It's only been a few days of journaling but it's starting to feel like I need to make a course correction. The daily diary is a reflection of what I'm doing at the time, and I don't think I remember well enough to start spewing what I want to think about a bit longer.

In other words, I want to make a change. The idea is to come up with ideas. The idea is to give myself some time to think, and I'm not quite doing that. I'm just spraying words for ten minutes and throwing it out there. Better than nothing, but not good enough. Not the idea.

Where did I get this? I was listening to Daniel H. Pink on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast. They were talking about logging and reviewing bad ideas, and while I think writing every day for at least ten minutes is a good exercise in momentum, it's not bringing me closer to the time I'd like to spend asking questions and writing stories about this weird world, this freakshow.

Watching Wild Wild Country was a good motivator tonight. It's amazing to me that this story of magnitude, as far as I know so far, has never crossed my eyes. It's the stuff left out of textbooks. It's the stories that mean something but we're not sure why. Maybe no one stopped to question it. There was too much regular life going on to sit and think. And sometimes, more today than ever before, that's a god-given luxury. Think. Write. Share it around.

The thing about writing for ten minutes was that I didn't want to think too hard and not put anything on the "page". Now I'm running into problems not thinking much or deeply at all. There must be a happy medium, a better way.

I could read an article and spend five minutes trying to go deep into a hole with it. Really explore. At least then it would feel like a start I could come back to and restart.

At least it's only ten minutes. The pivot isn't enormous. It's just experimental.

I started reading about Jordan Peterson today. Or I should say I read a new take on him. The article was written by someone on the Vox team, exploring the two kind of faces Peterson is portraying. There is a weird contingent of young, white dudes that see his refusal to say pronouns and the like as an act of strength and bravery and conservatism. I always thought Peterson had some interesting ideas about character traits and personal agency and responsibility. But it's always more complicated than a few sentences. And I haven't finished this article anyways.

But that's a good history lesson I'm sure someone will look back to explore years from now, and we're in the middle of it. Who is Jordan Peterson? What are the subjects of the day? Where do we go from here?

Starbucks has a new beverage - the crystal ball frappuccino. I saw the sign this morning after joking with some new friends that they really haven't broken out and experimented lately. I wonder if Starbucks lost the battle with another local coffee shop that invented the unicorn frap.

Last night was an interesting experiment in writing. It felt good. Just let everything out and share it. Even if it sucks. It might be a good start for something new.

What else? I'm still unsure what bigger topics I'd like to write about and the weekend is fast approaching. I'd like to keep it consistent and publish on Sundays, given the weekend offers a bit more time than a random weekday every week. Or maybe I'm wrong and I can set a schedule for a weekday. I'd do that if I was on a sports team or something. "Sorry, I'm busy!"

Either way, I think it's worth trying to focus on something cool enough I want to write something bigger.

No reading yet, just think and write for ten minutes.

My mind is still swimming a bit with the last article I read for this blog, but I know I took in more of the world. I think I need to pay more attention to my daily conversations, and twist them into deeper thoughts. I know Louie and I chatted about international travel at lunch because he'll be heading back home to Paris in a week, and then off to the Philippines for two to visit a friend. He asked if I ever traveled alone and all I had was my cross-country roadtrip. Which I'm fine with. It was a great experience.

I watched Abstract - an episodic series on Netflix about different genres of art. This episode was about Ilse Crawford, an interior designer, formerly editor of Elle Decoration magazine, which apparently is a big deal. In her interior design practice, she broke down a room first to the sensual experience. She chose materials based on the senses the room should evoke. I really enjoyed her idea of how the details and design of a room determine what feelings and emotions you can take from it. It made me think about the spaces I inhabit regularly. I want to make my living room more cozy but contain an office too. I think my office at work needs help. Our chairs don't roll and then cram under a long, cheap table. But that's start-up life, so I suppose it makes sense to invoke that feeling. Simple, cheap, versatile. Until we start making some bigger bucks.

I had a thought before bed about how I'll miss the snowy nights when they're gone. Everyone is so ready for winter to be over but in that moment I was already missing it. A snow day is a rare thing, and it's nice to snuggle up on the couch and watch the cold from behind the window. You can order takeout guilt-free and relax.

The weekend is nearing and I have a few plans but not enough. It's not good enough to keep the weekend unplanned. I'll start getting indecisive. Right now, there is Maxine's party Saturday night and a Greet meet-up at 12:30. Saturday is pretty solid. I think on Sunday I might need to do the domestic and design thing and make it to Ikea and start cooking a new recipe. Start the week off right. And publish, of course.

There are a good pile of books staring me in the face every day. I half-finished Jordan Peterson's book. I restarted and half-finished The Obstacle is The Way. I didn't even crack Conspiracy.

I'm pretty happy with my commitment to working out lately. It's been more than six weeks and now I'm really committing to drinking less, sleeping more, and eating the right amount. Perhaps that's something to dive deeper into when writing for the blog?

I don't know. It might be good for a ramble in the daily notes, but what I like to do is think about human behavior. That's always been the muse. That's why the daily diary should be more about the past day.