This past week has been strange, as I took on – somewhat voluntarily – the challenge of "rescuing" my computer rather than just replacing it. I have a more-or-less functional Linux desktop working on my computer, but I've struggled with a basket of deplorable system configuration experiences. I'm stubborn, and I have this weird, "flow" state-of-mind that I get into as I try to solve software problems, that I don't particularly enjoy. I suppose it's why I was fairly successful in the computer and IT world, as I was last decade. But the negative aspects of the state bother me – affectively a bit "dead" feeling, and a bit too obsessive with feeling I must solve a given problem. These are the reasons I quit that career, and only a few days of returning to it, even part-time and in the context of my own computer at home, serve to remind me of why I quit.
I started having "code dreams" too, again, after their having faded away over the last few years. These are dreams that essentially consist of little more than staring at a screen and trying to solve some puzzling computer behavior. They're not nightmares, but they're plotless and vaguely kafkaesque-feeling. I call them "coder's fugue."
I had a whole string of them, all night last night. So I have decided to give this computer thing a rest, today – I mean, I still can use my computer, but I'm just trying to accept the aspects of its current set-up that annoy me, and not trying to fix them, and just getting up and doing something else if I feel frustrated by it.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
