2024-05-12 | 02:47:39 PM
It’s a hot afternoon today,2024-05-12 | 02:47:49 PM. I spent most of my day working on the stuff I need to finish ASAP. I must say it’s also nice that I get to track my time using Toggl Track. One thing I like about it is that I don’t have to think too much about it. It’s just like a companion that’s there, not minding me as I focus on my work. I learned a few things here and there also today on Photoshop. I’m deciding whether to make a note about it or not.
I got myself a few minutes of a break, that’s why I’m writing this. I don’t have anything particularly interesting to write about, except the fact that I’d listened to a few podcast episodes again wherein Cal Newport was present. It’s nice that I get to focus on my task while listening to podcasts. I must say it’s also nice that I don’t have social media there to distract me. It’s just deep, focused work the whole time. If I ever get distracted, at least it’s not something that catches my attention for a long time. Getting distracted by the sun having too much glare, for example, isn’t as bad as getting distracted by Instagram, TikTok, or any other type of short-form content. I still have Reddit on my phone, I must add, but I’m not really using it that much. I only use it when I’m trying to find answers to niche topics such as, for example, my concerns on Arnold, Cinema 4D, and other expert topics. Sometimes a good old forum and a nice official documentation could help, but I’d found that often, the more specific and unique questions don’t often get answered in those. And that’s why I direct myself to Reddit. It’s also my first time adding a context to the Cinema 4D note. It’s quite funny since I ended up not using it since I transferred the current project I was working on from the 2D to the 3D space.
The context is this, if you’re wondering. It’s all about projecting a spline or an object to another object. Projection can be used to project objects to other surfaces such as, for example, a product packaging, stickers on surfaces, product labels, and whatnot. For more general applications, however, standalone cloth and collider simulations are better than projections, as far as I could tell.
2024-05-12 | 07:23:09 PM
You know what I just realized? Is that a slow life is what I want. A life where I’m not constantly bombarded by notifications, distractions, things that constantly vie for my attention. Living a life outside of social media has been nothing less than wonderful. Since quitting social media, I’d been spending my days more slowly and in a more deliberate manner. I’ve been spending more time thinking, feeling, and actually wondering about a lot of things. I could physically feel the peace at this point, and it’s unlike what I had experienced then, when I was pretty much active on every social media platform one could think of. I had Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and all other new fads that would appear I would follow. I was constantly updated on memes, pop culture, online gossip, drama, what have you.
And I gotta tell you honestly, I really didn’t like who I was back then. I didn’t like that I was constantly pulled by these vacuous online content. At the end of a mindless scrolling session, it felt like I’d been enslaved by my right thumb. My brain was constantly asking me to stop, yet I wouldn’t budge. I would continue scrolling, scrolling, fidgeting, trying to see if there’s a new red badge here and there.
Nowadays, though it’s still quite the challenge, I don’t so much check on my notifications anymore — particularly the unimportant ones. I still have mesasging applications on my PC and phone, though I don’t check them as frequently as I’d been doing so then. These days the only people I talk to are the people who reach out, and the people whom I deliberately try to reach out to. That includes a few friends, my girlfriend, my family, and no one else. I could feel that these people I’m talking to now have a more genuine connection with me, just because they’re not in a sea of people online that I’m connected with but don’t actually talk to. My Instagram & Facebook following and followers are filled with these people.
We’re connected, as in we follow each other, but we rarely ever talk. I try to reach out to them, converse with them, ask them how they are, relate with them, empathize with them — sometimes it’s the other way around — but I can’t help feeling like there really is something missing in our interactions. They weren’t… genuine. It was, in some sense, just like every other vague interaction on social media. It’s something I could observe in people who throw compliments brainlessly — “I like your shirt!”, “I love your x”, “Really cute top!”, etc. — like they’re templates ingrained in their minds. I have a really weird feeling about them. Something’s not right with the way they interact with people. There’s a cloud of inauthenticity hovering around them, and I get very uncomfortable about that.
It’s almost like the habitual reaction of our fingers to ‘like’ a post, or ‘share’ something. The act of liking is there, for example, as in the biomechanics of us double-tapping or pressing the like button is there, but the essence of liking is gone. We’ve become organisms subjugated by algorithms that manipulate us into acting a certain way. The essence of liking, of the heart symbol, of loving, of appreciating, of connecting — it’s gone.
And that shit makes me really sad. The way I’m connected with someone online, but seem to struggle to connect with them. Reflections like this remind me of The Flight from Conversation by Sherry Turkle:
Transclude of Sherry-Turkle,-The-New-York-Times,-The-Flight-From-Conversation#^010535
2024-05-12 | 09:39:38 PM
I took a little break for a while. Now it’s time to code. Let’s get to it: view today’s dev log.
2024-05-12 | 11:19:58 PM
I don’t want to repeat myself, so I’m just going to re-iterate information here from my dev log: Today I made progress on my first fCC certification project. I’ll continue it tomorrow. It’s nice that I got to make progress on it despite already wanting to rest a while ago. I had to basically force myself to get up from my bed and do some coding. Hopefully I can at least make more progress on it tomorrow, if not finish it.