I had this epiphany at the beginning of September: This thing that I’m doing? This series of choices I make every day? It isn’t working. I don’t like the way I feel, I don’t like the way I look, I don’t like the things I’m doing. Things need to change.
So I took a long, hard, serious look at myself, and concluded that some things needed to change.
So it’s time to check in on my life reboot, and see how I’m doing. As I did last time, I’ll grave — grave? Well, that’s a Freudian slip of the touch-typing fingers, isn’t it? — grade myself on a bit of a curve.
Here are the things I committed to doing, back in October:
Drink less beer.
Read more (and Reddit does not count as reading).
Write more.
Watch more movies.
Get better sleep.
Eat better food.
Exercise more.
Let’s see how I’m doing since my last check-in, near the end of January. Spoiler: pretty good.
It’s been just over a month since I wrote about rebooting my life, and I thought it would be a good time to check in, see how I’m doing, and give myself some grades. If you were inspired to reboot your life, maybe this is a good time for you to check in, too.
So the only way this works is when we’re honest with ourselves. We have to honestly assess how we’re doing, take credit and feel good about the stuff that we’re crushing, and work harder on the stuff where we aren’t. I think we also have to be gentle and kind with ourselves. Regardless of how you end up grading your efforts, if you can honestly say that you are doing your best — and you accept that your best can vary from day to day — you get points for that.
This is a proof of concept I made to test out a project idea I’ve had for a little while, sort of similar to my Ephemera Mashup. The main inspiration for this came to me awhile ago, when I was in a bar downtown that was silently playing Mondo Hollywood on TVs. That film, without sound, is a collection of images that are strange but also good, and I thought it would be fun and cool to collect films from the Internet Archive, and cut together something of my own.
The idea with this particular proof was to create something that was a little creepy and slightly off, that could be projected onto the wall at a warehouse party, without sound, as background art. I ended up with something that works with or without sound, and (I think) rewards varying levels of attention. In fact, I rendered the audio only, and put it on my Soundcloud, because I think it’s cool and weird all on its own.
So, to make this, I grabbed a bunch of public domain footage from the Internet Archive, and cut it all up. Then I tossed it into iMovie and applied some filters. I modified the audio in Audacity, and mixed in some other audio that I also created in Audacity by modifying other public domain works. If I like it, and feel that it was worth the time, I’ll make some more like this that actually have more deliberate cuts and choices in the content. At the moment, this is primarily clips that I eyeballed, thought were interesting, and tossed into the edit timeline.
I got sort of fascinated by some old burlesque and stag footage that I found at the Archive, so that’s in here, and may offend those with sensitive dispositions.
About twenty years ago, I had a portable spa in the back yard of my first house. One day, the heater stopped working, so I called a repairman to come out and look at it. He told me that there would be an $85 charge no matter what, and I told him that was okay. When he got to my house, he opened up the access panel where the heater, pump, and filter lived. He looked inside, then looked back at me.
“Did you try pushing the reset button?” He asked.
“Um. No,” I said.
He pushed the reset button, and the heater came back to life.
“That’ll be $85,” he said. I paid him.
This post is about realizing that I was sitting in cold water, and not doing anything to turn the heater back on. This post is about how I hit the reset button.
