myth's OF 5.75.5G (v2) Journal

[myth]

OF v3's imminent arrival seems like a great excuse to wrap up my v2 journal. It's been 9.5 months of OF in total, roughly 4.25 months on each version.

After barely updating 2 OF journals, it seems that there's little value in me starting a third. Running OF's been too vague for me to describe in any real detail.

Not sure if I'll be running any version of OF beyond the full year, as MHS should really be my highest priority, but ending my OF run before giving v3 a shot doesn't make much sense to me. Instead, I'll keep going for a bit longer, if only to see what might happen while running v3 and to get a taste of 5.75.7G.

So, a final list of observations about v2:

• Both v1 and v2 coincided more with clearing out fear-related excuses, beliefs, and other impediments, as well as taking more risks, than with clearing fearful behaviors, reactions, and responses. I make the distinction only because, to my surprise, there's apparently been a distinction there to make. Fears standing in the way of the proactive have become fewer, but fears provoking the reactive are either unchanged or possibly even worse.
  
• More on v2 than on v1, I've felt as if courage is an ever-decreasing option. To clarify, I'm defining "courage" as the willingness to fight fear in the face of fear while still experiencing the fear. Previously, I'd felt as if, on a per-fear basis, I'd had four options across a blurry spectrum: have no fear, remove fear, proceed despite fear, and surrender to fear. On OF, it's seemed as if options 1, 2, and 4 grew and option 3 shrank.
  
• In the past, I've achieved obstructed goals through circumvention of fear, but, more recently, I've noticed myself prioritizing the complete removal of the obstacle above achieving the original goal. I get that any permanent removal of the fear would prevent long-term future obstruction, but, in the near term, insisting on removing (not bypassing) the obstacle results in goals being deferred when they could be completed. Yeah, I could overlook a short-term hit as temporary growing pains, but 1) nothing about OF has been short-term, and 2) my goals' deadlines aren't always at my discretion.
  
• Been thinking about fears that may be supported by a "point of no return" and the mind/body's reliance on homeostasis. Been wondering if FOMO-like fears may partly derive from a need to preserve re-calibration, wanting to be able to right the tipping canoe before the point where gravity's made stabilizing it impossible without external intervention. As adaptive homeostasis, not as immutability, envy, disappointment avoidance, etc. To cherish the unguaranteed choice to pause, slow, readjust, or take a step back while still possible, before the choice's number of options reduces to 1 (or 0).
  
• On a bit of a learning kick lately, while also finding more creative inspiration. Making random technical advancements in my work, although they're so disconnected from each other that they're more distraction than progress. Curiosity (one of my stronger positive motivators) has increased, but, so far, it's been so disorganized and haphazard as to be of limited short-term value, even if the cumulative knowledge will eventually benefit me in the future.
  

And that's pretty much what I'd had left to say about v2. Onward to v3, I guess. Once it's available, that is.