you plan ahead, consider every reasonable outcome possible, and then it just clicks together, right?
Even though Ubuntu will get these wellbeing sweets only in April 2025 (in one month) with 25.04 release, I still think it was the right time to leap. And by 8 PM, I was already playing Notanote on a fresh Ubuntu installation. I used to be on Gnome, then suddenly I decided to switch to KDE in... I don't remember when specifically, but definitely sometime in late 2024. Gnome experience, unlike KDE, was an absolute breeze. Yeah, not so feature-ful, but a bit more... calm, I guess?
Also, Blender from Steam didn't want to befriend AMD ROCm as well as Flatpak version, and native package from distro repository was outdated by two versions, so I had to find something else, like Obtainium (Android app for updating apps directly from GitHub) but for Linux, or at least Blender. Gladly, I found Blender Launcher. It can not only update Blender, but also keep separate versions and update itself as well.
I didn't want to use Blender from official site directly because I am used to the idea of updates coming to me by themselves. And exactly that version worked with ROCm very well!
Of all the things, the only interesting one is the Circle - one interesting book I began reading that day.
Also, I've beaten the Icon of Sin - the final boss of DOOM Eternal campaign. There are DLCs waiting for the Slayer's return, though! "Ancient Gods" looks at least interesting.
The day went well... up until 12 AM. I got a notification from Obtainium, and I thought that it is a good idea to check the changelogs and update. The update was for Bluesky - version 1.99.
As always, they publish all the changelogs on their account @bsky.app. I opened freshly updated Bluesky, and the first post I saw was about H5N1. The author was stating that with spring migration, we are highly likely to get a new strain capable of spreading among mammals (incl. humans) more easily. This kept me up until 3 AM. I was anxious.
My character can be described as earthen - it's usually hard to evoke a powerful and visible emotion from me, but when it happens, it's just an earthquake. This works for joy and hope, as well as fear and rage. This is especially noticeable with rage.
What else to say, thank you for wishing me good night, Bluesky...
I was compiling all of that into this blog post. I only managed to tell the first three days, but they are the most packed. I am getting used to living without social media at all, although I recognize that in long term, it is still better to invest in my popularity there.
Speaking of limitations, I finally found the words to describe my personal and unique belief.
In my unique religion, human is the deity, especially when we are many. Limitations can both limit and guide us, and with right limitations, human becomes a god for a fleeting moment of inspiration. And this hiatus made me much closer to my own Homo Deus, these capabilities are now much more accessible to me.
My religion is not quite a "defiance," not a "human-centric overhaul," it's just a reinterpretation of Christianity. Christianity states that we humans are made after God's image and design. I just brought this concept a bit higher and closer to human at the same time, and if we view the Holy Bible through these lens, yeah, the history of the world origin becomes a lie, but here is where science intervenes and fills the gap, and a lot of stories from Bible can be reinterpreted in a way that unlocks hidden meaning, something Bible actually tries to teach us - how to be human.
I also "demoted/promoted" Devil in the same way - I image it as our inner pull to do darker things. This way, Freud's concept of psyche becomes compatible with human's desire for spiritual, and the concept of Godly salvation and soul cleansing becomes something more tangible, like keeping your mind clear by abstaining from alcohol and drug use. This way, you actually feel what Holy Bible articulates as the cleansing of soul. Changing habits is never easy, it's painful, but the result is always worth it.
What a fun coincidence - all of these reflections about human, potential, and religion, and all on Day 13 >:)
And on the final day of this journal, I am writing these paragraphs. When I look back, a shallow teardrop wants to get out of my eye. These two weeks have more meaning to me than last six months!
I think I will still regularly post on Bluesky, but not scroll it. Once a week, I will get into Subscriptions tab on YouTube, and I will unsubscribe from Brodie Robertson. His rants take a lot of energy when I just need quick and concise Linux news, like from Nick at The Linux Experiment. I'll need to review my subscriptions in overall, I don't need everything from every creator. Pinterest? Only reference search.
Maybe, I was approaching this idea of hiatus gradually. Maybe, I was hovering on it for quite some time, evolving from simply desiring to control my data at social media to control what I consume, and now, how much. I regained the much-needed focus, which brought me better psychological stamina and agility. I regained much-needed time, which I can spread on both better leisure and self-improvement. I am much more forward-looking now than ever.
With that said, goodbye. I don't hope to teach you something, don't hope to propagate the idea of mindfulness further, I just wanted to articulate what I felt during these days.