Surveying the Topography

[Conquistador]

Most likely tomorrow or Wednesday I will do a single day train trip to San Diego. Unless my mom coerces me to stay and purge my stuff, or if I wake up feeling awful, then I will do it.

I probably won’t go out of my way to approach, but I will hopefully end up approaching some random encounters. Most likely I’m gonna be spending much of my stay moving around and exploring (unbelievably I’ve never been there).

It’s a go. The moment I’m done with my journal I’m gonna sleep. And then…awesomeness awaits.

That said, being with my family adds a lot of friction to projects, basic adulting, and even the self care necessary to do either of those. I had forgotten why I had let myself languish in the first place.

So yes, I need to finalize the details of becoming independent. In due time. The pieces seem to be coming together slowly. Most importantly I feel able to do things for the first tone since, like, October.

The main thing is to build momentum.

 

[Conquistador]

Partial success. Don’t feel like writing anything else for now.

 

[Conquistador]

In the last hour things have gone very awry. I need to think through my options because I can’t realistically get back until the morning.
I have a good plan. Once I have relaxed a little, I will execute it. All I have to do is figure out how the hell to spend my time from 11 to 5:30 am. Maybe I should check out the nightlife.

 

[Conquistador]

Ran out of time to make a pit stop to charge my phone and stuff. Current plan is to load up on supplies, consume them, go to a cougar bar or two (I packed a change of flashier clothes just in case), and then chill on the beach until it’s time to catch the first train back.

What a frickin nightmare.

Also I just was nearly attacked by an angry dude with disproportionately ripped arms and a giant aggressive dog who cursed me out for riding on the sidewalk (idk the local regs but it had seemed to be the frankly the safest thing in the situation). Good thing it didn’t escalate. I bet it would have if I hadn’t been taller than him.

Funny thing is, tonight I’ve had to face far deeper fears than the ones I conquered a couple years ago. Fear of death or loss of self-respect is nothing compared to the existential feeling of being one lone person in a giant, dark, dangerous, utterly foreign yet familiar-feeling city.
Am I unloved? No. I have more bros than the average guy, and two parents who really do love me. But they have also damaged our relationship to such an extent that I don’t want to be near them.

I have done my best to handle my current predicament like a man. Now I just need to do so with the rest of my life.

Plus my mom has been uncharacteristically enthusiastic over about my staying longer than expected.

 

[Conquistador]

Well, all’s well that ends well. I really should have accepted that cute Russian chick’s offer to drive me home (would have been funny to see how she reacted once I told her home was almost 2 hours away even at 90 and what happened next). It would have saved me a lot of hardship. I got lost in the thick fog without my phone, never made it to Del Mar or a bar, and ended up just waiting for the first commuter train into downtown SD and going home from there. Not at all what I had been intending but at least I passed most aspects of the stress test.

That whole misadventure feels unreal after not properly sleeping for almost 36h. I need to do things way way differently next time and I will.

In any case, I feel like I now have the momentum to go back to doing lots of stuff irl. I’m concerned about the home environment making that more strenuous like it did while I was at college, but I’ll manage as I go.

But in general, the creep with the dog excepted, literally everyone I met or even saw was amazingly positive. That was really cool and I’ll be looking forward to visiting again despite what just happened.

Finally, I feel like now is a good time to pursue deeper personal changes that I’ve wanted to try for a while. I want to over time consciously…renovate…most aspects of my personality and behavior besides my core identity and I’m getting closer to understanding what that could look like.

 

[Conquistador]

Currently considering how the hell to unplug from my current screen usage patterns.
When I started this journal I still had a flip phone (!!). I was getting frequent intense long-duration exercise. I could survive weeks without significant screen usage.

Now? I use my phone 4-6 hours a day (at least it’s almost entirely reading articles and a bit of YouTube and Reddit), I spend about the same amount gaming. And, although lately I definitely find both of these vices much less addictive and gripping than I used to, they have shaped my habits to such an extent that it’s hard to go back.

Funny enough someone my age who’s no longer active here once counseled me in DMs to just “stop being behind a screen”. This was somewhat before that became a significant problem for me.

First step: I bought an old MacBook from my best bro a while back. I’m gonna put a ChromeOS-like Linux distro on it and see if having a productivity-conducive platform helps me go back to using screens as a tool.

After that idk. But something must be done even if it’s drastic.