paralogue.org

How often do you try out lifestyle changes?

I'm finding I'm doing trial runs of different things more often lately. Like: what if I used this app and only this app for a week or so? What if I went without x? Maybe being vegetarian would be nice to try.

Lately I'm running Windows which makes me want to push into it harder: what if I made music on it? Could I make something in Cakewalk? Ableton? Would it sound completely different?

I suppose more accurately it's like I have explore and exploit phases and I'm just in the mood to try anything and everything now.

my pattern is one of discover new thing → get really, really into new thing → want to make a lifestyle out of new thing → (optional) try to find social connection through new thing → become demoralized → start becoming ashamed of new thing and shying away from it.
and the longer i can keep myself psychologically floating in that middle ground, the happier i can stay, for a while… and maybe the more likely i end up forming an attachment to it that persists.

deliberately premeditated life changes – the new year's resolution sort – are harder to instantiate, but i think that's pretty normal.

my current lifestyle goal is to build language learning into my life: to learn dutch, and to get my japanese good enough that i can consume untranslated media without much issue. for the former i've been using a kinda shitty srs app that i honestly wouldn't recommend; for the latter, i've been alternating between (re-)replaying ffx (a game that's burned into my heart) and watching cardcaptor sakura with japanese subtitles (to contextualize the tetris game). oh, and <a href='https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>reading children's books</a> during my work lunch break.
although… while it's not too hard to chase either of these individually, fitting them both into my daily life is proving to be rather tough… somedays it feels like i'm studying up until i go to bed, and that this habit can only last as long as my energy reserves hold out.