2013 Meme: Topic # 4 -- stagnation
Jan. 23rd, 2013 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maeve66Day 4: What do you do to keep yourself from mentally/emotionally/physically stagnating?
I read a lot. A LOT. Generally friends and people I barely know look at my like I am crazy if I tell them I read several books a week. I am curious about just how many I actually read, so I decided to actually USE Goodreads this year, and enter every single book I finish. Many of them are 're-reads', and I am curious about that, too -- what's the proportion? It's so nice to have a computer do the tracking... I've done it off and on in a journal, some years, but I always leave books out, and trail off and forget, and don't really know what genre I considered the books, or anything. There was a little sidebar on the Goodreads home page saying "2013 Reading Challenge" and you could put in how many books you thought you would read this year. Just to see if I can, I put in 365. I have no idea if that is realistic, but it sometimes seems so. We'll see. I am ahead of my goal so far; I've read and rated (and in many cases, reviewed) 29 books so far, and it's the 23rd of January. So that's one thing.
I write a lot. Here, in a paper journal, in an electronic journal, to friends and family via email (though I miss the days of writing fancily illustrated handwritten letters and cards... missing them doesn't affect my instant default to email, sigh...).
Recently I have started playing this Lumosity thing, which is probably nonsense, but it's fun. I am the perfect internet consumer, in that I almost always respect paywalls -- it's pathetic, and maybe if I had more expenses like CHILDREN, I wouldn't do it -- so I actually got a paid account, and paid a bit extra so I could put family members on it, mostly intending to get my mom doing these mental games on a regular basis. My older niece wanted to, also, so now all three of us are "training" and seeing if we can get our scores to go up. Honestly, it may be nonsense, but some of the repetitive games that involve peripheral vision and memory DO seem to help me with, e.g. paying attention while driving, or making quick decisions under pressure.
I get into enthusiasms for things -- much like my father does, now that I think of it. I got very engrossed in that Mormon site, Ancestry.com (I think they've since sold it, hurrah) and found out that I am a descendent of Joseph Smith, I kid you not... very sideways and very far back. But I haven't done much with it in several weeks... maybe even a couple of months. Once people are claiming to be related to lords and ladies and MPs and English county Sheriffs in the 1200s, I sort of think it's bullshit. On the other hand, I think it's cool that I am related to one of the first two Colonial silversmiths, a century before Paul Revere. Another recent enthusiasm, as I pointed out above, is Goodreads. I am slowly adding books I have read and cared about, though I am not reviewing all of them. I will try to go back and review the ones I think are most amazing, which have had the greatest impact on me. This used to be a meme that turned up on LJ, actually, but it hasn't of late, and once you've done it here, why would you do it again?
Learning new things -- well, I have not been doing well with Hindi, during the school year. We'll see if next summer improves matters. I've barely even seen any B'wood movies, of late. I refuse to label it a fleeting enthusiasm.
As for emotional stagnation... that's harder. I have good friends. I have a great family, and we live close to one another, most of us. I can't seem to manage this romantic partnership thing, and I think I've pretty much given up -- I have DEFINITELY given up internet dating. I feel so relieved about that decision. I'm trying to work out exactly how depressed I am, and what I should do about it (rejoin the women's group therapy thing that was going on until the two therapists let it implode by admitting someone who was HORRIBLE, so that everyone else quit all at once?; get an actual (and probably twice as expensive) therapist?; pay a lot of money to do long distance work with a woman who is a Fat Nutritionist?) There, that segues into the last point:
Physical stagnation: there's a lot there, and I don't avoid stagnation, because I am struggling with ability issues and with my blood sugars. At least I am facing it now. That's good.
I read a lot. A LOT. Generally friends and people I barely know look at my like I am crazy if I tell them I read several books a week. I am curious about just how many I actually read, so I decided to actually USE Goodreads this year, and enter every single book I finish. Many of them are 're-reads', and I am curious about that, too -- what's the proportion? It's so nice to have a computer do the tracking... I've done it off and on in a journal, some years, but I always leave books out, and trail off and forget, and don't really know what genre I considered the books, or anything. There was a little sidebar on the Goodreads home page saying "2013 Reading Challenge" and you could put in how many books you thought you would read this year. Just to see if I can, I put in 365. I have no idea if that is realistic, but it sometimes seems so. We'll see. I am ahead of my goal so far; I've read and rated (and in many cases, reviewed) 29 books so far, and it's the 23rd of January. So that's one thing.
I write a lot. Here, in a paper journal, in an electronic journal, to friends and family via email (though I miss the days of writing fancily illustrated handwritten letters and cards... missing them doesn't affect my instant default to email, sigh...).
Recently I have started playing this Lumosity thing, which is probably nonsense, but it's fun. I am the perfect internet consumer, in that I almost always respect paywalls -- it's pathetic, and maybe if I had more expenses like CHILDREN, I wouldn't do it -- so I actually got a paid account, and paid a bit extra so I could put family members on it, mostly intending to get my mom doing these mental games on a regular basis. My older niece wanted to, also, so now all three of us are "training" and seeing if we can get our scores to go up. Honestly, it may be nonsense, but some of the repetitive games that involve peripheral vision and memory DO seem to help me with, e.g. paying attention while driving, or making quick decisions under pressure.
I get into enthusiasms for things -- much like my father does, now that I think of it. I got very engrossed in that Mormon site, Ancestry.com (I think they've since sold it, hurrah) and found out that I am a descendent of Joseph Smith, I kid you not... very sideways and very far back. But I haven't done much with it in several weeks... maybe even a couple of months. Once people are claiming to be related to lords and ladies and MPs and English county Sheriffs in the 1200s, I sort of think it's bullshit. On the other hand, I think it's cool that I am related to one of the first two Colonial silversmiths, a century before Paul Revere. Another recent enthusiasm, as I pointed out above, is Goodreads. I am slowly adding books I have read and cared about, though I am not reviewing all of them. I will try to go back and review the ones I think are most amazing, which have had the greatest impact on me. This used to be a meme that turned up on LJ, actually, but it hasn't of late, and once you've done it here, why would you do it again?
Learning new things -- well, I have not been doing well with Hindi, during the school year. We'll see if next summer improves matters. I've barely even seen any B'wood movies, of late. I refuse to label it a fleeting enthusiasm.
As for emotional stagnation... that's harder. I have good friends. I have a great family, and we live close to one another, most of us. I can't seem to manage this romantic partnership thing, and I think I've pretty much given up -- I have DEFINITELY given up internet dating. I feel so relieved about that decision. I'm trying to work out exactly how depressed I am, and what I should do about it (rejoin the women's group therapy thing that was going on until the two therapists let it implode by admitting someone who was HORRIBLE, so that everyone else quit all at once?; get an actual (and probably twice as expensive) therapist?; pay a lot of money to do long distance work with a woman who is a Fat Nutritionist?) There, that segues into the last point:
Physical stagnation: there's a lot there, and I don't avoid stagnation, because I am struggling with ability issues and with my blood sugars. At least I am facing it now. That's good.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 04:38 am (UTC)