ABC08b – Subtracting towards value
Words: 580. Second post today to get back on track for my homebrew writing challenge this month.
There are two ways to increase value. The first is to increase output, the second is to reduce input. The ratio between output to input is a measure of effectiveness or efficiency.
That's speaking abstractly. For a real-world example, since I've gone over a week without Reddit (!!!) my mind has turned towards my own notes and documents on my laptop to get at something like content. So, I traded algorithmic novelty for the musings of my past self.
On the one hand, my mind feels less agitated. The break from doom-scrolling has had immediate results. On the other hand, I now feel anxious because I had so many aspirations and ideas and thoughts that I don't know what to do with now. It's got me thinking of roads not taken, of results not achieved, etc. There's a certain sharpness in knowing that I wrote the words that now taunt me.
So, I'm doing a KonMari run in a way. As with clothing and books, I'm now spending time with documents and asking if it brings me joy (if not utility). Whereas I like a journal because there's a physical record of my living, I find digital notes to be different because they're so easy to edit. They're always temporal, always negotiable. So I find them easy to "collapse" (meaning I take the core ideas and give myself a one- or two-sentence reminder), or delete.
In a way, I'm consolidating the notes I've written about my understanding of life. There's a lot of redundancy, and unsurprisingly a fair of contradictions. Deleting what is outdated increases the value of what remains. As painful as it is to come to terms with ideas I had (they're either reinforced or rendered irrelevant), this does seem like a better use of my time than mindless consumption. Call it thoughtful deletion.
To elaborate on what exhausts me:
- notes I took during a time I had a crush on someone, including details from our conversations, interactions, and such. I recorded my hopes and lessons learned (about communication, setting expectations, etc.). It didn't work out with this person, so I'm called to delete the particular details but I'm keeping self-reminders and insights so that future romancing can avoid repeated mistakes.
- ideas for blog posts that, because I put them off, aren't worthwhile to post now. I've a serious pattern of overthinking and underacting.
- rational arguments on why certain software is great for my use cases. Lots of web links and bullet points in favour of Linux Mint (at the time) or Debian (most recently). Uh, why do I need to convince myself of what's reasonable? It's a tautology, no? Such a waste of time, especially as these efforts don't prevent me from changing my mind.
- the worst offender: when my scattered documentation shows me that I've repeated myself. Example: having an idea for an academic paper or a blog post or side project... and having the same idea a few months or years later. I mean, cool, I'm consistent in some ways. But it's uncool that my lack of organization is leading me to spin my wheels, and then being reminded of that spinning.
Nevertheless, it's this sort of exhaustion that I believe leads to transformation. If I turn away from the discomfort now, then I'll be in the same spot months or years from now. But if I can stare into the abyss and see what it has to show me, I might at last move on from my mental prisons.