Excursions avatar

Excursions

I do not know how, but my blog's single-post template is broken. I don't recall any changes that I have pushed to the theme. Hmm. Do I need to fix it now? Sigh!

Meaningful writing

Every day that I don’t write makes writing again more difficult. I don’t because I convince myself what I write next needs to be significant. I don’t have anything meaningful to talk about. Why does it need to be meaningful? And meaningful for whom?

The most meaningful thing I do is live my life. Isn’t everything happening to me, around me, of the most importance? Why won’t, then, #writing about it be meaningful? It is to me and that’s all that should matter.

I don’t write for readers to find meaning in what I have written. I write to calm myself down. I write to focus.

No surprise then that every time I stop writing, I am more unsettled. The restlessness is not the cause of my block. It’s the effect.

After days of hot weather, it is raining again. I love rain. But this year, this incessant dampness is tiring now.

Is it true? Is it necessary or at least useful? Is it compassionate or at least unharmful?

A sign on Ursula Le Guin’s desk. h/t: Seth Godin →

It was painful to watch Afghanistan falter after getting so close to beating Sri Lanka. Almost eliminating them from Asia Cup. Such heartbreak for players and fans alike 🏏

I'm spending more than I would like on my hobby projects. I always think it is an okay price to pay for the learning and sharing I do. But every time the bill is generated, I hesitate to continue. Today's one such day.

My wife and my daughter are mobile-first. They can do everything on that puny device. I need a laptop and a keyboard if any amount of research is to be done. Be it typing or reading. I am not at all comfortable with typing and searching on my smartphone.

I love how ChromeOS has extended the life of my ageing laptop. It's still feels snappy and good for my reading/writing heavy use.

I looked at the podcasts I had subscribed to when I used to listen to them. And I quickly realized why I had stopped following this medium. Again too much of same stuff out there - few guys talking about news that don't matter.

There were only a couple of interesting podcasts which I had any interest in. Am I unaware of some space that hosts the good shows people follow?

Numberphile’s bread and butter remains the intimate, idiosyncratic one-on-ones with a veritable who’s who of mathematicians and math communicators that have both endeared Haran to his presenters and humanized for viewers a subject often perceived as devoid of color or personality.

Source: A Duodecade of Numberphile →

Numberphile remains one of the few channels that I never miss an episode from.

I don't know what it takes to support this. But if Micro.blog allows logging in with the Mastodon-compatible username (that it generates by default now) through any of the Mastodon clients, the number of clients for Micro.blog would increase significantly.

I don’t know how to be social. I can’t use the social media tools. I am a user of many. I don’t use any. Or to be fair, I don’t know how to use them. I would passively scroll through the timeline and yet not respond to any of the posts. Not that I don’t want to. However, I don’t know what to say. Or how to say it.

I feel awkward interacting with people I don’t know.

Maybe that’s who an introvert is.

Even in real life, I take time to comfortably open up with others. I am that silent, awkward guy hanging around in a group. Not knowing who and how to talk to someone.

No wonder then I feel the same discomfort in the digital space. What troubles me is I just end up wasting time not using these tools in the manner they are supposed to be used. I don’t benefit in any way by using the services.

So why am I even on these social media sites then?

I need to learn to not waste time when I have too much of it. That feeling is a delusion -- one never has enough.

Does the instance I am part of matter? In what way does my choice of instance shape my experience with fediverse? I have switched the instances multiple times now, but not for any specific reason as such.

Swipe down gesture on an iPad is a mess. I have been using this device for years now and I still don’t know what to expect. Sometimes it opens the control panel. At times notification panel. And a few times Split View.

And it never does what I want.

Many times, I also get lost in the Slide Over mode - things get hidden and I have no idea how to correct them.

Yoga session cancelled. And I don't know what to do now so early in the morning 😂