The End of 2020 - Resolutions for 2021

 The end of this year 2020 is a better year because of my disciplined habits. 

This Christmas has by far been the most fruitful and relaxing of my life. I have enjoyed: 

a) Regular sleep, with only a few disruptions that I have managed with discipline. 

b) Ideal pomodoros most days, with an acknowledgement that negative days are those without any direction. 

c) Socialising most days with a range of people, friends and colleagues. 

d) Better fitness levels, with my weight hovering around 70.5kg. 

e) My MA literature review and introduction near enough finished before NYE without the usual weary illness I suffered the last years. 

Giving 6-8 pomodoros today to my MA will see me break the back of the methodology, I hope. Combined with an email to Kath RE: the extension, I might remove its pressure from my horizon, allowing me to focus on other worthy projects. 

________________

This year, continuing my greater connections with others is a firm ambition. 

I still have brains, books, brawn, bacon for a daily basis. However, these are my ambitions: 

a) Socialise most days, organising people into groups based on my personal enjoyment. 

b) Be mindful in my perception of time through the use of pomodoros. 

c) Keep fit with gentle gym work, perhaps dipping under 70kg and seeing how my weight stabilises at 1500 calories. 

d) Continue my reading habit to appreciate the perceptions of others outside my skull. 

e) Plan for ideal finances, considering what lifestyle to enjoy when I am older. Track my money realistically. 

f) Formalise my relationship with Grace, considering what lifestyle is realistic, looking after both our interests. 

g) Develop my EQ, considering putting my family demons to rest? Or at least, moving from failure to failure with some my enthusiasm still intact. 

I want to move in 2021 having consolidated these habits for another year. I will have grown into my new role. 

December 30th 2020 - What paths to take? And radical self-love

Yesterday was a hard day. Not leaving the house, I struggled to complete any pomodoros and my mind frittered through pages of the internet. Today I woke up with a challenged heart. 

I wonder what is my purpose. 

I remember as a young child finding so many of my peers flat and colourless. I remember a party of a boy called Jamie. Sitting at a table with an adult, I thought about getting up to approach someone, but then I stopped myself. I did not attempt to connect with others, or play by rules, or to be accepted. 

I am not so much different now. 

The way I was treated in Dubai was abysmal. 

The way I have been treated in Manila is better. 

The movement of my body in the world is not easy. 

Speaking to Omar two days ago shocked me into deeper thoughts about purpose. I have let slide my ambitions about teaching over the past years. 

The position I have now befits my mind. 

Zoe - friendly? Replies? PhD? What in? 

Let me be honest that my approach to leadership in both Beijing and Dubai was strained. I found Gary a difficult man as I found Louise and Marie challenging. As leaders they lacked, but at least they enjoyed a clear vision of what they wanted to do and to be. Louise wanted to be what her father wanted - a 'strong' leader with a corporate vision. Her management of staff and the streamlining of her curriculum was definitely 'strong', at the expense of a responsive and human element. The experience of her management was boring and uninspiring, although often intimidating. 

________________

These people could be quite different and I would still find myself in the same position I find myself now. 

What is my vision of education? How might I 'learn' myself? How might I 'lead' myself? 

I need discipline. 

________________

Do I love and accept myself? 

For some reason there are loud and negative voices in my mind and heart too often. 

But... I have attempted to write. And now I will gym...

________________

Gym, moving, books - that time of clarity makes me calm. 

As always, completing a number of pomodoros is what matters today. But what might happen? 

I might sit resentfully, unable to complete my tasks with any clarity. I might become more confused. I might become disheartened. 

Like Wolves losing today, I might feel the fight was pointless. 

________________

Talking to a friend made everything much better. 

I love myself when I am like that. 

 

A dream of Hull and aspiration

Last night I dreamt of Hull. I woke up slightly later in the morning by an hour, having REM'd the night away. An evocative dream, the likes of which I rarely have during work time, melted away upon waking. Yet its shadowy outlines remained with me, stirring feelings of inadequacy and ambition in my cavernous soul. I must write these feelings down. 

I was walking through the grounds of a now great school in Hull. Students with aspirational behaviour and slick blazers bustled around us politely as I walked the grounds of the bright and airy school with some faceless others. The open space was fresh and clean and, unlike my soiled experiences of university, I felt I was in a place of distinguished ambition. 

I was visiting for some reason, a guest to some yet also unknown. 

I first remember attending an assembly to listen to smart comments, impressed at students confident to face and address their peers. Unlike the turgid assemblies in DESC, these aspirational values shone through their words like ancient stones, their proclamations of ambition promising grand stories of old. Despite a policeman desperately running after the departed headteacher near the end, the atmosphere was cheerful. I was struck by the rockstar timbre of the headteacher as he cheered out demands for us to be better. It was how I wanted Hull to be. 

As I walked through the playground, I passed a game of football. I lofted the pass of a ball during a student game of football. The ball hit a child waywardly. A boy swore at me. I eyeballed him. The tensions of the UK remained within me as the student remained wary of further challenge, and my confidence in my game was shaky. Either way, there was no inherent respect. 

My presence in the school, presumably invited, was to celebrate the running of a 400m that would turn into an eventual cross country. Even though I am unfit now and would finish last in a 400m race against fit children, I decided to run 80%, confident I might win with a final sprint. As usual, my 400m past supports me now. Weirdly, the race continued across a bizarre dreamscape, akin to the Amiga's theme park mystery with Daliesque structures. I managed to finish the run, but I was dislocated from the school day. 

As I returned to the school, I joined the brisk stride of Louise Ford and Sophia Barakat as they bumbled over plenaries. I struggle in the moment to 'see through' Louise Ford because she is a formidable manager. I remember her telling me of how much she was 'eaten alive' by students in Essex, and she 'learnt to not trust them'. This is the kind of school that Louise Ford wants to run. It is a place where Louise runs entirely on logistical lines, with hyperorganised systems that are absolutely clear but loose in their values. 

This is also the kind of school that I want to avoid. Despite its promise, its issues are crushing, with aspiration and dreams and intellectual stimulation thin on the ground. It is entirely unresponsive. 

There remained in my dream the tensions of 'wanting to work for this school'. The reality of living in the UK vs here now is chalk and cheese - I would lose tens of thousands of pounds for a harder job. My relationship with Grace would be unduly difficult without a cosmopolitan community. 

What I thought the school should be is not what the school would actually be.  

I spent 45 minutes writing this morning because this is something to read for later. Realise that your mind is warning you against returning to the UK state system, either in person or in practice. 

This is the best Christmas I have experienced. I have achieved a lot without getting ill. I am ready to pomodoro more and to be healthier still. I am ready to write and to organise my mind, while retaining health. 

That careful balance of health and aspiration and more is not something I will achieve by default. It will require careful and delicate practice. 

A healthy Christmas Holiday

Like many healthy days, I have woken up reasonably early, 8:45pm. It is 9:06am now. I have another 12 minute of bacon. 

Completing the spine of my MA today feels a suitable mission. 

Most Xmas holidays, if not all of them, see me feeling terrible, lacking health and good sleep. 

Sleep is still not great. But I am sleeping for a little longer each week (and under 8 hours). 

I managed to complete the spine of my literature review. Feel proud!

Two days of Christmas Pomodoros

Sunday: 

For decades the Xmas holidays left me exhausted to the point of illness. This year can be different.  

Over the past 24 hours I have enjoyed some imagination through games and reading. However, my time on pomodoros has been far less. The result is that I feel tired and unhappy. The pomodoros are not optional. 

Each day I should spend time on something I should do but do not want.  A pomodoro is ten minutes more than I can comfortably spend on something I do not want to. 15 + 10 minutes. That extra ten minutes is the power of discipline. 

Spending my time each day on 'only what I want' is a peculiar thing. It feels unbalanced and unpleasant and does not fit my disposition. 

Brains: this is slightly underchallenged over the past few days. This can be changed in a day or so. 

Books: this is actually better BUT I am reading unchallenging stuff. There is no voice, just an ease of thinking because of simple rhythms. 

Brawn: I am still moving most days, but not as much as I feel I should. 

Bacon: Today I tackled bacon as good as I feel I should. 

It is 8:31am. I woke at 7:00am, played chess and...  

Monday: 

I woke up similarly at 6:40am, ready for the day and a few pomodoros. My sleep has been much better over the past few days. 

The way I sleep depends on my day before. I have slept tremendously well over the past few days. Long may that continue. 

Read the worry you felt this time last year

Stress I will likely feel anyway

Purpose beyond that given in this moment

School as an arena I have often succeeded

Read the stress that you felt this time last year. You have always sensed the angst of being alive. 

The spirit that resides within you is not yours. There is a greater purpose to what you teach and how you teach than you might believe. A world of 'no stress' is no world of freedom at all. 

You have enjoyed an excellent run of time so far. Continue with these pomodoros, rhythms and habits. 

Imagination is my strength

I find myself in the last days of this term, the longest in the year, ready for rest. Unlike times in my past, I enjoy space and kindness, both for myself and for others. In that space I want to feel my imagination, to flourish in a better world than this material one with its baseness and lies. Is imagination a noble lie? What is my imagination?

My guitar playing is a semi-practiced element of my imagination. Performing live, writing poetry, getting the girl: the Byronesque figure I attempt to be at times is a celebration of imagination. But is that figure conducive to my new role? 

I need to lead procedural teachers in an institution. I need to be organised. But organising the collective imagination of my school is where my strength might lie.

In my conversations yesterday with Brian, we spoke about what it was to have a 'happy' life. We both agreed that to approach each day with healthy habits builds useful determination. That determination is making me happier than ever, with my lifestyle healthier and more interesting than ever before. 

My habits also mean I write and read better than before. To read during the day is to prioritise that imaginative life which I might be too busy for. Simply reading in the evening is not an option for every day for my reading should not be relegated to an afterthought. A nourished imagination deserves a prime role in my life because my reading acts as meditation. 

A nourished imagination operates a form of consciousness. If I wake up feeling unhealthy then my mindset becomes unhealthy too. If I drink too much, I again become unhealthy. If I do not sleep enough, I become unhealthy. 

To be the in world is to risk ill health at times - we are all slowly dying. All I can ask for is some moderation of health and effort. In the time I have, be well, or at least be smart about being well. My consciousness depends on being well. 

Others depend on me being well too. Their agenda might also be my agenda, or not. I feel the pressure of a PD day planning. I feel the pressure of what could be. But I also feel that my imagination could consider what could be. 

I have suffered somewhat under my experiences after university. Confidence comes from experience, so do these things that will benefit you later. 

Maybe I can revisit the times where I was lost? For what purpose? Maybe I can complete my pomodoros... 

My actual weight - health and power

I have worked well these past three weeks, proud of my achievements. Issues remain as they likely will forever, but my habits continue to benefit me. 

My weight has been incorrectly measured it seemed - I thought I hit 67.7. In fact I am still above 70. However, my waist has shrunk to 34 to 35. 

My first reaction was to test my weight with several scales. They all read 70+. 

My next reaction was perhaps to somewhat undereat. Post-5k, I then became quite ill and fatigued yesterday. Today I feel much better having eaten 1500 calories and rested better. 

My next reaction was to ensure I tracked my real weight (my new weight!). After a day's respite, I am back with my discipline. 

Achieved 66 kg (albeit 66.9!)

After almost 100 days of careful management of my body, I dipped below 77 kg. I still need to reach an ideal weight, but what a great journey from where I have come. 

The sins of my past life will never be washed away entirely. Nor should I want them to be. But I am in a better position than ever before. 

I am fit. 

I have an easy and smart partner. 

I have a position to which I can direct the intensity of my thoughts. 

There does not appear to be much than can affect this path. 

After many years I am in a position that befits my mind

After many years I am in a position that befits my mind. 

I secured the job of assistant head of Teaching and Learning. What part of that should be capitalised? 

Ambitions - what is learning? 

Managing people? 

Sticking to a philosophy? 

Passion? 

Health and lifestyle? 

To be a heavy weight thinker?

There have been various reasons I have retreated from the public eye. Now, though, I feel inspired to step into it. 

I am credible. 

I will develop emotional maturity. 

My fitness levels match my mind: I am now 67.7kg, down from 81kg. That is 12.8 stone. I am now 10.6 stone. I move more easily. 

More than anything, this time last year I suffered, and I suffered unduly. Yes, I might be attracted to the dark side of things at times. But health and sacrifice and moderation are my ideal bedfellows now. 

I am lucky that Grace looks after me like she does. 

That moderation should come to me soon. 

Keep up these habits of yours. 

I want to be.

Weight is an easy indicator of fitness. 

I have dropped from 12.9 stone to 10.8 stone. That is two stone in weight. That is about 20 per cent of my bodyweight. I feel better for it. 

The good habits I had, that discipline - they are ideal. 

My interview, presentation and task went well for the assistant head of T&L. I feel blessed to be in this position, of being respected by my superiors. 

I am too busy to disdain the old guard of Dubai. We can do something better here. 

I want to be. 

Proud of my efforts yesterday

 Yesterday I felt genuinely proud of my efforts: I had a timed exercise. Because I could type and read fast, I read the task quickly and typed profuse and expert details. 

Today I will present a vision to all staff. I am confident doing so because I have practised this often. 

I am pushing a vision that DESC couldn't do. 

A busy week - What I do

There is a busy week ahead of me now. 

I am ready for it. 

To be able to practice for a presentation (and maybe some questions) and to deliver them is an appreciable thing. 

I still have today and tomorrow to practice. 

Today I have an in-tray test. I speak about time management, and feel confident doing so. 

The pressure is on others, not on me. We will see. 

To invest my emotion in those who are not supportive of my interests is a poor idea. 

Emotional Maturity

I applied for a leadership position yesterday for two reasons: 

1) It could help me find emotional maturity. It would test the limits of my self-regulation. 

2) It rewards those who are supporting me and my voice (not necessarily those closest to me here). 

I have tried to leave spaces in the day today. I hope this will help. Efficient excellence. 

The day after applying for that job I felt much calmer.

The day after applying for that job I felt much calmer.

Stabs of angst hurt me when my colleagues say or do something that feels lazy. But that is not everything. 

My modelling is interesting me. It is something that feels real and substantial. 

Yesterday I decided to work on my application and MA. I worked fairly hard until 3pm. The ease of that day should make this day a bit better. 

Self-Regulation?

Speaking to a colleague yesterday made me furious. 

I might suffer in Dubai from the crushing defeat of a non-school. But the attempt to suggest that nothing needs to be change or be improved makes me furious. 

Ambition

Manipulation

Idealism

I am better here after Dubai and Beijing. I am better placed to be focused and aware. To regulate my emotions and my voice is almost beyond me at times. 

Yesterday I had too much meat at the Korean. My measured diet is a good way to experience, of what I should do and perhaps what I shouldn't. 

Life is good at the moment, which the habits I live continuing nicely. How much do I concentrate on myself? That is a tricky thing, to see that which benefits me but not others. 

My voice is not musical today. And that is fine. 

What does it mean to work hard?

Is working hard a virtue? 

Is to be industrious ideal? 

Is achievement something that is highjacked by others? Can it be both highjacked by others for their means yet nourishing for ourselves? 

To work interminably is beyond me because it is something I do not want to do. At school I stopped working in mathematics. Lessons were crap in geography, just chatting and then bookwork. 

A-Levels were not much better. I surrounded by disaffected and mediocre minds concerned with the ambitions of teenagers from lower-middle class Wolverhampton. 

Most people are like this. 

To what extent do I want to 'go with' the culture of my school? What is the culture of our school? In my department the culture is made up of individuals. Those individuals have different ambitions. 

Why would I want to do 'extra'? What is the extra? Can I regulate my emotions? Especially the more negative emotions. 

My responses to my colleagues needs to be considered. What do I expect? What is the culture? 

A chance to apply for a Teaching and Learning Job

Be responsive. 

Concepts = 

Responsiveness

Stoic 

Ambition

Leading

Thought

Skill 

Strength

Concepts

Relationships = 

Others will feel you are responsive when you can articulate what they feel to their satisfaction. Responsiveness means empathy for the context of others. It does not mean doing what others want you to do, regardless of personal expense. 

To be stoic is to regulate your emotions. 

Ambitions are created by that immediately in front of us. I am suspicious of ambition, and of whose agenda they form. I still feel like I want to experience my inner life. 

Leading the thought of others is no easy task. To decide the field upon which we discuss is key. Concepts + character education? 

What concepts for the week ahead?

What concepts in the week ahead? 

I wrote recently a paragraph based on concepts and their relationship to each other. In the act of writing it felt contrived and weak. Reading it afterwards, though, was refreshing and clear. 

This week: 

Organised

Habits

Discipline 

Fitness

Connection

Finances

Space

Music

As soon as these concepts were listed I began to connect them. 

Fitness + finance, that my search for fitness will equate to some 'fitness points' to spend later. 

Discipline = organisation + habits. 

Connection = space 

Music seems to be the focus here...

This week I have organised some space in my schedule after less freed time than before. My habits continue well, giving me more freed time than before. That freedom is built on a bedrock of discipline, unwavering in its action and entirely expected by my court of ambitions. 

This week I aim for my music. To understand how music connects, how notes follow and create a melody, would create connections to myself, my teenage ambitions. In time it will create connections to others. 

I also in the next week aim for continued fitness, like my appreciable finance, this will lead to some 'fitness points' to spend later. 

Finally, I am aiming for connection with a few friends, but nothing too arduous. 

Working with Concepts at School

Habits + Lifestyle + Success + Achievement + Happiness

Firstly I thought that success = happiness. Success is something that others might define through academia or otherwise. 

Then I saw that success required prior achievement, which might then lead to happiness. 

But is that always possible? Success in academia was not really possible with the education I had, as sparse as it was in history and culture. 

Achievement is the opium of the middle classes, equated to happiness in a way that does not exist for the highest and the lowest in society. Achievement is measured in different ways, but perhaps always with a potentially economic bent. 

In order to achieve, a lifestyle must be sought, one of sacrifice and determination. Now our equation is lifestyle = achievement = success = happiness. 

What is a lifestyle? It compromises of distinct habits in the day. Everyday I read, and have done for 8/9 months. I have read for 112 hours in that time. Tremendous! 

Therefore habits = lifestyle = achievement = success = happiness. 

To phrase this, I say that my focus should be on my habits because good habits become an ideal lifestyle. An ideal lifestyle creates the conditions that make achievement possible. Achievement is often recognised by others and can lead to a momentum of success. Such success will be celebrated and can evoke feelings of happiness. 

I am suspicious of this model because it equates achievement with happiness. But there is something in this. 

What makes a tough life or otherwise?

My life is not tough right now. 

a) I am not in Wolverhampton fighting the bullies. 

b) I am not in the midst of an absent father. 

c) I do not have a major injury. 

d) I do not have Louise Fordesque bosses that are causing runners. 

e) I am not sitting on impossible debt. 

Instead: 

a) I am getting fitter everyday just maintaining my diet. 

b) I am admired at work and supported by many.

c) I am sleeping well (save last night!). 

d) I can play music every day. 

e) I enjoy good friends. 

The frustration I feel at the music and the right-wing tabloid terms yesterday become grave injuries in an easy life. 

Suffer them. Welcome that frustration as something else. Figure that out. 

Iteration, Perfection, Success?

Iteration, Perfection, Success? 

Iteration, Progression, Success? 

Middle Class language communicates achievement as success. Overachievement is oversuccess, presumably. I used to see no problem in that - indeed, linking achievement with success was a natural and ideal state for me to be. Yet achievement is not something that can be controlled through hardwork and virtue. It is not an ideal state at all. Virtue is a better state. 

Yet virtue itself needs ideal conditions to really grow. Rituals, health, sleep - these are not optional measures for virtue to thrive. Good behaviour based on rational self-interest cannot exist without the conditions that encourage it. That is why I am fortunate I did not choose so many of those friends and lovers more than I did (and perhaps why I fortunate they did not choose me). 

My thoughts on this have changed though. I watched a cooking show about a middle child in India who overachieved to make her parents proud. It finally resonated with me what I have known for a fair time - this search for success to make us proud is problematic. 

Here are some reasons why: 

1) You are good as a human being in yourself. Aiming for achievement as measures of success suggests more about you than just that field. 

2) Success does not necessarily mean satisfaction. I have achieved much in the way of success, but the visceral experience of controlling myself via brains, brawn, books, bacon feels more satisfying than some of those conventional measures, such as work and certificates. 

3) The fields in which we might experience success are narrow. Those fields might benefit others - work hard hard as a teacher to achieve success. They might require too much of ourselves, of our time and souls - take too much time to mark to achieve success. 

Today I play music publicly. I have practice every day. I could not have realistically practiced more in the finite time I gave. If I do not give more time then I cannot expect a better performance. With the finite time I cannot expect perfection. 

Instead, I should only expect an iteration that may or may not succeed. It exists for fun - no jobs rely upon this save Sam's. 

I cannot expect my emotional reaction to change, the difficulty and awkwardness that I feel now. But, I can welcome that awkwardness as an old friend, that nervous energy and self-doubt. That tells me I am moving. It tells me of my virtue. 

It tells me that an iteration is success. And that old friend of doubt is here to be loved, with that physiological reaction to be experienced, and maybe a better place for that temperance to be. 

A life of discipline

I am no lackey but I appreciate discipline and sacrifice. My stomach is getting smaller and I am enjoying the company of Grace each day. She does not mind my size but she helps me to lose the fat. 

The health element of my habits is already in gear. Tomorrow I begin again in the gym, my time already booked and ready. 

Every day I: 

a) Books 25 minutes

b) Brains 25 minutes

c) Brawn 25 minutes

d) Bacon 25 minutes

+ 

e) Music

f) Sustain

This lifestyle I experience now is one that gives me confidence because it is one that I plan. Trying to consider the concept/stasis that someone is considering is to know them - to know their context. 

Three People Who Made Me Grateful

Yesterday three people made me grateful. 

1) The lack of rehearsal time, punctuality and negativity of the drummer made me grateful that I did not pin my hopes to her. That used to be desperate circumstance, a Ruth Alexander, a Sarah Ryan, or countless other women who made me yearn for something that was really in me. Without no guidance other than my gut, I made the right choice to reject her at huge personal experience. It was the right decision. 

2) David Wells is leaving Dubai. He needs to 'keep his wife happy'. This seems to involve going back to the UK to work. That seems tough. What I enjoy here, he cannot do. 

3) Peter is not only helping me out with my MA, but: 

a) Mentioned Jeremy Grigg taking him to the mountains without me feeling disproportionate rage.  
b) Made me realise that for all the benefits of his kids and wife, she makes him stay in Dubai. 

In each of these cases, I feel grateful that I am not trapped with someone who does not care for me. I am happy continuing with this lifestyle for now. It is a lifestyle that is purposeful and will see me control myself for a time. 

Feeling grateful for not choosing these women brightens my future because it allows me to exercise control and discipline. That discipline might allow me to control how I respond to others. 

I might respond with difficulty and awkwardness. One issue, for example, is the feeling of not wanting to smoke in cadets. That isolated me, but I kept my guns. 

That strength of character and adherence to purpose is something I have rarely experienced. Yes, I redouble my efforts to work harder, but rarely feel the confidence that should come with such sacrifice. 

Watching Cobra Kai, I see men who find talking to certain others difficult. I think that I can perhaps face off people I find difficult more often. 

To respond with consequence to people I usually avoid (rather than worrying about them) is a better ambition than just avoiding them and places. 

Just keep going as you are now. Read back this in months and realise how you slipped into this wondrous mode of being.

Walking for Fitness

Yesterday I walked for 20.5k steps, venturing to Makati and back. 

Today my body aches, but not impossibly. I feel strong and determined, able to resist some of the worst excesses of my xyz. 

The pomorodo life has changed me by giving me a better appreciation of time. I can suffer some of the briefs moments of study and work with grace. With guile I can begin tasks that make me suffer.  

I love. I speak. I live. 

I will complete the 'idea chart' or 'concept engagement' with a particular text. How do you put together the key concepts for a text? What is that text about? 

I am ready to read this morning. I will engage in some of the reference writing etc. We will see. 

Completing 3 pomodoros this morning is enough. That is an appreciable amount of work - why complete more? I have enough time. 

The Reality of Losing Weight

 Losing weight is about maintaining that calorie deficit. I am doing that but it is not easy. 

I ran yesterday. The front of my knees hurt today, far more than they have done before.  I should not test myself. Low impact exercise until they subside. 

I thought about an interesting job yesterday - director of curriculum. I would consider what the experience would be of the holistic BSM student. It would be invigorating.

In the past when I have been abused, I wondered how to respond. I challenged some of the worst of that behaviour although encouraged the rest. 

Now? There is a very specific role I want to play. I'm a human being, imperfect. There is a cynicism embraced by those who live in an exploitative place. I would never want them to work in my school or teach my kids. Maybe behind closed doors they are different. But their cynicism infects and undermines, and never builds. 

Part of my weight loss is losing the ill weight of those past choices. The control I am exercising over my body is my submission to rational self-interest. A life of mostly rational self-interest with bouts of 'freedom' sounds ideal to me. 

I am down to 73.9 and 37, down from 80.5 and 40. I still have a way to go. 11 stone 6. Dipping below 11 stone will be a good day. On that day I can say that my sins would have been expunged enough for me. They should not disappear entirely though, for those decisions need to be owned. But a better version of me will emerge unencumbered by that heavy and fat past. 

On Saying Goodbye to Dubai

I remember giving a leaving speech in Beijing. It was worth enough to remember now.  

I dreamt of Vizzard letting me say goodbye two days ago. He was fairly emotional. I had the chance to speak denied to me in real life. I remember Louise Ford forcing all the kids to say goodbye to Marie and a few others. There was no chance for a speech then. 

That dream was a chance to say goodbye in a way that trivialises what happened to me. That is a good thing.  

Being Positive and Grateful

Over the past few weeks Grace has felt especially emotional. The negativity that infects my spirit affects her too. 

Things do not need to be that way. My health is moving in the right direction. I have perhaps the best lifestyle of my career. 

My job is easy enough. Unlike in the past, I feel stronger and better and interesting in myself. I see friends when I want and enjoy a convenient and comfortable life. 

I spend my bacon marking some essays with a greater thematic/conceptual focus. Decent. 

Trivialising Past Annoyances

The human mind will wash up old memories of past hurts. These painful events will roll back from the waves of time, ready to be experienced again. 

Dubai contains many of these. I dealt with them in a reasonable way, short of attacking the people who perpetrated some of the worst. The worst memories are those where I was besmirched in front of colleagues. 

Sometimes I consider some petty revenge. I wonder what the consequences might be if I did? The only consequence worth considering is that such events could not long be trivialised. Being able to trivialise these events is to place them as things that happened, not things that defined. 

I connect this concept of 'being able to trivialise past events' with 'welcoming negative emotions like they are old friends'. When I feel the burn of these awkward memories, I can see them as things that just happened, indications of a toxic environment. 

My body is stronger than before. I am losing weight at an appreciable weight, 6kgs now. This is a gift to my 39 year old self. A year of fitness is the gift to my 40 year old self. 

The diet has not been hard; eating now is both enjoyable and easy. 

I think that burning between 300 and 500 calories every day through walking/jogging/cycling, and keeping to 1520 calories, is my simple approach to cutting. 

Let's see how my body can change. Will my sleep be fit? Will my mind is calm? 

Sleep; social; sensuality. 

My current lifestyle and mindset

 This is the present-me: 

1) Plays music every single day. 

2) Reads every single day. 

3) Moves every single day. 

4) Exercises x3/4 times a week. 

5) Socialises most days. 

6) Enjoys a meaningful job that is fairly easy. 

7) Works his brain every single day. 

8) Controls his diet intake to be healthy. 

9) Budgets well, achieving his economic freedom. 

10) Understanding his life in spaces of weeks and months rather than mere days. 

The future-me will be grateful for this. The past-me has a fat-debt and a mind-debt that we are working to pay off now. And that is fine because past-me had to survive Dubai. That guy suffered yet survived, and we are here to pay that debt. 

When I am down to 67kg (65 kg potentially?), I will reflect again on my lifestyle. That level of control and discipline will be beyond anything I have known for years. 

My good habits ruined by Wolverhampton?

 Last night I stayed up late watching Wolverhampton. Not again. Football is an entertainment industry, not a sport. Yes, it represents something of pride and pain in my past. But I gave 'football' a chance to prove itself worth of my sleep and attention. It failed miserably. 

I have purchased a fitness tracker. I intend to walk and to be. Each day I intend to have a heart rate above 140 (?), maybe with HiiT. I could purchase a bike. 

I will keep my calories down to their current levels. I will keep this going until February 2021. 

If I am to find an obsession, being fit and well is a worthy one. I can feel my confidence grow at this righteous prospect. 

I wrote in my running blog today. I have enough sleep stored up to survive yesterday's mishap. 

Rereading Writing for Kindness Makes Me Realise my Habits

Ten minutes reading my thoughts from months ago makes me realise the usefulness of my habits. 

I am far more the man I should be. 

Calmness + passion? Clarity + passion? 

Purpose + Passion + Calm. 

Last night I suffered a terrible nightmare.

Last night I suffered a terrible nightmare. 

I lived in a similar house to the one in Hull that was so vulnerable to being attacked. I felt threatened. Moving to the back, I saw a tall, thin man stalking the back alley. His arms were seized up and he wore old clothes, a striped shirt barely containing his warped form. 

I felt he could attack me. I froze. He smiled with sharp teeth something malicious. Was I capable of defending myself? 

My later dreams saw me threaten a teenager who threatened me. I think one of them was unstable because he then harmed himself, perhaps fatally. 

These dreams caused me to wake up early, perhaps 2am. Even now I feel tired and duly so. 

Dream interpretation guides suggest the man represented some part of my subconscious that I cannot accept. That is an interesting and empowering observation. 

What parts of my subconscious can I not accept? Am I in an emotional and physical state that allows me to do that? 

I imagine the ways I have dealt with my family's dynamic could do with looking at. Accept some of those negative emotions as old friends would also be ideal.

The negative emotions I speak of perhaps relate to my awkward dynamics with my family and elsewhere. Short relationships, defensiveness - the defensiveness that comes in a threatening and unstable environment. Dubai was a place that will perpetually affect me with its memories. Fortunately, I do not feel admiration for its people. I do wonder how it operates. 

Several emails I would have sent before rest instead as drafts, their sentiments reserved for political expediency. Is that an ideal thing? 

All I can be sure of at this moment is that my habits will be fulfilled today as they have been fulfilled everyday for months, seven months indeed. Those habits create a lifestyle. That lifestyle can be reflected in its external measures of success, not least in the body I shape now. 

I have lost 5kg without significant pain. My portion control is real. My waist is now 37 inches, down from 40. My current weight is 75.1, down from 80.5. More importantly, I feel this is the path of least resistance. 

The habits I live now are the same as that kingly me

 Often I imagine my mind as many men in a theatre, a circle with different versions of me holding court. A young version of me might speak to us all, shouting with zeal, urging us to play or love with passion in the now. He often argues with elder versions, one a bleary-eyed adult demanding sleep and rest. 

Ruling over these men and boys is the eldest and wisest version of me, his head crowned and his voice gnarled. He is my height but his clothes impress. He is me. 

This me does not have a 39-inch stomach. 
This me plays music daily. 
This me reads daily 25 minutes. 
This me speaks warmly to a range of friends. 
This me enjoys personal wealth but could stand to lose it.
This me leads a court where the negative emotions are welcomed as old friends. 

Whoever I am now is only part of that man. But the habits I live now are the same as that kingly me. 

I am coming to terms with what happened to me in Dubai. It was not a pretty experience. It was a real one though. It is hard to express what it meant to those who did not share it. Two people have told me to not express schadenfreude at the plight of old colleagues. Is it really damaging to do so? 

It seems that several people tried to destroy my career in Dubai. They did so not for any hatred of me, but rather for personal gain. 

My lack of social capital in Dubai also made me vulnerable. I did not make a rich enough network. A place like that is a child's playground, with vicious rules for those who cannot lead the others or be led themselves. That unwillingness to lead does not let someone like me fade but instead marks me as a target. Whatever weird and tricky dynamics exist in the tiny circles of Dubai were like the school playground unleashed, and on steroids. 

But a younger me chose to move to Dubai. The context of my moving was for love. All of me appreciates that. Several teachers, likely many, admired me. Students loved me. I achieved tangible measures of success in debate, my teaching and my leadership. I left with a good amount of money. Some consequences of ill-health followed me, but I will be dead in decades. 

Shedding my fat is to shed the sin of my time there, of my lonely movements and my hyper-focus on work. I won a 5k in November 2016. I trained for that with love and pain. Four years later, I am ready to move like that again, but 

The negative emotions do not disappear though. Instead I welcome them to my court, as difficult as they might feel. 

Sometimes I can feel them as old friends, familiar states that have earned their right to be accepted (they would be here anyway). Anxiety feels like passion and vigilance, anger like righteous determination. The dull burnt ground of Dubai is a landscape of my past, tedious and unrealised, but real. Like my time in Hull, it led to suffering, some of it needless, but likely. 

My golden life in Manila is a smooth and easy flow of love in comparison. 

In this place I can recognise some of my harder-to-define emotions, of the gaze for Ruth-Sarah-Tish, that distant yearning for a muse. I welcome that negative emotion as an old friend, give it its place, listen to its qualms, and redirect its heat into the movement of this new day. 

 

Losing weight to shed my past

In over week two weeks I have lost 2.5kg, perhaps more. I am in the best lifestyle, perhaps of my life. I have a vision of dropping below 70kg by February. 

This is not simply a mission to see my ribs. I am shedding my sin, removing the weight of my survival in Dubai. 

I am increasingly able to live with the spikes of emotion that jump behind my eyes when I sleep. What might seem insufferable is actually very sufferable, at least afterwards, 

There is more to this ambition than simply losing weight. I need to feel the flexibility I once did. The body is consciousness in the world, the chance to change the world, to move within it and to affect it, and for it to affect me. 

I need to affect some of the suffering of my parents, and to grow from it. What lesson am I being given by my father? That is my next step. 

Speech and Pacing; Language and Concepts

Yesterday the last thing a colleague said to me was ‘some people think that you go on a bit’. That barb stuck in me with its painful truth. My brain is not stitched to my mouth as easily as I desire and my emotions run free reign, with feral yelling of adrenal spikes common in my mind.  

For the rest of yesterday I spoke in a more measured way. 

Will this continue?

This morning, 'bacon' affirmed my desire to make each word count. I intend to speak well this morning in each of my classes. I intend to continue this structuring of my day, and to use the 'concepts' of my thought as musical bars.

Each note will have its meaning.

Is this what I sensed about my reading when I was younger?

Fitness for My Sakes

For over a week now I have comfortably eaten below 1500 calories. My water intake has improved and I move everyday. I have lost 1kg of weight and have a plan to be fit by February. 

That would an inordinately short time to be cleared of this sin. 

I see the folds of fat hanging from my body as fleshy signs of my past life, of my indulgences. Whatever context may have once led me to live with such huge calorie counts has now passed. 

And here now? In the past I have become fit for reasons outside myself. At the age of 38/9 I have no reason to be come fit other than my own. The weakness of my body these past two years will be reversed. 

Five weeks will see some good progress. For the next day is my focus. 

Live longer and appreciate nature. 

What does it mean to have self-esteem? 

The world outside the home is a competitive place and in that I have some victories. Not that the home was an easy place in itself with my father actively destroying us and my mother pulling us together. 

I have some skills in that competitive realm not commonly found in others. 

My understanding of history and philosophy surpasses many of my colleagues. My will and self-control, although variable at times under the time-pressures and loneliness of Dubai, are in a good place right now. 

Every day I invest in Brain/Book/Bacon. For three days, and now likely four, I will ensure my calorie count is kept 500 below my expectations, ensuring a deficit of 3000 a week and therefore 1 pound of fat. 176 pounds of body is not powerful. 

A Diet of the Mind

 I sit here three weeks into the new school year with a better position than most. I save a good amount of money, even with my taxes. My current relationship is nourishing. 

Of most importance are my good habits. The TickTick app is like a mentor, guiding my intentions and showing interest in my future. 

I wrote about lifestyles recently. A lifestyle is no more than a collection of habits. Occasionally something out of the routine of life will arise, something to tackle the boredom of the daily grind. But my habits now are putting me on the path to being the most stoic version of myself. 

To what do I have the strongest emotional experiences? Remember the enemy of promise - the strongest emotional experiences of the privileged was their school days. 

How grateful I am to be in this job right now

I am grateful to be here now, sat in a decent chair in a quiet room, good kids waiting for my input. 

My todo is not too long. The essentials of my life, the brains/books/bacon are the essentials of my day. Some personal relationships are also waiting for me too, but that is still tricky. 

Had I stayed in Dubai, my health would not be great. 

A get-through today is not enough. 

These habits become routines or rituals, which then determines my life. I am less likely to feel a disconnect, and more likely to feel meaning. 

I am busy, but not too busy. 

Simply 'coping' with my day will not be enough. 'Thriving' in the day is naive. Some mindfulness is what I need. 

The End of a Holiday and the Start of a New Year

Being happy is difficult. Suffering is inevitable. I try to avoid suffering, but in doing so can suffer in myself. 

Time is relative. I have enjoyed times of hedonism, of being an outsider or seeking the solace and status of the group. 

I have played some games, but only playing Pillars of Eternity 1 made me happy. I am looking to play more of the second one. 

Over the past two weeks I have spent far too much time on social media, being dragged into discussions that are irritating and wasting my time. 

Social media is like soda: enjoy a little bit in moderation. Like the art I play, it cannot be everything. When I was younger, I wrote 'either side of the middle line screams freedom'. Now at 40, or almost 40, I seek moderation. 

There is a reason that I do not engage with too many arguments publicly beyond a bit of my blog and my classroom. But perhaps it is because I want an easy life. Or perhaps because I am insecure in my status, I do not seek to better myself. 

I am not as intelligent as I think I am. I scraped my AAAs, not securing ideal grades at GCSE. I read reasonably well, but not as well as many others. I have some intellectual wisdom, but emotionally I lack control. There are things I would like to change, but I want the courage to somehow sense and accept the cultural context (urgh, what a word), the way things are.  

Day to day my BBB has ensured I leave each day with some feeling that it was worthy. However, the angst of living still hits me. Perhaps it is because: 

a) I do not feel day to day living is purposeful. 

b) I lack the powers of concentration that I really admire. 

c) I am actually worried because of COVID.

I would like to live more closely connected in my day to day. 

I should also like to research SEO.

Is there a way of tracking my ambitions? 

In response to these words I edited 'Bacon' to be better managed over a longer period of time. 

Maybe I need to start each day with 'Bacon'. 

Put Yourself First and Know Your Worth

What does it mean to put yourself first?

Rules of Power are dark. As a provincial man, I despise them. But they exist for a purpose. They have been leveraged against me. It is time for me to be wiser.

What does it mean to put others second?

All my ambitions will fall away if I am not in a healthy state of mind or being. I need to look after my spirit and my body. Without those I will fall away.

Being 'enough' in yourself is a great feeling. A family that turn and validate you - is that enough too? Is it possible to have a child who 'loves you to your core'?

Read with cynicism, but also see what these people might think of me...

A blow out - moderation in moderation

The hard reset I recently experienced is necessary. A terrible experience yesterday can lead to some betterment today. That state does not remain forever.

Two days ago I drank too much with a friend. The British drink too much and celebrate that. The university life is about spending student loans on drinking the atmosphere of improvement is thin on the ground.

Socialising is expensive, and also involves drinking too much.

The need to drink too much seems to happen reasonably frequently, perhaps every 3-6 months. I have managed over the past 3-4 months to attain atomic habits. Now I desire moderation in all things, including moderation.

I have effectively one week left of holiday to spend. What to do?

To consider what I have done, and what I will do. Who to message, who to nurture in friendships etc.

Read Rules of Power.

Be the man!

This counts as 'Bacon'.

Then Books soon. Yesterday the habits dropped, that is fine. I will pick them up today.

The drinking was so expensive yesterday that I will need to claw back some of that money over the coming years. That is fine - I can absorb that amount of money (10k). But I will need to do so over a good many months. I also think that the desire to live in ways of frugality is ideal.

 I think that something that symbolises the end of the day etc.

I think that some meditation is ideal.

Habitus

Living by habits has made for a better life.

The old fears of my university life remain, of the coldness of Hull with its weak networks leaving me to suffer my dearth of social capital.

However, being with Grace now means that my mind is free a more structured life instead. I feel able to do more and avoid living day to day. The angst of modern life is alleviated somewhat by the greater things I can build up simply by living by my habits.

I have spent many years putting my passion into that which is immediately in front of my face. This has limited me, especially because energy is finite. But I have done well with the time and effort I have regardless.

I also relied upon some fairly weak leaders (Lottie, Marie, Louise etc) to regulate the time I spend in a job. It is important I think to regulate time I spend in a job.

Let's take marking. Geoff Barton talks about marking being 10 hours a week on average. If we take teaching as being a 40 hour a week job, that would equate to almost 9 weeks a year spent solidly on marking. That is clearly ridiculous.

Currently, I think I can plan with this:

Pomodoros 

1. Exercise x 4
2. Finance Projects x1
3. Socialising x 4
4. Academic Reading x 7
5. Side Gigs x 7
6. Reading Fiction x 7
7. Catch up with family x1
8. School Planning x 4
9. Marking x 5

General Elements

10. Eat fruit x 7 
11. Skin Medication x 7
12. Tracking students x3

Things not a habit

Playing Music

Playing Games

So what would be an ideal lifestyle? Let's say when I am retired/traveling? 

Cerebral each week: Academic 

Body each week: Exercise + Eat Fruit

Perception each day: Reading Fiction

Social each day: Garden of Athens (chatting to pals); Cosmopolitanism (travelling)

Hustle each week: Need to get this metaphor

Aesthetics each week: Music or Games? 

Sustaining each week: Planning Teaching; Returning learning; Financial Planning

So each day as a minimum:

a) Perception: Reading fiction for 25 minutes b) Hustle: Need to look at that metaphor (25 minutes) c) Cerebral: Academic reading for 25 minutes.

d) Body: Moving.

This is all doable when I am at school or travelling.

Additions to that each week:

d) Exercise: moving every day and getting the heart beating x4 a week... how?

e) Social: seeing people x4 a week.

f) Aesthetics: to do as I please. I do not really want to mandate the aesthetics... or do I? Maybe music...

Let's see how this goes.

Righteous Anger? To be rich or moderate?

Today I have been stirred by different provocations.

1) The replies of the administrative account from prose.
2) The emails from the concept-based people.

I sit here in a sweaty top. The hands of Grace move to stack the crockery away, a way to prepare for our shared food later. We embrace, a mutual acceptance and respect, a willingness to share the hard yet bored ways of living, not just that which makes life exciting.

I think my time is finite and I want to spend it on an ideal framing. Rather than deny and refuse the position of the character in Prose, to decry and ridicule the concept teacher, I should direct my emotion and time to something that will benefit me.

I want to research SEO.
I want to publish some teaching and debate courses.

From these ambitions I might see what opportunities lay open to me then.

I am aggravated by the Prose guy because his assumption I should impress him disempowers me. He pays money for his account but reading is free. It reminds me of the disenfranchised positions I have held throughout life.

I am aggravated by the concept teacher because her course is expensive yet flawed. I see she lives in a big house. It reminds me of my own lack of capital.

All I can do is address the challenges immediate to me now. SEO research from tomorrow. Put your energies into that.

My soul is too old to live only day by day

I often end my work for summer with a sense of lethargy, having perhaps worked too hard. In Manila my work is not too demanding yet still I retain my industry. I have some good free time now with next year largely planned, I my will feels strongly that I use it.

My habits now are perhaps the best I have ever practised. Each day I:

1) Read 25 minutes of fiction
2) Write fiction for 25 minutes
3) Work acdemically for 25 minutes
4) Eat fruit
5) Exercise
6) Mark 25 minutes

Each week I have aimed to socialise, and to organise shopping for food and vitality. My finances are tracked on a weekly basis. In my evenings I can still drink and game, but not to excess. Having a calm partner right now helps. She gives my days shape and meaning by fulfilling the stimulation of conversation.

For a long time before I have disliked habit as being something that boxes me in. Instead habit has become more of a bike, taking me further, and faster, than I might have done before.

I have even considered some of my ambitions. My security at work is strong, and my finances are healthy. In the past I have seen habits and structure as attacking my spirits, especially because the lived examples I witnessed (Louise etc) were rotten ones to follow. Instead my ambitions have become more immediate and local: to complete these courses and MA with my time allocated above, and then to allocate that time to writing books/courses/consultation.

Was I burnt out at the start of this year? It is hard to tell. I do not feel burnt out now. I feel more capable than ever before, despite the knocks and aches of my unkempt body. The conceptual materials I am creating enjoy a distinct focus on creativity and rigour that leads ultimately to wisdom or insight. Without that focus on wisdom or insight, what is this job for?

Every so often I revisit that metaphor that the lonely man of my youth attempts to address, of walking the middle line where either side screams freedom. That the rational self-interest of an enlightened life does not feel enough. That to rebel, even against our own self-interests, seems something hard to justify even though I am tempted to do so often.

Moderation is not simply an option. The keep the tension between the career and the art is a vital one that requires an experience of life across time. My soul is too old to live only day to day. I sensed that in my teens and twenties. As I reach my forties my life begins to map itself more righteously, of realising as useful and necessary the conformity that I embraced, or at least accepted, in Dubai. The career-success I seek does not need to be crushing. The rebellion and willfulness I desire need not be destructive. A golden mean is a lived reality that demands of me the desire to change and to enjoy Ying-Yang, not to leave things in a broken stasis.

So in these six weeks I have some free time to explore entrepreneurialism. Not to replace my work, with its comforts and guarantees, but rather to do something different for a public arena outside those which I have operated before. The golden mean and the furious wisdom of the ancients demand it.

Ambitions

Each day now I plan for a minimum of

25 minutes of fiction writing (this has been hard today, an undue drag).
25 minutes of fiction reading (I am moving through Harry Potter at a decent pace).
25 minutes of academic work (already completed).

For work, I have:

a) 25 minutes of marking a day.
b) 25 minutes of 'admin' - that is report writing etc a day.

These can be pushed back, so I can get time in lieu or otherwise.

I do not time my musical or physical endeavours.

I think that the 25 minutes of academic work each day is ideal. That leads to each week

Three hours of fiction reading
Three hours of fiction writing
Three hours of academic work

This is doable at any point. I can catch up or otherwise with such time.

Today, though, I feel that I want to change my focus from the academic world to the economic one. It is a world I have often ignored.

_____________________

What would be an ideal life?

Do not pretend that moving to the Middle East is a moral choice

When I was younger I felt the freedom of being an outsider.

I am not so much an outsider now with my connections to work and the favour of my boss. Because I have some things to lose, my desire to tackle which I see as immoral is challenged.

To what extent is it moral to oppose something in such a way that you risk your family and future?

I do not know an easy answer to that question.

Several people I know are leaving our context to take up roles in the Middle East.

Once a Filipino would fetch a beer from the fridge to share in warm friendship. You travel to a warm place famed for harm. Now you fetch the Filipino from the fridge after they have died from abuse. And the worst element is that your children are at risk from such an environment.

Their inheritance will increase, at the expense of what?

Let's not be naive about the benefits, nor about their cost. To be welcomed inside will question your humanity.

My Reflection on my Ambitions in Lockdown

It is Wednesday after school. I have been very. Each day I am completing a pomorodo of:

1) IB reading.
2) Fiction reading.
3) Fiction writing.
4) MA reading or writing.
5) Marking.
6) Course (concept).
7) Course (Cambridge).

This is 3:30 hours each day of fairly intense intellectual work. Is this sustainable? So far I have felt so. However, I have added:

8) Writing reports.


These 4 hours of work seem to be too much when I add up my commitments elsewhere. I am also struggling to add my extra projects, such as publishing more on TQG, blended learning planning, culture club.

At the moment, I find myself working these pomodoros because I have the extra time.

Realistically, I think I want to do this:

1) Fiction Writing.
2) Fiction Reading.
3) Academic Work (writing or reading).

This 90 minutes of work is realistic.

Alongside this cerebral work, every day I am:

a) Eating fruit.
b) Exercising.
c) Taking multivitamins.
d) Taking care of my skin.

In all, I am in a very good place. However,  today I am really quite tired and feel that I need to take care of my mind. Therefore I can:

a) Simply do three pomorodos a day.
b) Continue my 4 hours of pomorodos but allocate them to different times. By that I mean I can push them onto other days.

At the heart of my issues is the following: I am not focusing on the economic world of doing things. I am very focused on the academic world. 

I will rest today and will continue tomorrow to reflect. I have never had a period of my time when I have been so enriched and healthy and intellectually able.

The first and real ambition

At last I can sit and write of my ambitions. Such a vision has proved elusive because I do not respect the measure of success around me. My ambitions are to read and write, and to embrace moderation. In moderation can I be passionate. But I have barely written or read for many years.

For the past seven weeks I have read for 30 minutes a day, or rather I have developed the habit that means I now do this. Even on days when meander on the internet, idly browsing reddit and social media, the day becomes worthy if I complete that 90 minutes of focused reading and writing. From today, I intend for that to be 120 minutes (-20 minutes of relaxation time). 

That is the focus of my day. Should I do this, then the rest of the day is ideal. 

If I complete:

3.5 hours of reading a week

16 hours of reading a month

Then I will read 288000 words each month.

In a year that is 3.45 million words. That equates to 43 books of a length of 180 pages.

If I can write at a rate of 250 words per day (30 minutes), then that’s 1750 words per week, or 91000 words in a year.

The power of this habit is clear to me: for decades I have struggled with the moderation of reading, falling asleep and reading only at length at irregular times. Reading 25 minutes a day is doable. 

What kind of writing do I want to do?

I.       Teaching

A.   Medium – publish on a public forums to experience an actual readership.

B.   Anonymous

1.   consider the realities of teaching (on this blog) should I be so moved

C.   My main website – Links to books I will write?

I want to write under my penname for a significant length of time. I do not want to compromise my teaching position quite yet. Should I begin to write more at length, then I will consider changing my name.

I want a passive income to sell books:

III.    Resource Selling

A.   Books on how to teach – not under a penname.

B.   Online Shops = anonymous

1.   Name with Colleague or otherwise?

C.   Books - Kindle etc

1.   Study Guide

2.   Exam Guide

3.   Poetry Guides

I will consider in a month what I am able to do. 

What is a worthy ambition for now?

For decades the best part of me is the writing part. Yet I rarely write. Since 2003 I have been in survival mode. My family broke that year, my father fucking my family for nothing while I engaged in a string of failed relationships. Seeking physical connection and emotional satiation weakened my resolve to write. To write is to struggle but my struggle lay in the physicalities of life. 

Yet writing is my most empowered state. To weave a narrative that I believe and others might consider moves me beyond what I might achieve otherwise. My writing is immature though, infantile and ill-developed. I hardly read until about four years ago, so my writing was nebulous in its ambition and weak in its execution. Over the past four years, I have read much more. My writing boots are tougher and so it is time to stride forth from the murky frame of these small walls into the dangerous wilderness of a mind I must explore.

To write is to manage attention. Attention and focus are such poor words for what they mean to me. To bring the full capacity of my mind and body to a task sees me at my most formidable. Internet browsing and physical follies weaken my attention though, fragmenting my focus and straying me away from writing landmarks into baser plains of life. Experiences like liquid girl make me realise that to approach a project with unsocial intensity makes me feel alive.

When I do direct my focus, as I did so today with my bookclub, I experience no satiation, a waned appetite for communication and connection. The intensity I express might feel too much for others;  such intensity of focus often feels like a desync, like my connection with my colleagues is pointless. Yet I need that intensity. I cannot simply survive, especially when I have compromised my finances in order to free up my mental and emotional space to write.

My teaching might have helped me for a time. But now my teaching fails to excite me. The culture of classroom teaching bores me, its frivolous and half-hearted ideas often lay dead at the door, effigies to what may have been noble in a more naive time. My ambitions of teaching have been largely realised. I do not need to focus so much with that.

Instead need better ambitions, writing ambitions. Ambitions are hard for me to appreciate let alone create. I come from a boring industrial town in the lower middle of England. A fragment of desire still remains in me; the industriousness of the spurned burns in me still. My soul is battered from so many failed attempts to continue a writing habit, old weaknesses coming to haunt me, tripping me while the habit eats me whole. Instead of tackling the need to write whole pieces, to write in accordance with Pomodoros - for a length of time - is a wiser approach than to simply create content.

Rereading this post I can see I have been too hard on myself. I feel that unless I write and read extensively then my time has been ill-spent, that eight hours of reading is necessary a day to be a writer. That is not a position I should find myself in. To write for 30 minutes a day on average everyday would be a quantum leap from what I do now.

To use theprose.com as an ambition to write is something I can do. No more writing for now about this - doing is what I need. Writing without losing my job is my current ambition.