Of Subnautica and Fear
When it was time to build a base on my second attempt at Subnautica, I picked a location near the Blood Kelp Zone. Its cliff walls spread in front of me into the endless blue, and deep down I could see the pale bloodvines reaching up toward me like the claws of a forgotten demon. As if by cue, scary dramatic music started playing, and my PDA’s AI announced that the zone “matches 7 of the 9 preconditions for stimulating terror in humans.” I was thankful the game creators didn’t include the two other ones, whatever these may be.
The reason I chose this location for my home was because of fear. Subnautica is a game about fear, and it was teaching me to face it one step at a time. The first time I played, the game had the element of surprise. I remember my first reaper: it came out of nowhere and grabbed my Seamoth like a plaything. I yelped, slammed the Alt+F4 keys, and stomped out of my room as white as the hallway wall I was leaning against, mumbling “oh my god” over and over. Now I know better. I know where they are, I can see them in the distance, and… I’m still scared. But I go ahead anyway. The fear is not pushing me away; it’s teaching me to be prepared. The only thing that’s really scary is fear itself.
Now the base is furnished, complete with a Moonpool for my Seamoth, which I call “Discovery.” It is powered by a nuclear reactor I built from fragments retrieved from brave explorations. A single glass corridor connects my living area to a bubble-like observatory room which hovers directly over the dark abyss. There’s a chair in the middle of that observatory, so I can sit and read my PDA’s contents while staring fear in the face.
I’ve found something at the bottom of the abyss. “Something that shouldn’t be there.” It’s a dark, green-hellish-looking place with bones of creatures the size of an apartment building. Each day, I explore further. Each day, I push further, and the game never fails to scare me. Winning these small battles against myself bit by bit becomes addictive. I look back at what scared me before and I know I’ve conquered it. I know that now if one of these monsters chooses to attack my base, I will fight it. The base hanging over the cliff that once terrified me is now my home, my new comfort zone. I know every fold in the ground, every rock covered with floaters, every hole to the mushroom cave. You can’t be scared of what you know. Subnautica is an excellent teacher of this lesson.
Hello, Aunt Dee
Last Saturday I had an encounter with dear ol’ Aunt Dee. She’s like a lifelong buddy, never too far. Shy and quiet, she sneaks up on you undetected. You only realize she’s around after her long scrawny arms reach around you, hugging, her perfume brings back a daze of nostalgia.
I was playing another round of Cities Skylines, and realized I’m not into the game anymore. As a matter of fact, I was forcing it for the last hour. I promised myself to go to the gym while a part of me was trying to use any possible excuse to keep me glued to my chair. It was gray and cold outside, a weekend after a hard week, I wasn’t in the mood, I didn’t eat enough, bla bla bla. Suddenly, I recognized this train of thought: “Ah! I know you, you depression you, how have you been?”
So, I checked my list of depression indicators. I think anyone who’s been with dear Aunt Dee long enough has a similar list.
As a result, Sunday was different. The first thing I did was go back to my elements. This means, without getting all fancy about my life philosophy, that I did my morning exercise (few stretches, pull-ups, little weights) and meditation. I took my time before I sat at the computer: first, there was one round of exercise, then I made coffee, then a second round of exercise. Then, there was meditation, which started with a mind dump. I talked to myself about things that are important to me, things that I’ve neglected. Then, the meditation itself, a series of deep breaths while counting.
One of my life facts is that when meditation is really needed, there’s always strong resistance to it at the start, but then I don’t want to finish it. Putting my mind in a neutral state after emphasizing to myself things I care about is powerful.
After that, Sunday started taking shape. I know so because my room started looking like my room again. First (it’s always first), the bed. Then laundry. Then, the closet, which was something I hadn’t dealt with in a while. Cleaning my room is similar to cleaning my head. It’s odd that making my bed makes me feel so much better. I don’t know why, but I don’t argue; it works. Later on, I went to the gym again, this time without a long struggle. Later still, I enjoyed sharing a different video game, The Return of the Obra Dinn, with my partner.
This time, I didn’t play alone. It was a nice mutual experience of puzzle solving. It reminded me of my grandparents playing Bridge together, only with more high fives and laughs. The laughter was therapeutic.
Somewhere between the meditation, the game, and the avocado salad/guacamole I made, I found content. Aunt Dee was gone, out of town, see-you-next-time. I had a good day at work yesterday (not excellent, not awesome, just good). It’s important that I mention it for myself, for next time, and for you, the other relatives of Aunt Dee who might find comfort in this.
Have a good rest of the week!
Evolvement Of Video Journal & Org
Over time, my journal videos (I call these j-vids, or jvids for short) got smaller. This is because I got used to use org-mode to record my thoughts. I discussed these a couple of times before.
My tasks rarely contain sub-tasks anymore. This is odd because sub-tasking was one of the reasons that initially got me into org-mode. Over time, I found that I rather leave notes where I left off and what needs to be done instead of using Keywords (TODO) for tasks in org-mode1.
The notes I take are usually brief (one paragraph with 3 to 5 lines) and are time-stamped with the most recent note at the top. This lets me know where I stopped a task and why with a quick glance. I also use such notes to indicate general mundane errands, like buying groceries. In such cases, I can also include a checklist.
The org-mode journal is a different story. This is where I let myself “spill the beans”. I’ve been on a long break from using a journal because typing it felt slow and I wanted a quicker way to record my thoughts - so I started recording myself in jvids.
But recording myself was inconvenient. I had to take a break from my workflow, record a video, name it, compress it, and save it. It required that I’ll find a quiet corner - nearly impossible to do during my day - to record for a few minutes. So out of necessity, I started to include more notes. Eventually, I felt they become too long and too personal. I needed a separation. Going back to my journal felt natural.
Now I find that typing is just slow enough to make me process what I’m thinking. I can edit what I’m trying to say, which means I can rethink of a better way to describe it. To stop myself from going on and on, I journal on specific events, not an entire day. My capture template copies the link of the event from the agenda and makes it the title, then takes me to the under it to start typing about it.
Yesterday, I noticed something interesting: with time, my rambling on videos was reduced from going on an on for an hour plus or so (and multiple videos) to shorter segments. Here’s a visual:
I reached the conclusion that my written journal is just better at keeping track of my experiences. Since I re-created the way I save my achieve files now, it also means the links from the journal to the events is never broken: I just have to make sure to refile an event from my “oh snap” thought-dump folder into the current week’s org file, and I’m good2.
I still record a short “weekly summary” on weekends, and now I find that I’m actually looking forward to it. These are now 10-20 minutes long videos in which I briefly go through my agenda and logged events and explain what happened while my memories of this week are still fresh. I then give the week a “theme,” like “agenda and conclusion” if I can.
This work sas a way for me to remember what happened far in the future if I want to reflect on my experiences but not look for something specific, or if I’m not sure what it is. It’s also a good way to reflect on the major events of the week after I had a weekend to slow down and process.
1 Note from 2024-09-26: today I live by subtasks and such Keywords in org-mode; they are a critical part of my organization
2 Note from 2024-09-26: today, I’m back to using a hand-written journal for summaries of personal reflections and emotions, while the more technical notes about the task are included there. Instructions for the future are kept in a separate notes folder, where I use Prot’s Denote to write them in a step-by-step format with visual aids as needed in org-mode.
Libre and clothes
When I write, I live in Emacs (with the awesome Solorized theme) inside org-mode.
With time, I found that org-mode has already made me a more efficient writer and note-taker. I write notes in every meeting now, whether it’s my"turn" or not. I write notes as I work on every solution and every problem I’m facing. I write first thing in the morning, usually about my org-related thoughts as I wake up, over a cup of Sumatra coffee (a little almond milk, one pack of sugar). Quite honestly, Org makes me feel good because it’s transparent. It’s an extension of my thoughts, continuing on one long line, uninterrupted before I stop to think a second and reflect on what I was thinking (X-q).
There’s no pretending in Org. No fancy text, fonts, or even images. Style is only applied to function. It’s a delicate balance which, with the Solirized theme, works extremely well (by the way, the story of the man who created Solorized is quite interesting and worth reading).
Alright, but every now and then, you need to present stuff, and this means you need to “dress up” so other people can talk to you and relate. The “Normals,” so to speak, do not understand my org-mode dedication and often give me concerned looks when I type away a single long line into a blank screen. The purity is empty, and the lack of buttons and distracting elements feels threatening without GUI guidance. Fine then, I can do fancy schmancy.
Most org-mode folk I’ve read and listened to talk about LaTex. In my case, that meant a full installation, which is huge—over 2GB. It’s not worth it for occasional usage, especially since I work in a Microsoft environment, and most people I’ll share with will need .docx or .ppt format anyway. So, for me, .odt seems like a better answer.
Two things are needed on my Emacs (version 25.2.1) for that:
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Download and install Libre Office. It comes built-in with many personal desktop-geared Ubuntu distros, but in my version (Mint), I chose to opt out at the start. OK, no biggie, the full Libre Office suite is only 100MB, and I can do that. I see myself editing the occasional Word file or producing a PDF.
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Add the following to .emacs to turn on .odt option in the export dispatcher:
`(eval-after-load "org" '(require 'ox-odt nil t))`
Now I can create the .dot file, which I can open in Libre Writer. Ooof. Hello word GUI, with weird paper-screen restrictions look. And the white, the white! It burns us! Overall, things look excellent, but if I want to change fonts, move around images, eye-candy, etc, now I can do it without leaving Linux. Then again, if I really need to produce a document, I might as well save my .odt in Writer to a .docx and remote into my work computer, where Microsoft reigns supreme. Options. We like having them, yes?
Another option I was considering is to use Typora, a pretty markdown writer. It comes with Pandoc and can handle Word and PDF files. Typora does not feel “Linux-free” to me and seems heavily inspired by different “minimalist” Mac world processing apps if that’s your thing. It probably won’t show up in your distros and requires installation from a PPA. I used Typora for a while for markdown, but we’ve parted ways.
I’m curious how this will stand out when I present my notes (since I’ve become the unofficial note-taker at work for the reasons mentioned above).