# Notes to myself from a certain website

This post has been written originally on a certain discussion board which is
focused on certain anime series. This is an extension of it which had a bit of
editing, but generally it is for posterity and simplification. Those are
general principles/maxims that I wish to hold to myself, and I kindly hope,
will be useful for others. Keep in mind, these are a notes of just some person
on the internet, and I am sure you can find people with better credentials than
I. Nonetheless, as with everything, I am publishing this for myself. 

I hope to keep updating it as I need to remind myself of more things, or see
things I have not mentioned here.

# 1. Accept yourself

So to get started with, be compassionate with yourself. I know it sounds
extremely basic, but you have to be aware no matter what goal you set out to
do, you will quickly learn your own limits and realise what works and what does
not. And it is easy to focus on what does not, but what truly changes you,
is your capability to use your advantages to the best benefit rather than
overly focus on your disadvantages. 

Nonetheless, if you have some extreme addiction (which truly disables you from
doing action, not having an indulgence once a day lol), hygiene issues, etc,
then take care of these primarily. You are not a saint, nor anyone you know is,
so stop expecting yourself to be perfect and ideal.

Any projection of perfection is, if you are lucky, a misunderstanding, if you are
not - a deliberate lie.

# 2. Things take time

Be aware that all progress is non-linear. You doing one good thing, even for
limited time, not finishing it, will add up and help you do new stuff in the
future and be open to the possibility of change, and it matters a lot to belief
in change. You have to try a lot of stuff to learn what do you actually enjoy,
and what matters. Sometimes you might finish it, sometimes it will feel strange leaving it.

It may turn out that you can manage to find an enjoyable way
of life which is  good for everyone that still works with some of your 'issues'
and/or imperfections. You have to try stuff to learn what applies to you.

# 3. NOTES NOTES NOTES

Make notes, by God - do notes. Journal write whatever, again, do not overthink
the method, just write things down. Do not care that much if the formatting or
organisation is perfect as you can waste a lot of time on this crap - same
applies to reading self-improvement books/videos etc. Generally, what matters
is your own process, understanding what works and keeping what works, what
comes in from **you**. Where do you encounter ideas, how do they appear, what
helps you solve problems, etc, etc, etc. Memory tends to lie, your own thoughts
even happen to lie, meanwhile a written word, inasmuch as it can be deceptive,
it still much less in a state of flux than your mental state. 

# 4. Pragmaticism! 

Thus, always try to be aware what are you doing day to day, and remember that a
perfect system that has no results nor benefit to others is worthless in
comparison to imperfect system that has results and is actioned upon. A 20
minute evening walk you do infinitely beats a gym membership you do nothing
with.

# 5. You will not be happy sometimes

Shit happened, shit happens, shit will happen. Life will break your plans,
change comfortable situations, make you come back to habits you thought you
were done with. Human mind never truly forgets, and once put into difficult
situation it will come back to old places and old norms even if they were not
the healthiest or most productive. Anything new is just a working around old
structure, or putting stuff above it. The old will always remain a trace, a
remainder which never truly disappears. This applies to every part of your
human experience as the universe behaves by the same rules as your brain with
regards to this.

Demons always will come to haunt you, that is their job sadly.  Thus a good
discipline goes a very long way.

# 6. You are not a tree

All communities and environments which do not bring a benefit to you are
unimportant. Importance of something is in most cases your choice. You can
always leave a toxic community, relationship, etc. You might end up being
lonely for a bit, but you can always find a new stuff. And also, look for
real-world communities to join. Online communities, due to their lower barrier
of entries tend to capture various kinds of disturbed people, who are far less
productive or conductive to your personal development. This does not apply to
all of them, it is more of a likelihood.  Once again, whatever works and makes
you feel better and helps you improve, is good.

# 7. Signifiers are just signifiers

You cannot buy yourself out of your issues, you cannot impoverish yourself out
of your issues. Here, I believe, only a middle way would work, where if you are
to buy something you have to be aware if it will be to benefit. I have seen
quite a lot of people conflate self-improvement with signifiers/symbols of
improvement (i.e. notebooks, wild work schedules, equipment, etc), which can be
just exhausting yourself and trying to convince yourself that 'I AM
PRODUCTIVE'. What is useful will not gather dust. The other extreme is blocking
yourself from positive changes and is as dangerous as over-consumption, as here
you also want to create some symbols of your own negative state instead of
taking all you possibly can to improve your own state. 

# 8. Independence is a goal

Independence, of any kind, be it mental, physical, financial, etc. is one of
the greatest things to have. To be undisturbed by external factors and be able
to make right choice based on our self-knowledge is something we all should
strive for.

# 9. Beginners mind

You will always remain a beginner, and you always must be aware, there is
something new to learn and that nobody is not a beginner, you just might be
aware what they are not aware of. So be open, and know that there is never an
end to learn or improve. You just will, on some days, be a lot happier and at
peace with yourself, but even that is not constant and there will be worse
days.

# 10. Creativity and maintenance matter

For a human, main goals are creation and maintenance of excellence, be it
literary/human/technological/artistic/etc. The rest of things, such as our own
self-esteem and things like how people see as are quite secondary. It is in
these activities we can truly become beyond our limitations, and show that our
existence is outside this moment. We go outside our mere individuality. If we
can include other people in this process, this states it even more, as then the
scale of excellence changes. Look at excellent human works which show this
excellence of both maintenance and creative group work - aqueducts, great
buildings, legal systems, societies which allow fostering of individual
excellence, to see the value of this.

# 10. Engage yourself with greatness

I think there is some intangible benefit (above the tangible one :)) from
regularly engaging yourself with primary or secondary sources from the greatest
things our humanity achieved. That is something that even when done with lesser
enthusiasm or understanding will help you to see what methods help one develop
a better quality of thinking.

# 11. hope.wav

I believe we all can make it, and achieve our goals, whatever they may be if we
apply ourselves. I have faith in your and mine ability to change and improve
not only our own lives but the lives of those close to us.

Some cool links/books to look at:
=> https://archive.org/details/xenophonsmemorab00xenouoft
=> https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/59
=> https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/10661
=> https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/10741
=> https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%203&version=KJV
=> https://archive.org/details/ernst-junger-on-pain
=> https://archive.org/details/the-forest-passage
=> https://monadnock.net/epicurus/
=> https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/happiness/words-wise
=> http://www.ymparistojakehitys.fi/susopapers/Lasse_Nordlund_Foundations_of_Our_Life.pdf
=> https://soma.cx/home
=> https://anatomy.1651.org/
=> https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/literature/ptahhotep.html
=> https://www.sqlite.org/codeofethics.html
=> https://tilde.town/~dozens/sofa/