Intentionality

At the start of this year, I decided to take up the “No Buy Year Challenge” that got popular on YouTube around New Years. More specifically I went for the “Low Buy” variant. If you’re not familiar, the challenge is to go a whole year without buying anything, outside of a few predetermined exceptions like food and toiletries. I found out about the idea from this video by Grace Nevitt, but there are a ton of other videos out there.

I just closed all 228 of my open mobile tabs. I went through each and every one first, putting the ones worth saving in appropriate places in my notes, TODO lists, to read lists, and wish lists. My open tabs had become a sort of an awkward unstructured TODO list of their own. I had tabs open for things I wanted to buy, articles I wanted to read, websites people had shown me on Discord, articles that bloggers had referenced.

In this case the main message - “nothing changes if nothing changes” - a call to actively engage in your own life - is something I needed to hear. It is an excellent shorthand phrase for a theme I’ve seen before but often forget. “People have to save themselves. One person saving another is impossible.” -Meme Oshino, Bakemonogatari While the “nothing changes” version of the message is excellent branding and shorthand for the concept, It undersells the problem.

I took a break from blogging this summer. It was somewhat intentional as I had nothing to write. The format I had here was boring me and I couldn’t figure out what else to write. Still, I feel better when I’m writing. So not writing at all has probably done more harm than good. My departure from the blog started out as an experiment with morning pages - a meditative practice where you write from stream of consciousness for 3 pages each morning.

I’ve been leaving a note at the end of a lot of my writing to “do the thing I want to do, not the thing that is easy.” I think I’ve actually been managing to do that a little. I may not be able to keep it up all the time (or at all!) but it really does feel good when I can do it. Above anything else, Obsidian has helped me to succeed in this area.