A Better Alex, stage 4: AM6 round 2 Journal

[apollolux]

You're reading that title right, "stage 4" of the A Better Alex series. I have run AM6 in the past and that was the official stage 3 but did not journal it here. I'm not on the same computer as that personal journal, so I don't rightly remember if I ran it 12 loops a day or 16 loops a day that first time, but the playlist on my iPod says 12x for each of the stages so I'm inclined to say 12 back then.

First day of listening for this round was overnight to the morning of Aug 15. Currently 8 loops a night during this stage 1, will reevaluate loop count when starting stage 2.

General goal is as usual "to be better." Defined long-term goals are "to be more alpha, more masculine, more alpha male" and "to be THE first, best choice and/or the ONLY good choice." Defined short-term goals are "to stop hurting from the external things so I can heal without new hurt coming in faster than I can currently handle it," "to reduce or eliminate how much I allow myself to be influenced by the external things," "to better and more healthily accept how out-of-my-direct-control the external things may have been/may be now/may be in the future," and probably most importantly "how to better and more healthily 'feel it, then advance.'"

Running the prototype sub journal webapp I created through its paces with this, so far ok in saving entries but still working on the "edit" functionality to do stuff like update a day's list of dreams after the fact. Currently saves to browser's local storage for convenience but still considering a more persistent database backend either now while it's still just running locally or once I upload it to the web instead. Did not start from a blank CRUD template, made it from scratch bespoke for life-improvement journaling purposes so may still be kinks to work out during the development process.

One such kink includes the absence of any "goals" fields in the current version of the interface (realized only just now after rereading this post before submission), will almost certainly add that but considering intentionally leaving it out (instead of just "accidentally" as it is now) for reasons of "keeping the data acquired as objective as possible." Purported objectivity may just be an excuse, however, as I have three fields, "story," "moods," and "summary," which are subjective AF, so currently treating the fields' absence as an oversight.

[apollolux]

Checking if there are any noticeable differences in my personality when starting this run, 16personalities is showing me as ENFJ-T this time. ENFJ-T is described as primarily "protagonist" and secondarily "diplomat." While there are a few bits of their analysis I feel are a bit generous to who I am at the moment, on the whole it mostly makes sense.

That being said, I'm legit concerned by the apparent confirmation of "protagonist" traits. I did not explicitly state it in the initial post, but one of my intermediate/ancillary/auxiliary goals is to definitively figure out truthfully if "being the hero" is ultimately mostly positive or mostly negative. As I've theorized in my last posts in my DMSI journal, there is a definite possibility that much of my current personality and approach to...pretty much anything, really...is likely rooted in "being the hero" (hopefully not "white knight" but that is certainly possible and way more likely at least earlier on) and "the hero gets the girl."

[apollolux]

Well.

Making a post here to mark yesterday 2020-09-02, day 19 of stage 1 of this second run of AM6, as the first day in a very long time that I can remember where I've consciously felt actual, real, genuine fear that was more than just an unidentifiable dread or apprehension of not definitively knowing outcomes of situations and experiences.

I know what it is I fear and why I fear it. I leave the verb "fear" in present tense at the moment because it is not yet resolved. The current strength of the fear is not because of how known or unknown it may or may not be, the fear exists and is at the strength it is because at this moment I genuinely feel there is nothing left about the situation around it that might be within my power to control intentionally and I don't know how to properly emotionally handle the lead-up to its eventual outcome.

I need some sort of healthy outlet.

[apollolux]

Documenting today 2020-09-16 as stage 2 day 1 of this second run of AM6. I forgot that it's apparently only 80 minutes per loop instead of 90. Doing 6 loops/8 hrs daily for this stage.

Have to run some errands, then will attempt to summarize stage 1 later.

[apollolux]

Ok, some summary of stage 1.

* So. Much. ANGER. *

It truly feels like all I had over the 32 days listening to stage 1 was anger and despair. Looking at my journal I have noted many of those 32 days as having "no productivity." Job search hasn't produced success for me yet, sex life is still non-existent, social life is non-existent, and it is difficult to feel productive or otherwise fulfilled by myself with little to no emotional support from others physically nearby.

I know consciously that, at least to somewhat resolve the feeling of not being "productive," I do have "work" that is available to be done (mostly software programming, some writing), tasks that I have long ago identified as not only doable by me at my current knowledge and skill levels but also within reasonable timeframes by me to feel satisfied that I "accomplished the thing" upon completion. I have unfortunately allowed myself to be distracted by the despair and hopelessness that permeates my current situation, retreating to watching YouTube videos for entertainment and not even playing any of the many video games I own like Factorio to simulate "being productive."

There are no anti-depressants this time around to mask and dull feelings that I have. All the anger, despair, hopelessness, apathy, depression, etc is unfiltered now, amplified by the lack of income, lack of companionship, lack of support, lack of loyalty, lack of security. I'm worried that the strength that I thought I had was just a delusion. On one hand, I'm glad and grateful to know and confirm that even after all of the detachment and medication that I can still feel, am still human. On the other hand, my actions, behaviors, thoughts feel so emotionally detached from any outcomes and motivations that it feels difficult to consciously tap into the goals themselves as motivations to be more active.

Three things keep me hanging in there right now even in the midst of this difficult struggle: the fact that I've shed all the weight gained from antidepressants, the fact that I'm about to finish paying off my credit card debt within a month, and the faith (yes, FAITH) that because I've had success before, in employment, in fitness, and while further back still success in romance and sex, I can definitively think, believe, feel, say, understand that it is still achievable.

I wish I could honestly say that just thinking about the words to write here welled up the emotions I have attached to the belief that "it is achievable," but not this time. I know it's still there, buried under some disorganized mess or barricaded in a room or stuck in a traffic jam or something. It took until last week to finally feel strongly about the lack of productivity and the feedback loop surrounding that, so I assume the strong emotions attached to "it is achievable" are eventually in transit towards conscious expression.

Success is achievable, if delayed. I look forward to being available and able to enjoy it when that time comes.

[apollolux]

Documenting 2020-10-18 as stage 3 day 1 of this second run of AM6. Doing 6 loops/8 hrs daily for this stage.

Will attempt to summarize stage 2 later.

[apollolux]

Well. I have become sufficiently salty.

On November 12 after I put my laptop to sleep, Windows decided 2:37am would be the perfect time to initiate a forced restart after installing an OS update. This restart also triggered restarting MS Edge Dev to process ITS update from v87 to v88. Normally, when Edge restarts either the previous session is restored or a popup saying the browser closed unexpectedly and offering a button to restore the session; neither of those happened here and I lost all my previously opened windows. The session file itself was somehow still around and not yet auto-deleted by the browser, so windows and their tabs are recoverable once I finalize converting the Python based "Chromagnon" project to JavaScript to run in a browser.

Unfortunately all my browser local storage was also lost. This included data I was using to test a browser bookmark organizer script, but more importantly the data of my journal for my journal script that I've been working on.

This was quite unforeseen and I have lost three months of daily journal data because of it. I didn't even remember that I had marked day 1 of this stage 3 here on the forums until just now, and after calculating realize I've apparently played stage 3 for 3 extra days now. Losing this journal data was a huge emotional blow to me this time, though, because while previous journals that were lost due to technology snafus were somewhat recoverable and had purpose (mostly only journaling) this journal had a purpose beyond being just a journal and so far has not been recoverable. The script remains because it's just an HTML file with some JavaScript in it, but the actual written data is gone and I didn't have any copies of it outside of what was saved into the browser's local storage.

I just wanted to have my journal in a state where I could actually run statistical analysis on it. I'm sad and this is exactly the kind of not-in-my-immediate-control bullshit that feeds into feelings of futility and pointlessness.

[apollolux]

Documenting 2020-11-23 as stage 4 day 1 of this second run of AM6. Doing 6 loops/8 hrs daily for this stage.

[apollolux]

Documenting 2020-12-25 as stage 5 day 1 of this second run of AM6. Doing 6 loops/8 hrs daily for this stage.

[apollolux]

Documenting 2021-01-27 as stage 6 day 1 of this second run of AM6. Doing 6 loops/8 hrs daily for this stage.