2024-05-18

2024-05-18 | 09:50:19 AM

I have 10 minutes to write down my thoughts this morning.

Yesterday was tiring as shit. It’s been a while since I felt that tired. We had to wait four hours to book rides home using Angkas, Grab, and JoyRide. I really didn’t want to use Grab, but apparently it’s the best one for me to use at the time. The traffic was really heavy when we were trying to book because of some road repair or management thing that was commenced at the Magallanes Flyover.¹

I even noted a few points yesterday from our talk in the Creatives Bootcamp. I originally wanted to create a public repository of the notes I’ll be making but I’d figured that would be too much of a hassle for the people in my workplace to use. For one, they wouldn’t know how to use GitHub, second, they wouldn’t know how to use Git, and thirdly, I don’t think they would be interested in taking notes on a topic that they already have wide knowledge about.

What’s nice yesterday was that even though it had been physically tiring to have spent my time outside, the fact that it rained really helped me stay cool and calm. Though it really was annoying that my eyes were extremely dry the whole time I was outside. It helped that Maika (my colleague) lended me her eyedrops which gave me temporary comfort. However, it still was the same shit after just an hour of using the eyedrops — the same dry-ass eyes. I think it was because of the weather. But anyways that’s that. I have to prepare for university now. See ya.

2024-05-18 | 03:32:30 PM

I just solved a problem using my minimal knowledge in Git 🤩

It’s during times like this that I get excited about coding and development — because I get to develop and/or create systems to aid a particular problem that’s affecting me. Here’s the problem: I have been tinkering around Obsidian and Git for the past few weeks using a few tools here and there:

• The good old terminal
• Visual Studio Code or VS Code (a program that falls under the general category of Integrated Development Environments or IDEs)
• GitHub
• Git

The problem is this: I accidentally pushed something to my remote repository without realizing it shouldn’t be there at all. I then realized there’s a solution for that: I can utilize the .gitignore file of my local Git repository to ignore the file that’s not supposed to be pushed to my remote repository. The problem was this: I have already pushed the otherwise private files into my remote repository.²

Here’s what I did:

• I archived the private files and sent it over to my phone, through Telegram.
• I extracted the files into the folder where they’re supposed to be.
• I removed the files from the remote repository using the following command, which was given to me by ChatGPT:
  • git rm -r --cached {{private-folder-here}}, where {{private-folder-here}} is my private folder.
• I modified the .gitignore file of my local repository to restrict the previous changes that were being pushed in my remote repository.
• Finally, I committed and pushed the changes from my local repository such that the private files are removed from my remote repository, and synced the updated .gitignore file to my local repository in my iPhone.
• And voila! Everything worked perfectly. Now, I have the private files on my phone and computer, and the future changes in my local repositories within my iPhone and PC are not uploading the files that I’d like to keep for myself and myself only.

2024-05-18 | 11:55:26 PM

I’m in a very reflective mood at the moment. I’m using my MacBook to write this, which is quite nice. I just got off a few hours (I think) of reading Outlive by Peter Attia. I must say it’s really an alarming thing that I talk about my gout and all that, knowing that I already know the gist of what Peter and a lot of people say. It’s a weird feeling. I already know the consequences of the lifestyle that I’m living yet I still manage to ignore them, like I’m some sort of hypocrite. Well, after all, knowledge really isn’t practice. And as much as I would love to champion myself as this ‘different’ person, I really am not.

Of course, it would be nice if I actually followed 100% of what I think is correct, or right, or good. But there are times that I slip, even if it’s not by intention. I might even go as far as to say that I am legitimately trying to improve on the things that I should actually be caring about, such as my lifestyle. I guess what’s really holding me back from being the person I once was when I cared about the things I used to care about is that I couldn’t get the idea of self-improvement as something I’m supposed to be actively engaging with all throughout life.

I understand that self-improvement in and of itself could be interpreted in such a way that encourages the idea of constantly judging one’s current version to find ways to iterate a change, and that could totally be a possibility, but I can’t quite wrap my head around how to avoid exactly that.

It’s almost like the essence of the term ‘self-improvement’ is all about finding things to improve within oneself, otherwise it should be called something else, like self-care, for example. Self-care, I think, or at least I feel, has built up quite a bit of negative connotation. ³ One possible school of thought is that self-care is for the ‘soft’ or the ‘weak.’ Those who can’t adhere to the strictness, discipline, and rigor associated with self-improvement can call the process ‘self-care’ instead. After all, improvement does seem a little harder-sounding(if that even is a thing) than care. If I think of care, I think of softness, of calm, of peace, and of affirmations. If I think of improvement, I think of deliberate practice, discipline, and sacrifices.

I guess it’s only a matter of finding the right balance between the two. Ultimately, it’s important for us to get up at the right time, for example, yet also provide ourselves with proper sleep. I think I’d heard a variation of this idea once in a podcast episode from Cal Newport and I’m subconsciously echoing his ideas in my journal. And I agree with Cal — that there’s such thing as having excessive discipline. Jocko Willink might say no, and David Goggins might laugh his ass off, yet I think I would still stand strong by my thinking.

Perhaps somewhere along the middle is where I would want to be — a place where I could practice living a healthy lifestyle yet not hate myself while doing it. Soon I’ll be going back to the gym and would be implementing healthy habits as I do so. I really need to revisit the ideas I’d taken so seriously before and re-apply them into my life. Some of those ideas include thought from The Minimalists, Matthew Walker, James Clear, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, among others. And while I do not wholeheartedly agree with some of the ideas of these people at this point, I still think that I’d gotten a lot of value from their pieces of advice, and I can’t wait to apply them in my life again.⁴

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. I’m not sure if it’s the Magallanes Flyover but I’m sure that there’s a road repair/renovation thing going on. ↩

2. I know this is an extremely simple problem but I’m super excited about it nonetheless! I’m a beginner when it comes to these things and I get super excited about the simplest of things regarding it! ↩

3. I’m speaking in anecdotal terms here and I’m unable to cite a specific case or study or supporting information. I’m just journaling it as an idea that went off the top of my head. ↩

4. Honestly, I really wonder why I’d stopped. There’s a bunch of things I could go into for this context but it really is not within my realm of interest to dive that deep into them now. Perhaps in another, more serious writing where my cognitive capacity isn’t limited by my annoying dry eyes. My eyes have been extremely dry since yesterday. ↩