Nels Lindahl — Functional Journal

A weblog created by Dr. Nels Lindahl featuring writings and thoughts…

Month: October 2021

  • A bit of writing

    Writing. It all started with opening a Google Doc from my browser shortcut. A date was set in the first line using the familiar year, month, and day format that will sort forever onward in series. The location of the work for the day came next in the string of words that were type. In this case it was my Dark Base Pro 900 based desktop computer. Finally, at the top of the document it was noted that this is a weblog post in search of a title. Later in the writing process a title will appear as if it spontaneously came out of a spark of imagination. That is pretty much literally where things come from as far as I can tell. No random title generator was used during these efforts. That point of intrigue would be more effort compared to the rich rewards of taking the time to actually write on a daily basis. 

    Part of this daily writing process is about improving my craft as a writer. Practice helps build up the habit of writing. That is how we improve as writers. The other part of my effort is to focus and organize my thoughts. It is about taking whatever happens to be at the forefront of my mind and really bringing focus to that content. Sometimes it yields interesting prose and other times it just helps me begin the day with a heightened awareness of higher order thought, consideration, and a respect for the path toward a perfect possible future. Every day the effort is to improve and understand the chaotic world around us. Naturally, a part of that is thinking about the intersection of technology and modernity. Within that intersection are profound changes for civil society and our journey relating to each other.

  • A much slower day

    Today is one of those days where letting go of things to get to a zero space is really hard. I generally try to clear my mind of all thoughts and concerns before starting the writing process. Getting to that zero space just did not happen today. The pain from the pinched nerve in my neck is not back or anything like that as a blocker. For some ineffable reason the calmness at the moment of being present remains elusive today. A little bit of chaos reigns this morning and it really did manifest with some dirty writers block this morning. We are about 100 words into the process of writing today and I’m still working to shake off that layer of doubt and plunge into the act of writing meaningful prose. Certainly, the very best way to get to that point is to keep writing and working on progressing forward. Sometimes the very act of typing and working to move forward can kick start the process. 

    Today is by far a much slower day than it should be for sure. Without question the first 30 minutes of the day so far were a wash in terms of getting things done. Things feel like approaching an uncomfortable space weighted down and without clarity. Maybe within the confines of that scenario something more interesting will emerge like some time of allegory that resonated like the cave from Plato. Lofty as that goal might be it is better to strive toward something of permanence in the long run from usefulness than to accept the chilling effect of total writing false start. As you can gather from these stilted and otherwise unrefined words this second paragraph did not fare all that better than the first one today. It’s possible that the home stretch of this page will break on through to something with a deeper meaning. 

    Uncertainty abounds and in its wisdom the possible dances before us. Without the possible chaos of uncertainty the path to a perfect possible future would be absolute. Variability and chaotic progress bring forward the essence of what makes us react to the intersection of the present and the path that moves us along to that perfect possible future. Within that dissonance and the choices that are made we abide the possible and strive. Perhaps it is within that dance of striving toward a future that helps us deal with the very nature of uncertainty. Taking a methodological approach with each step punctures the web of uncertainty and clears a little bit of a view into the perfect possible future, but nowhere enough to really ever be able to get a truly unobstructed view. That inherently is the dance between the now and a perfect possible future that stands as an ideal away from the pressures that confine us and raise uncertainty.

  • Thinking Pixel 6 Pro

    Yesterday you could pre-order the Google Pixel 6 Pro from the Google Store. Throughout the last few years I have had every major series of the Pixel smartphone from the inaugural one to the Pixel 5, but yesterday for some reason I did not even consider completing the pre-order. This is a major shift in my technology buying habits for smartphones. For the most part the one piece of technology I have always been super interested in being an early adopter of was smartphones. For years now I have actively tested beta releases of Android software and enjoyed the process of being an early adopter. This time around I just decided to sit on the sideline. 

    Part of that is my declining interest in using my smartphone all the time. You may have previously read about my efforts to contain my daily smartphone usage. First, I have a Pelican G40 personal utility go case that stores my smartphones to keep them out of reach during the day. It is crush proof and waterproof and is also a very effective deterrent to checking smartphone notifications. Let’s be honest about it, the vast majority of the attention grabbing alerts and notifications are just not all that necessary. I don’t need them to grab my attention throughout the day. Disrupting my focus and causing me to switch context between subjects is not something I really need from my smartphone. I have a tab in Google Chrome that shows me my text messages and that is really all I need during the day. Second, over the last few months I have been testing a vtech connect to cell system throughout the house. We have 3 house phones that ring any time somebody calls my smartphone and gets passed the built in Google call screening features. 

    That pretty much explains my two pronged strategy to avoid my smartphone usage throughout the day. Due to the nature of my commitments both text messages and phone calls have to be answered, but everything else that is contained on my smartphone can simply wait till the end of the day. Part of that is trying to shift to using my main computer for anything that would need to grab my attention. That allows me to work toward getting some deeper work done and really applying my focus and attention to the problems at hand. I worked and was productive for years before having a smartphone and I want to get back to that simplicity.

  • Getting back to whiteboard days

    A quick check of the old weblog will clearly show that the last post produced by me was on Friday, September 17, 2021. Something along the way ended up creating a scenario where writing was not working out on a daily basis. That something was a pinched nerve in my neck that just devastated my ability to concentrate. As it turned out the process really did take the longer side of the 4 to 6 week recovery time suggested by internet sources. Honestly, a lot of laying on the floor and thinking happened instead of sitting and writing. Initially in the first couple of weeks after the injured nerve occured I really could not sit and write for very long. A lot of emails were sent from a phone screen while laying on the floor. Things that needed to get done still got done, but it was not the easiest of times to manage for sure. Being able to really truly deeply focus on something was just out of reach. Principally that scenario was frustrating and hard to recover from on a daily basis. It was the first time in my memory that I could not sit down and produce prose at a time of my own choosing. 

    Some of the content produced between now and that last publication back in September is just terrible. It is really not very good and it did not get published for a reason. It was kindling on the false start pile for sure or in this specific use case it is just a series of word processing documents destined to be forgotten. Today really has been the first day that with a bit of clarity and some time I was able to sit down and listen to the clickity clack of the mechanical keyboard. This missive is not really a targeted or focused draft of content directed at solving a specific problem or anything like that to be sure. I’m supposed to be writing about getting back to whiteboard days and what that means for the nature of content creation. To me it has a very specific meaning and it is about throwing ideas up on a space that is meant to be erased to work on them without permanence. Sometimes you need to work to refine something before you spend hours writing about it and investing in a proper written explanation. Some ideas are going to be great for consideration. A little bit of consideration alone does not mean that it is worthy of taking it to the next level and that is where a little bit of whiteboard work can help with things. 

    Over the years I have written about the benefits of keeping an idea journal/notebook. Sitting behind me in the bottom drawer of a credenza are a stack of notebooks. They contain a varying degree of useful too incredibly unusable ideas and written missives. That is the nature of working and reworking the process for a specific purpose outside of creating a record. For me that purpose is very clear and it is about the nature of pushing things forward. It is an exploration toward a perfect possible future where things are lined up and work out for the very best both personally and in terms of society. That might seem lofty and unorganized, but in principle it sums up my daily routine and efforts. 

    * This post was lightly edited for readability after it was written.