(12-20-2018, 07:30 PM)Shannon Wrote: My point is, there's always another way to interpret it. Sometimes it takes a lot of contemplation to find all of what it could mean, and even more to find the meaning. I didn't have the dream, and you didn't describe it in minute detail, so I don't know what it means.

(01-17-2019, 09:53 AM)RTBoss Wrote: Do you still run 1 week on, 1 week off, like you did with other 5.5G subs? Or are you following the SASRB Shannon set?

Excellent question. And pertinent, as I'd been comparing this run against past DMSI runs in today's earlier post. Thanks for pointing it out.

When I was running those past 5.5G subs (including prior DMSI versions that I'd run), there was no SASRB yet, modeled or otherwise. All that I knew at the time was that I was stuck in input mode and not executing anything until I took time off. So I set my time-off schedule for myself.

My SE, PTPA, and USLM1 runs were closer to my old instinctual "Am I stuck in input mode?" determination, but I also wasn't really documenting those, so I wasn't concerning myself with tester reporting. I took personal responsibly for that and was pleased with the results. I did run those with the recommended number of loops and without breaking primary ASRB. It was only SASRB where I was running on my own schedule.

For 3.3, though, especially since I didn't want to break FRM's momentum, I'd adhered strictly to the directions for the first few weeks, up until socializing became a scheduling conflict. My option was to go to my first social event since starting 3.3 or not to go out at all. I chose to go out. That delayed my break by one day. That following week was the moodier week that I'd described in my last post. To get things onto a more convenient schedule in the future (although 3.3.1 will probably saddle us with different loops and SASRB), I also spent an extra day on, pushing my days off to Friday and Saturday for social convenience ahead of this weekend.

So I've mostly stuck to the SASRB instead of following my pre-SASRB input/execute instincts. By my past standards, I may have been stuck in input mode longer and executing for fewer days than on previous versions, which could explain some of the difference in my execution. But, 3,3 is a different level of 5.5G than 3.1 was, so it may be apples and oranges at this point, just like it was when I first started needing to take breaks to execute. I could rely on my instincts, but, for this run, generally speaking, I haven't been.

• Was highly irritable in a self-sustaining or snowballing manner, at least partly due to blind or unanchored focus of that irritation. Put simply: encounter a situation while blindly irritated, make it worse by being irritated at everything (instead of focused on the cause of the irritation), get more irritated at the worsened situation, make it worse by being more irritated, etc.
  
• Existing FWBs got sick, forgot me (and do I mean that literally), or chose others instead of me. Mostly on 3.3.1, but partly on 3.3 too.
  
• Started with sporadic-but-notable work productivity on 3.3 and became disruptive emergencies, make-work, and backfires on 3.3.1.
  

• Have been diffusing any current irritability with (what I believe to be) cogent rationale behind any irritable feelings, followed by addressing the concern.
  
• One FWB (who's never ever texted me to contact me before) did so at her I'm-drunk-and-need-to-party timing, not that I was awake for it.
  
• Another FWB is now merely awaiting my recovery from the last month of work exhaustion. Which would be great, if work didn't keep piling things on.
  
• Another (remote) FWB has been more actively (almost daily) pushing to schedule her next trip to see me. Also great, if work didn't keep piling things on.
  
• Work productivity, while exhausting, is back to being proactive, cross-inspirational, timely, and satisfying. And far more so than it had been on 3.3: I just released all of the technological advancements at work that I'd made while listening to 3.3, plus other ideas that I'd had since altering my 3.3.1 schedule, and I still have even more ideas for improvement. I'm getting what should be a week's worth of accomplishments created and completed within a day now.
  
• I'm meeting newly-proposed make-work with repeated debate over the mutually exclusive options of 1) monopolizing my time where the learning curve alone would take weeks to be even slightly useful or 2) spending that same time furthering the company's progress with long-pending, valuable, quick, and easy improvements and contributions that only I can perform. For me, when it comes to two equally important sets of tasks, there's no question that the most useful division of labor is in using me where I'm uniquely more helpful than anyone else, not where I'm arbitrarily less helpful than anyone else.
  
  As far as the make-work situation goes, I'm not against expanding my existing horizons further and trying to become a master fiddler, but I see faulty reasoning in doing it while Rome's actively ablaze. (That is to say: To me, new challenges are more appropriate when the existing challenges aren't abundant, rampant, or neglected. They're also more appropriate when they're my challenges to overcome and not someone else's, as other people often seek help with -- or salvation from -- certain personal challenges where, for better or worse, they're still the best/only ones suited to overcoming them. I'll help others in their attempt to overcome their own challenges, if I have time and resources and if they request the help, but I'm not free to join -- or, worse, lead -- someone else's white whale hunt when I need to clean up the pile of dead fish rotting on my own doorstep first. Finding new challenges is easy, both optional and necessary ones; accepting the right optional challenges at the right moments is a bit trickier, as is remembering which challenges are optional, which are necessary, and whose challenges are whose.)
  

• Work is still highly productive. I'm waking up with fully-formed ideas after having spent the night cooking them up in my sleep, and some ambush me throughout the day, before I've even finished making the last three ideas into a reality. I'm still disproportionately better at solving work problems than at solving my own personal ones, but there does seem to be a little bit of movement on the latter.
  
• Attending a social event over a week ago finally seemed slightly more like what I've experienced on prior DMSI versions. But I should be clear: It was while on a non-listening day. And, while finally more similar, it wasn't as intense or as consistent as on past versions. Not yet, at least.
  
• A friend insisted on buying me a drink during her birthday, only to have the bartender buy it for me instead, when she'd realized that I was the one being treated. Still not sure that "it's the thought that counts" applies very clearly to freely-gifted toxins. It may say that they like me, but in what condition?
  
• A platonic and uninterested (albeit physically attractive) female friend seemed to get a bit territorial when another woman started dancing with me and, to my annoyance, successfully drove the woman off.
  
• The FWB who'd forgotten me recently (on multiple occasions) finally remembered me and showed mixed interest. Not that I didn't too. We're both agreed that we're incompatible in many ways, but we still enjoy each other enough to fool around as a way to pass the time.
  

• Had some sexual dreams, for the first time on 3.3.1. For a couple nights in a row, no less. And then things returned to the same emotional childhood stuff that usually hogs and clogs my REM cycles.
  
  
• My response to work requests has been changing on 3.3.x. I get very few requests, these days, given my tendency toward pre-solving problems before they come up, but, of course, despite my best efforts to head my own work stress off at the pass, I can't expect to predict and invisibly pre-address everything, so requests do inevitably come up.
  
  My long-standing response pattern has been to say no to most requests, find safe ways to turn the no into what sounds like a yes, and then counter-propose a reasonable and equitable compromise. This negotiation strategy is particularly useful when dealing with someone who's conflating experience with having a specific problem and experience with solving such problems, as the difference between knowing the problem and knowing the answer can be worlds apart. (And, thanks to desperation, people who know the problem can often be very insistent and impatient about exactly what they believe needs to replace the problem, no matter how much of a boondoggle their solution would be.)
  
  But, more recently, instead of trying to mitigate request pitfalls with objection and compromise, I start with more of a maybe (rather than my usual no) and stop trying to protect everyone from their own mistakes. I've stopped seeing myself as the hammer who needs to stop them from hammering their own hand into a bloody pulp, if that's really what they're heck-bent on doing. But, by extension, I'm also not seeing myself as the hammer that's preventing them from hammering everyone else's hand into a bloody pulp either, so I'm not so sure that this is a positive change.
  
  On one hand (no pun intended), I've greatly reduced my personal stake in others' decisions, which means that I care less about saving them from (or, more accurately, controlling) the outcome of their actions; on the other, I'm giving them the latitude to make decisions (unchecked or, at least, less checked) that could negatively affect myself and others. Similarly, on one hand, I've stopped presuming that my predicted outcome will be the likely outcome, while, on the other, I'm taking the chance that the requesting party's opinion has equal or greater value than that of the person with information and practical experience that those who made the request simply don't have.
  
  I'm guessing that this dichotomy may relate to disconnecting from negative stress, from not taking the actions that I perform at another's request as my personal responsibility. My problem with that seemingly positive shift in thinking (and the crux of the dilemma) is that these are cases where I am still responsible for my actions and my micro-decisions within that other person's larger decision. I'm still personally involved, no matter how disconnected from the stress (or the accountability) I may want to be. "Just following orders" has never seemed to be an adequate excuse to abdicate personal responsibility or a reason to blindly agree without compromise before, so it's difficult to see why it should be now. Subs themselves are an easy example of how my decision to execute someone else's idea, however helpful or harmful their idea may be, is still my responsibility.
  
  I also wonder if FRM or PTPA might play a role, possibly resulting in me feeling less concern for the potential negative outcome of questionable decisions. While that could be a positive in the long run, it may (in the short term) lead me to stand idly (or, worse, actively contribute) as many suffer the consequences of someone else learning the error of their mistakes. They may need to learn, and they may need to fail to do that learning, but, when their decisions affect others and not just themselves, the consequences do seem more important than whether they learn not to make the mistake a second time. And it only complicates where I fit into things if I've been tapped to be the instrument of their mistake because they're incapable of making that mistake without me. (If, in fact, it's the mistake that I believe it to be.) My past compromises were where we previously met in the middle and negotiated something mutually acceptable, not where I just checked out because it "wasn't my decision" or because they "needed to learn their lesson" or "needed to fail on their own." The compromises were about damage control on a group decision, not me denying others the right to learn from their own decisions.
  
  It's almost like unconditional surrender by way of IDGAF, and apathy has never really been the badge of honor for me that it appears to be for others. I don't need to do as others do or think as others think (which is good, as a lot of it confuses me anyway), but, as long as what others do and think affects those around them (including me), I still need to GAF about what others do and think, if only to adapt successfully to the consequences of their thoughts and actions, to their responses to my thoughts and actions, to my environment, and to the situation. No (hu)man is an island. Ignoring a genuine problem that someone else has caused (or insisted that I cause) doesn't make it un-happen, nor does it make me impervious to its real-world repercussions.
  
  My hope is that this is just me trying to distinguish left from right in one of 3.3.1's suggestions, find a balance between opposing suggestions, and/or learn to be more motivated by my knowledge of likely consequences than my past concern for likely consequences. I don't mind that this is unlike me so much as I mind that I'm suddenly disowning responsibilities that, whether on not I ever wanted them, are still mine, just as much as they were a few months ago when I was unquestioningly owning them then.
  

• My imagination. I've had very few sexual dreams at all on 3.3.x, and the few that I did have were swiftly interrupted. My sexual fantasies and mental visualization of sex became less frequent and less important. My sexual fantasies motivate me to have sex, and, in a way, on 3.3.x, my desire lost a lot of its fuel. Yes, my work creativity went through the roof, as my imagination suddenly had a lot of free time and free space, and great things were inarguably achieved in my work life, but my imagination is a big part of my motivation.
  
  What I imagine is where I build reasons to do something, where I build reasons to do something is where I build desire and motivation, where I build desire and motivation is where I focus, and where I focus is where I go. Unlike 3.1 or earlier (never ran 3.2), 3.3.x accompanied feeling like I should aim for sex while leaving my reasons for wanting sex in the past. But I don't do things "just because." I do them as a consequence of current reasons (either selfish, selfless-by-way-of-selfish, or both) to want to do those things. And because those things and those reasons have current meaning to me. If I stop imagining those reasons or that meaning, I lose them and the motivation that they inspire. Losing sexual inspiration was a jet engine for my work life, but it was a flat tire for my sex life.
  
  
• My memory. I'm unsure if this affected all memories, some memories, or just sexual ones, but I've lost (or at least achieved a more dulled) sensory, emotional, and experiential connection to my sexual history. Recalling it is like recalling a story that I was told, a movie that I saw, or a book that I'd read. While I can remember fragments if I make a concerted effort, I rarely feel like I was ever really there anymore, and, additionally, those emotionally-divested fragments are quickly dismissed as if they're thoughts that I don't want to have. As with the changes to my imagination, these are de-motivating changes toward the idea of having sex. Much of my motivation to have sex is knowing and remembering how good it feels to have it, and, unfortunately, the ability to recall those feelings (as feelings) has diminished. They're not completely gone, just... muffled.