Some things I am avoiding:

• exercising regularly
• eating healthy
• fixing some things around the house and cleaning up my yard
• blogging consistently, and more about current events and politics from my perspective as a Christian and believer in nonviolence
• figuring out my relationship with God
• reading more books
• practicing my musical instruments
• accelerating my adoption of free and open technologies
• making and sticking to a monthly budget
• communicating with family and loved ones
• continuing my education
• working out an idea I have for an app and website
• making friends in my local area
• letting go of some material things I don't need
• doing a proper digital detox
• keeping a journal
• seeing a therapist

Some things I am coping with:

• loved ones and friends who suffer relentless mental and/or physical pain with no relief
• nagging doubts about my faith
• a complete lack of interest in my mind-numbing job
• financial worries
• personal health worries
• church responsibilities
• Twitch drama
• my country being destroyed by an authoritarian regime
• people hating and harming other people

I know that, all things considered, I have it pretty good. So why do I feel so bad?

Why can't I just pick a couple things from the list of things I feel I ought to be doing and just do them? It's like every time I try to start up, things eventually fizzle out and I slip back into old patterns and processes.

It occurs to me that some of the things I'm avoiding would help me cope better with the heavy things weighing on me.

I've got to keep trying.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 128) #life #mentalHealth #faith

The occasion was Christmas, of course. While it was a hectic week, I was thankful for the break from routine and change of scenery.

At the end of the week I was ready to come home and sleep in my own bed, but I was not ready to go back to my responsibilities and routine.

Getting away from all that for a week, I felt like I was starting to come back to myself a bit – to get out of the rut I feel like I've been in.

Even though I just came back from vacation, I feel like I need to do what Dr. Leo Marvin tells Bob Wiley to do in the dark comedy film What About Bob?. I need to figure out how to take a vacation from my problems.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 120) #life #travel #mentalHealth

This is a community of members of my church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members who have affirmed their devotion to Jesus Christ, the Church, its leaders, and its doctrines. Good, intelligent people trying to navigate this mortal journey as best they can and learn about and live their faith to the fullest.

But felt I had to leave that Discord server for the sake of my own mental and emotional health. In other words, it's me, not them. I've been struggling with a lot of things this year. World events. Politics. Family drama. Online drama. Work. And also my faith.

It was a political channel in the Discord server that drove me away. I am deeply concerned about many things that are happening in my country (The United States of America) and in the world. But I was in the clear minority on the issues I was concerned about.

But I am also averse to contention. It makes me physically ill and takes a long time for me to work through.

So I'm this weird walking contradiction of wanting to talk about political issues because I care deeply about people and problems that affect us all, but also suffer great emotional and mental distress when those discussions get contentious. When that happens, I just disengage. And that is taken as a sign of weakness or concession.

On a related note, I think it's because of my desire for people to get along and find common ground that I'm known in my extended family as a mediator or peacekeeper. People like having me around when they're trying to work through family disagreements, for some reason.

It just got to the point where merely posting articles on that Discord server that people didn't like caused them to make all kinds of false assumptions about me, to question my motives and integrity.

This morning I realized that my participation there was no longer a net positive for me and probably not for them. So I just left suddenly and without fanfare.

It's hard because I have learned a lot from that community and I have made good friends there. I know those friendships will continue outside that group, so I take comfort in that.

And just so I'm clear, I don't blame anyone in particular for driving me away. As I said, I believe these are all good people. I just didn't feel comfortable there anymore. It's me.

Another reason I left is because I think what happened is a consequence of a larger problem I'm dealing with: technology addiction.

I've gone through this cycle in my life of times when I'm in control of the technology I use and am using it intentionally, and times when the technology is clearly in control of me. Right now, I'm deep under control of my technology.

I look at screens all day, every day. And I'm pretty sure it's rotting my brain – metaphorically for sure, but maybe physically, too, for all I know.

I keep saying I need to find a good therapist. I'm going to look for one now. I need to talk through these things with someone who can help.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 117) #politics #SocialMedia #mentalHealth #contention

I don't even know who said it first, but it's a good axiom: the best things in life aren't things.

In other words, there are more important things than money and possessions.

I'm realizing that I've been stuck yet again in a cycle of obsessing over things like finances and gadgets and technology and collecting music.

And I've been neglecting things of most importance. Like connecting and spending time with family and friends in real life. Taking care of my mental, physical, and spiritual health. Taking time to be still – to recognize and appreciate the beauty and goodness in life.

We can't take any physical stuff with us when we're done here. But we take who we are. Our experiences. What we've learned.

We can't avoid the need for things in this life. Food, clothing, shelter. It's part of mortality.

But physical things are temporary. Fleeting. Finite. They can't bring true happiness or lasting joy.

Focus on what's really important. Things that matter. Things that bring real meaning and purpose.

Focus on things that aren't things.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 112) #life #family #health #intentionism #mentalHealth

Scambaiting is where people call known scam numbers (like tech support or lottery scammers) posing as potential victims to try to waste their time and potentially get them to share info that can be used to report them to the authorities or shut them down. It's a lot of comedy and improv. Kitboga was the first scambaiter I discovered and still one of my favorites.

I had fun with the handful of streams I did, but it was also extremely stressful for me, to the point where I was having a lot of anxiety and it was affecting my physical health. I stopped scambaiting. But I wasn't ready to start blogging again until now.

A couple people on the Fediverse actually told me they missed my blog, which was both surprising to me and encouraging. Maybe I'm not just sending text into the void.

I hope to post some things in the coming weeks, if only for posterity and for me to refer back to and remember.

#Twitch #mentalHealth

One of the things I'm trying to do is pay attention to how I feel and how I am affected when I reintroduce the things I abstained from during Lent. I'm done with video games for good – I'm already quite aware of how negatively those affect me. But I'm not sure exactly what it is about Twitch streams that has made me stop and say “woah...this feels weird.”

Most of the streamers I watch are DJs and musicians, so not quite as sensory-overload as video game streams. Even so, I have been a lot more sensitive to things than I was before, and have found most of the streams I usually watch to be visually and aurally over-stimulating.

It's like being teleported from a quiet library into a crowded dance hall. My thoughts have been clouded and jumbled. I find it hard to focus. I feel unsettled. I worry that I'm backsliding.

Here's my plan:

• Aggressively and diligently curate my followed streams. Unfollow those that I'm really not interested, are just too much for me visually and aurally, or that generally leave me feeling worse.
• Chat less, hide chat unless I have something to say. A lot of that over-stimulation comes from chat – emotes, bot messages, etc. It's fun to interact with the stream in that way, but maybe too much interaction is part of the issue for me.
• Set a viewing schedule and stick to it. Part of the issue is me just looking to kill time and clicking through followed and suggested streams. I'll set a viewing schedule and not watch Twitch outside of that.

If these steps don't help me regain some control (and I'm hopeful they will), then maybe I have to be done watching Twitch and just stick to the streaming part. That would be hard, but obviously not impossible. And if there's anything I learned during Lent, it would be worth it.

Discuss...

#Twitch #media #mentalHealth

Topics of Focus

#faith – thoughts related to my religion #tech – self explanatory

Other Topics

#100DaysToOffload #accessories #AI #automobiles #Bandcamp #books #business #cassette #charity #Christianity #Christmas #ChurchOfJesusChrist #climate #community #compactDisc #contention #COVID19 #decentralization #DigitalMinimalism #economy #electronicMusic #EveryDayCarry #eWaste #family #FOSS (free-as-in-freedom and open source software) #friends #gratitude #haiku #health #hobbies #HomeOffice #humor #intentionism #internet #laptop #LessConvenient #libraryMusic #life #Linux #loneliness #media #meditation #mentalHealth #misc #movies #music #news #nostalgia #physicalMedia #planning #poetry #politics #privacy #prophets #retro #smartphones #SocialMedia #synthwave #travel #TV #Twitch #unity (not the game engine) #Utah #vaporwave #writing