Waiting in the Wings
Jan. 2nd, 2023 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Today is the last day of vacation! Where did the time go??
I didn't get nearly as much done as I had wanted, but then again I didn't have a strong system to adhere to. I'm trying to make sure today works as a dry run, so I got up at a reasonable hour and I'm trying my morning routine now: brush and floss, meditation, journaling. After that I'll move in to my new weekly spread in the Bullet Journal and start writing. One piece of advice that's worked for me quite well is doing the most important thing you have to do that day as early as possible. Today, that's making sure The Writing Desk posts its first essay by 9 AM.
We finished the first season of Andor yesterday, and I have to say the show lives up to the hype. Here be spoilers, so feel free to duck out of the rest of this entry if you'd rather not see them.
I was really surprised by the choice to have him be arrested for something relatively minor after the Empire was hunting him down for the murder of two corporate officers, though in hindsight it really works for the story. It definitely shows how fascist over-reach works, and how easy it is to end up in a carceral system with no recourse or way out. It's chilling to think that the wrong police officer could see you in the wrong place at the wrong time, and suddenly you're sentenced to six years in a labor camp.
But it also paints Andor in a bit of a negative light, that he wouldn't necessarily be willing to commit to the fight if he hadn't experienced the capricious cruelty of the Empire firsthand. I don't think that's quite true -- he DOES fight against the Empire by sabotaging the garrison at Aldani, and what he learns through that experience is enough to at least begin to bring him into the fold -- but he also left that group as soon as the job was done. I think having him be arrested on bullshit charges, then meeting an entire prison-full of people going through the same experience, teaches him why people are fighting and how easy it is to end up on the wrong side of injustice with a system like this.
His mother's funeral was a surprisingly effective sequence, and I *love* the way the series in general uses Andor's home-planet. It has a culture and community of its own, and it's clear that everyone who lives there is shaped by it. Her speech owning up to the mistake of "sleeping" while the Empire cemented its fascist reach, and calling out the Empire exactly for what it is, was the spark that kindled open rebellion on that planet. Combined with the Kid's Manifesto from the Aldani job, we were primed to see as many people fighting back as possible. The idea that authority could be a brittle thing, that tyranny takes constant work that inevitably runs down, is such a sharp one that it recontextualizes the success of the rebellion as an inevitability. It even encourages us to play the long game, knowing that one day our efforts will be part of its certain destruction.
That's an invigorating feeling. Andor does this impossible thing of actually replenishing the will to fight, which is not something I thought would happen in 2023. It's very good energy to carry through the year.
Today, in addition to writing, I'll be checking in on work to see what's going on there. I'll also straighten up the burrow as much as I can so things are tidy for the beginning of the work week. If possible, I'd really like to put up the dope light installation R brought me for my birthday. We've taken it to Grass Valley for a couple of Thanksgivings, but now it's time to put them up in our home. I'm not entirely sure he'll like the design I use for it, but oh well. It's my present and I'll use it the way I want.
Today is also the first day of my marijuana break. >.> I think I should be OK in general, though it's another one of those situations in which it'll take a lot of willpower to resist the constant 'nudges' to partake that I've developed over time. It's become a bit of an ingrained habit, so working that out is kind of important. It might be a good idea to think of it as a 'trigger-cue-reward' kind of thing, so paying attention to when those nudges happen, figuring out where the cue is coming from, and replacing the activity with something else will be the work over the first couple weeks or so.
This is just the first part of the 10-30-100 plan: ten days of complete commitment. We'll come back to this on January 11th, reassess to see how the system is working and what changes need to be made.
I didn't get nearly as much done as I had wanted, but then again I didn't have a strong system to adhere to. I'm trying to make sure today works as a dry run, so I got up at a reasonable hour and I'm trying my morning routine now: brush and floss, meditation, journaling. After that I'll move in to my new weekly spread in the Bullet Journal and start writing. One piece of advice that's worked for me quite well is doing the most important thing you have to do that day as early as possible. Today, that's making sure The Writing Desk posts its first essay by 9 AM.
We finished the first season of Andor yesterday, and I have to say the show lives up to the hype. Here be spoilers, so feel free to duck out of the rest of this entry if you'd rather not see them.
I was really surprised by the choice to have him be arrested for something relatively minor after the Empire was hunting him down for the murder of two corporate officers, though in hindsight it really works for the story. It definitely shows how fascist over-reach works, and how easy it is to end up in a carceral system with no recourse or way out. It's chilling to think that the wrong police officer could see you in the wrong place at the wrong time, and suddenly you're sentenced to six years in a labor camp.
But it also paints Andor in a bit of a negative light, that he wouldn't necessarily be willing to commit to the fight if he hadn't experienced the capricious cruelty of the Empire firsthand. I don't think that's quite true -- he DOES fight against the Empire by sabotaging the garrison at Aldani, and what he learns through that experience is enough to at least begin to bring him into the fold -- but he also left that group as soon as the job was done. I think having him be arrested on bullshit charges, then meeting an entire prison-full of people going through the same experience, teaches him why people are fighting and how easy it is to end up on the wrong side of injustice with a system like this.
His mother's funeral was a surprisingly effective sequence, and I *love* the way the series in general uses Andor's home-planet. It has a culture and community of its own, and it's clear that everyone who lives there is shaped by it. Her speech owning up to the mistake of "sleeping" while the Empire cemented its fascist reach, and calling out the Empire exactly for what it is, was the spark that kindled open rebellion on that planet. Combined with the Kid's Manifesto from the Aldani job, we were primed to see as many people fighting back as possible. The idea that authority could be a brittle thing, that tyranny takes constant work that inevitably runs down, is such a sharp one that it recontextualizes the success of the rebellion as an inevitability. It even encourages us to play the long game, knowing that one day our efforts will be part of its certain destruction.
That's an invigorating feeling. Andor does this impossible thing of actually replenishing the will to fight, which is not something I thought would happen in 2023. It's very good energy to carry through the year.
Today, in addition to writing, I'll be checking in on work to see what's going on there. I'll also straighten up the burrow as much as I can so things are tidy for the beginning of the work week. If possible, I'd really like to put up the dope light installation R brought me for my birthday. We've taken it to Grass Valley for a couple of Thanksgivings, but now it's time to put them up in our home. I'm not entirely sure he'll like the design I use for it, but oh well. It's my present and I'll use it the way I want.
Today is also the first day of my marijuana break. >.> I think I should be OK in general, though it's another one of those situations in which it'll take a lot of willpower to resist the constant 'nudges' to partake that I've developed over time. It's become a bit of an ingrained habit, so working that out is kind of important. It might be a good idea to think of it as a 'trigger-cue-reward' kind of thing, so paying attention to when those nudges happen, figuring out where the cue is coming from, and replacing the activity with something else will be the work over the first couple weeks or so.
This is just the first part of the 10-30-100 plan: ten days of complete commitment. We'll come back to this on January 11th, reassess to see how the system is working and what changes need to be made.
