The Jeff Kingdom

I'm starting to think that almost everything is better without a cell phone.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

So I gave Marcus Aurelius's recommendation here a try this morning. Lying in bed under the covers and not wanting to get up, I asked myself, "Is this what you were born to do?"

"No, but what else am I going to do?" Oof! That was a gut punch. I don't know that I've ever more acutely felt a lack of purpose in my life than at that moment.

It used to be that I would have been able to answer that question with "No, I have to go to work and help my coworkers." But at the moment I'm unemployed. Meaning that answer is not available to me.

I ended up deciding to get up, get dressed, and to try to take a moment and see if I can find a way to answer that question that isn't quite as brutal on myself. Answering that question may not be "the thing I was brought into the world to do," but it will have to suffice for this morning.

A bit later, with some caffeine in my system, I decided to have a bit of a conversation with myself.

"So, what is your purpose in life?"

"I don't know. But I would like to make the world a better place than it currently is. I don't need to do that in a big way—a little way will suffice."

"Okay, that's nice, but it doesn't exactly have an action with it, does it?"

"No, I guess it doesn't. I used to rely on work for that."

"Well that's not available, is it?"

"Thanks for reminding me. So what do you suggest?"

"Well, if the part of work you liked was helping your coworkers, then is there someone else you can help at the moment?"

"[My daughter's] car has been acting up a bit. I could go check on it before she has to leave for school."

"That will work."

What if there was a medicine that allowed a person to live life at twice the intensity but also reduced their life expectancy by half? Would that be a good thing?

Nobody can take from me that which is not mine.

'I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch [...] — and dying I will tend to later.'

I've been playing with a tiling window manager. It seems like the perfect crown for those small screen kings and queens out there.

Last night, while reading Matthew Juksan Sullivan's excellent translation of the Blue Cliff Record, Baizhang (a Zen master from the 8th century) asked me the following question: "With throat, lips, and mouth shut, how will you speak?"

To this, I replied, "With action and non-action."

Baizhang's silent response was simply, "Prove it."

I've been working with Zettlr quite a lot lately. I'm really digging it. It's like a slightly jankier version of Obsidian with fewer features. But that unexplainable way that Obsidian is just sort of annoying just isn't present and that makes all the difference.

I just added a link to my new RPG blog to the header of this site.

I wrote a new blog post on an OSE referee binder that I assembled.