My mind has settled in to a standard routine over the past few months. During this establishing, the season has fully switched out here in the middle of the country. The days have grown shorter and grayer, much like the man in the mirror. This means that the winter woes will set upon us all within a month or so. Next week is the time change and the days will be cut off even more.

Much like the other facets of life, this requires a reframing. It has been an active exercise over the past few years to try and do this, and although I am not quite there yet, progress has been made. Diversions are helpful but I’ve found it best to try and limit these. There is some part of me that knows what is and isn’t a waste of my time, and any activity that is gets quickly eliminated. This can appear as rigidity to an outside observer but it is a search for value on my part. Time is precious and a finite resource that I take deadly serious.

The weekend has arrived and heralded time of value with friends. Today we make our own sunshine.

Tomorrow is a day on the road, and a possible escape from the grind for a few days. We are going to North Carolina to visit with friends and enjoy a nice long weekend away. As always, though, I operate on the assumption that I will be needed to handle something for the business. Since that’s the case, I’ll be taking my laptop with us and hope to not need it.

It may be wise to use some of the change in scenery to try and divest myself of some of the trappings of home in the form of writing. There are plenty of hours between now and Sunday that could qualify for this kind of activity.

Like every other trip I can remember recently, I’ll be doing my very best to leave work at work. Time will soon tell how feasible that is.

It would seem that this week lots of pieces are falling together nicely on their own for me, productivity wise.

On Earth, where the business has actually picked up nicely, we have acquired several projects to do. Not only to fill the schedule, but push us into the less productive season with an influx of cash. It never hurts to head into the slower months with a little bit of a reserve. I know how quickly this can go away so I’m trying to take the time to enjoy the feeling and breathe a little. Winter will be here before you know it…

In my head, I have started to narrow focus on what my audio-based creative outlet will be. I would like to include video but currently my recording capabilities there are limited to my phone, which isn’t great. Rather than put another hurdle in the track for myself to clear, I’m gonna start and figure it out as I go.

Got my desk set up nicely to do the work of getting my thoughts out of my head and into my DAW.

Time to get going. Enough dilly-dallying.

Last week I had another crazy idea for an avenue of expression. It may end up being another way for me to talk to myself but it will definitely be entertaining. The idea alone led me to pick up some gear for the endeavor: a FocusRite 2i2 audio interface, a Shure SM7b, a stand for said microphone, and a cable to hook it up.

Will it be a podcast? Maybe…?

Will it feature long, rambling passage down rabbit holes? Without a doubt. It’ll be like this place with the benefit of vocal inflection.

Will anyone be paying any attention to it? It honestly doesn’t matter. Stream of consciousness helps exorcise some of the little demons running around in my head.

Regardless of what form the expression takes, it will be unapologetic and 100% authentic to who I am.

Having spent the better part of the weekend helping organize, clean, eliminate various things from the home, I am starting to get a better understanding of the connected nature of domestic tasks to productivity. This feeling has come over me before in my previous living situation but I was confined to one room there, so it was easy to handle.

Now I am part of a household and that means that keeping things in order has expanded to include an entire home. It also means I am part of an “us”, so all considerations must be made together. It is an entirely different mode of thinking that I’m still evolving into. It is healthy, adult, and eye opening.

There is now a combined sense of accomplishment when things are placed in better order or cleaned. Where as before I alone got that feeling, now I can feel it when someone else experiences it too. That’s pretty cool to be a part of.

Thrilling reading, I know, but it’s a sign of growth and I’m enjoying it.

Learning about someone’s failing health is always a little jarring but much more so when that someone is closely related to you. It seems my brother has found his way to congestive heart failure.

Not sure how I am supposed to feel when greeted with this news, but I know that whatever it is, I’m not experiencing enough of it. The truth of the matter is that upon close examination, I don’t feel much at all. This has made me question if there is something fundamentally missing in our relationship that can’t be recovered. If that truly is the case, then I have already done all the feeling I’m capable of.

The most disconnected and resentful parts of me want to speak up at this point and say that this was entirely his own doing. But that isn’t especially helpful to the situation. So rather than allow those voices to have full control, I hear them out internally and leave it at that. Is that the healthiest thing to do? I honestly have no idea. But it does help me wrap my mind and heart around what is currently happening, and what may be imminently happening.

My brother could very well die from this. Even now as I have typed that and read it back to myself, there was nothing screaming out to be addressed. I almost feel disappointed in myself for this lack. But is that helpful? I’ve always maintained that we only control what we do, say, and feel as an individual. That whatever someone else does, says, or feels, is their business, not ours. I can’t help but feel like this is in error on this occasion. I only have one brother, he may be dying, and I feel nothing about that. None of the anger. None of the sadness. None of the pity. That may be the most sobering fact behind all of this. Despite the despair I should be experiencing, there’s none to be had.

Maybe this is my best expression for the situation. I have turned to an almost stoic resignation that this is the only way things could have been. This was an inevitable conclusion, and my involvement is only as a source of compassion and strength for those who will actually be harmed by this turn of events.

Sometimes we mourn the living, and this feels like one of those times.

In my ongoing examination of the circumstances of my life and doing my best to find what makes me happy, it occurs that I have no excuses for ever falling short of my potential. My life has been fairly issue free and it only takes a brief comparison to the many suffering people of the world to know just how easy it has actually been.

This is a useful practice that I have adopted from stoicism: Just visualize the life of someone who has genuine problems. It can be a very illuminating experience to occupy that person’s mental and emotional shoes. It can be a purely theoretical person or someone who you know personally. You will find it is easy to come up with examples of someone who has a harder go at things than you do. The idea is not to sit in judgment of their life but instead to empathize. This will give you a greater sense of satisfaction with the life you live. And to do so costs you nothing but the time taken to run the thought experiment.