📚 node [[2023 04 04]]
  • Tuesday, 04/04/2023 ** 00:18 Stockholm feels strange this time around. The city is no different from my last visit - I can navigate Sodermalm and the office just fine - but I can't shake this gut feeling that I'm not supposed to be here, as if I've stumbled back into high school and run into a couple of old teachers that I have to catch up with or kids a few years junior who are now seniors or the hall cops that somehow recognize me still. Nothing but me has changed here in the last two and a half years and I don't know if this city is for me anymore. The charger takes two adapters that hang tenuously from the wall - and this thing just isn't designed to not sit flush. Some combination of gravity tilting the prongs and the impact of my phone's cable pulling up is holding it in.

Maybe I've seen two much of Europe now and Stockholm is no longer novel. The single best part of the city, though - it's quiet and consistent and productive. I feel as if I can accomplish anything and everything I'd like to here on my computer. Accomplishing things out in the world is another story - that's best left for San Francisco or New York. I missed an opportunity to talk to people my age that I ran into out and about though - I ignored them and moved on rather than telling them I couldn't speak English and that I'd just moved this morning. Still not comfortable enough here. I can't leave until I've solved that. The word 'I' is used too frequently. Why me?

The quality of food from the grocery store was lacking - wonderful eggs but the choices of chicken and bread and avocado were all rough. The presentation of my avocado toast was wonderful but the fruits were tiny and flavorless. I love this apartment, though, and the small design decisions of the typical Swedish kitchen - like the drawer above the fridge that blends in seamlessly or the deliniation of countertop into sink and wet space and cutting space and convection space that keeps the whole countertop usable. I love the large living room and bed that could easily be compressed and the cozy furniture and the lack of a TV, though I'm questioning the Tim Ferriss books on the floating shelves.

After two large Dunkin Donuts coffees got me through yesterday, I'm worried that I just dropped fourty dollars on very possibly four thousand calories of groceries. Eating fast food is competitive value for money at this rate.

Leave a couple of hours of padding tomorrow. You're bankrupting your sleep now. ** 00:51 If I'm going to make it in a place where I know no one - and either make the most of it or get out of here - I need some goals to work on outside of employment.

  • Become more physically attractive. I can feel the benefits of lifting, having a particular frame, looking a certain way everywhere I go; I used to be ugly and unconfident, but now I'm not particularly unpleasant to look at, and this is evident from how much more eager others are to reach out or say hi or interact with me in some way. This includes:
    • Practicing and using more confident mannerisms; generally this means moving in a more assertive manner, even in unfamiliar situations, and making physical space for friends and others with you
    • Finding the perfect treatment for my hair
    • Visiting the gym constantly and consistently until I figure the perfect training regimen
    • Developing a morning skincare routine, including shaving
  • Meet as many people as possible
    • Meeting people 'cold' is one of the best skills someone can have. Two people are so much better than one and anything that increases the probability of finding friends and family and a spouse to grow old with is incredibly important. Everyone should get to know more and more and more people.
  • Use as much of my time as possible. No more feeds - they're getting boring anyways. Do everything with intention, singular focus, and incredible scrutiny for your own work and it will be done best.
  • Developing healthy and inexpensive consumption habits, for diet, social activity, buying clothes, eating food and so forth. I have too many belongings literally weighing me down already. Drop those and spend lots of time thinking about what items work best. I really just have to detox from spending, keep a careful budget index and learn to enjoy things without spending or going to cafes or anything like this. The potential for money is infinite, yes, but in the worst case, minimizing my lifestyle's dependence on it is still valuable - given enough money and a minimal enough budget, I could extend my runway for life and continue doing whatever I want and love. I want to make music and make creative things and express myself anywhere and everywhere through computing.
📖 stoas
⥱ context