Introspection

With the end of the year fast approaching and knowing most of my focus during the final weeks will be on preparing for the year ahead, I figured now would be as good a time as any to reflect on 2025, which has been a wild, tumultuous time for many.

It certainly did not unfold as I had initially envisioned when making my list of objectives in January, but rarely does anything pan out the way we'd expect.

Teyr'loch Delter Pach took far, far longer than I hoped it would, but I can't say I was surprised, because the little voice in the back of my mind was whispering from the very beginning, "This is going to be at least as long as the one you wrote for the Lurros Family."

Le sigh with resigned acceptance as that prophecy came to fruition. Was it self-fulfilling? If so, certainly not on purpose.

In favor of seeing it completed, however, I directed most of my working mind toward it, leaving little room for distractions until the distractions decided to make room for me, like all of my Obsidian shenanigans.

I've been learning a few things about myself this past year though.

It'll Get Done.

When I was growing up, my mom wanted tasks to be completed on her schedule. If I was downstairs when my laundry was finished, she'd stomp on the floor to let me know that not only was it finished but I should take care of it right that instant. I'm sure at least one of my other sister's will be nodding if she sees this. "Ah, yes, the stomp. I remember the stomp."

Nowadays, if getting my laundry from the dryer and putting it away isn't the highest priority task, then I'll just shrug and say, "Eh, I'll get it later," when I hear the little jingle play. I might leave it there for another 3-4 hours or so, but I'll always eventually go downstairs to grab it. I do need my pajamas, after all.

There are some perks to not living at the parental unit's house anymore.

I don't keep strict deadlines for myself anymore, because I know that if I care enough about what I'm working on, it'll get done. Writing a blog post every week? It might not always come out on Wednesday, but if I didn't say I was taking the week off, then you can bet your bosom that it'll get done sometime before the week's end, Thursday or Friday depending on my partner's work schedule.

Keeping a strict deadline adds unnecessary pressure to someone who is as intrinsically motivated as myself. If I miss that deadline, I spiral into, "I failed," territory. You should have seen me during NaNo years. The depression was bad during those Novembers because I would often miss the daily average word count and would fall behind, since I can't just leave gaps--that leads to another tunnel of depression. As a thorough writer, I need solutions to problems before I can continue, even if they're stuck together with spit and wads of paper that I'll solidify later. Beating my head against a brick wall doesn't work, and neither does skipping sections to leave for the editing phase.

If I try to keep to attain a goal in such a strict timeline or deadline, I also tend to burn out meeting said deadline. It happened years ago when I set a drawing project deadline and a music composition deadline, both of which were SMART goals at the time. Oh, I completed them on time, but I didn't touch either skill afterward until...this year, really.

Goals don't work for me the same way they do others, at least not the way the advice would tell you to approach them. An 8-week summer challenge is great as a short-term goal or as a way of spicing up the daily grind, but I know that thinking, "Okay, I just have to do this for 8 weeks," automatically sets me up for failure down the road. "I just need to complete this, and then I'll be done."

It creates a hard stop. When you've finished this task or project or challenge, why continue to develop the skills that brought you to its completion?

"Set a new goal to keep building those skills!"

I don't much feel like becoming a goal chaser. I do enjoy me some challenges, but challenges work best when they coincide with habits, not as a means of building those habits. Some people need that kind of motivation to keep going. Some people need real consequences for not completing a task in time, because otherwise they won't do it at all.

I'm not that person. Chores will get done when they need to get done. The blog post will get done. The workout will get done. The performance will get done. I'm somebody who gets projects done, even if it takes a while. I have enough confidence in myself to trust that sentiment.

Maybe that's why it irks me when other people try to push plans onto me, but that's a whole 'nother conversation for another time.

Sticky Fingers: A Polymath Who Can't Get Enough

I think polymaths are pickpockets, but instead of trinkets, baubles, and snacks, their sticky fingers pocket skill after skill after skill after skill. If dragons hoard treasure, maybe polymaths hoard skills.

I love learning, and I love having a slew of skills at my disposal. Yet most of these skills I don't consistently practice every day. My mental bandwidth really only allows for 3 major time chunks to commit to my work, my workouts, and my walks. Sometimes I can fit in a 4th, but that's usually when inspiration or obsession overcomes me. You know, like with Obsidian and staying up until 2 in the morning playing with templates. Or trying to design character play mats to keep track of my 3 PCs in Daggerheart.

Using Descent as inspiration. I love the HP trackers and the "sweat drop" like tokens to mark stress. I love the idea of using beads to keep track of hope and tokens to keep track of shields.

The rest of the time, I develop the skill whenever the need arises, such as composing again when the scene for a performance calls for the exact piece in my head instead of one that I find.

When I have a specific vision I want to see come to life, that's when I add to my toolkit. Sometimes the tools get rusty, but with a little spit and shine, the rust'll come off.

As someone who wants to keep on learning and keep on practicing skills, not having the mental bandwidth to direct toward those pursuits on top of everything else makes something in my soul writhe.

Yet I'd prefer to sprinkle them in when they're needed than try to do everything all at once, crashing and burning in a fiery chasm of burnout. Been there, done that.

Framing

One of the struggles I've faced this year centers around this blog and redundancy. How do I talk about a project week after week after week without sounding redundant or like I'm patting myself on the back or like I'm whining about problems I've encountered?

I decided to put Mark Manson's new AI to the test by bringing up this very topic of conversation.

Actually, I've been poking and prodding the AI all day, since I have a 7-day free trial, and damn, there have been a few times where it's packed a wallop.

What I've liked about it thus far is its ability to help shift one's way of thinking and re-frame certain belief systems, including the "redundancy" problem I just mentioned.

"The redundancy isn't in the work you're doing. The redundancy is in how you're framing it."

Oof, well, when you put it that way....

But it has a point. I don't think I've really dialed in on describing how some of these discoveries come to be. I got in the habit of reporting my weekly output as an accountability measure that I forgot about those moments of revelation, the tidbits that would be most interesting for another person to read. (Do you have full-blown conversations with and between your characters? I certainly do.)

Looking Forward

I think what I want to write about this next year are those small moments of revelation and discovery and what leads me to them. If you're thinking, "But you already do that," maybe you're right. I just haven't been looking at it through that particular lens.

Of course, we still have 4 more weeks left of December, so we can think about the future later!

Other Notable Accomplishments:

• Filled in notes for the 2nd of Grurla just to get a sense of how I want to approach the Summary section

  • I'll be honest, this and filling out the details of the character notes is where I struggle the most. Something about it makes me want to avoid it like the plague, and I can't place why.

    • I need to just sit my butt down one morning a week at least and churn out completed note summaries

• Ab straps have made hanging leg raises so much more feasible. Not easy, but feasible. I can't lift my legs too high, and I have to keep them bent for now, but I can definitely feel my abs working through the movement.

  • Ordered some Versa Gripps, straps that wrap around the wrist to support grip while lifting heavier weights. They don't play well with my Power Block weights--the bar is not only inside a cage but thicker than typical dumbbells--but I can already feel a difference in how much I'm able to push myself now that grip strength is no longer a variable.

• Returning to a fat loss phase for these wintry months. I suspect I'll struggle, not because of the yummy seasonal foods but because I struggle in general with eating less and allowing myself to be hungry. I'm still considering going into a maintenance phase instead, but we'll see. I'll give fat loss a chance for now, and if I find that I'm just too hungry too much of the time and caving in to cravings, I'll switch to maintenance.

• With 3 characters to track in our Daggerheart campaign, I feel it imperative to create easy to read character boards, especially with all there is to track between equipment, cards, and the regular character sheet itself. So, that's what I'm currently doing, trying to come with an easy-to-read set of character boards for those I'm playing currently. It's a design space I haven't seen much of yet, and I think it's one the game could benefit from.

Real Talk:

• Taking a moment to reflect on this past year, how has it evolved according to expectation, and how has it diverged?

• What is something you have learned about yourself? It doesn't have to be some kind of earth-shattering revelation.

  • How will you apply this revelation to the next year?

• What's the story only you can tell, the insight only you can give, the song that only you can sing? I want to hear about it.

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Salad

She's especially frumpy after nap time.