Thanks for making the world a little better.

Hey man, we gotta push back the dark somehow.

An old hubski sticker on a long-since retired journal begs the question, "What can be learned?" Not to box anyone into a particular interpretation, but the question has always felt ambitious to me - it's a guiding light of the discourse we have here, a fundamental principle from which all goals can be derived. It's also a question from a frame of mind that feels incredibly foreign right now, but searching for the emotional means to express myself...The incongruity of it feels nostalgic, and I think that nostalgia bears the mark of an ambition that I've set down for the time being.

It was a guiding principle before, and I think that principle has changed meaning for me while we all search for normalcy: The goal is to return to the mindset that created this account in the first place. The ennui is dissonance between the goals that we made and the reality we're living, and "What can be learned?" is a lighthouse back to the person who made those goals.

If I can stick with that understanding, I think I'll come out of this a little stronger. Sorry for rambling, I hope the purple prose doesn't eclipse my meaning.

Just be glad you're not all mining bitcoin for me right now ;D

I've got permanent bags under my eyes. This is mostly owed to my larger than average eye sockets, but partly because I'm always staying up past my bedtime. I've been putting thought into why I'm constantly giving myself insufficient sleep for no good reason, and this is what I've got:

I'm good looking. I'm smart. I'm funny. People want to be around me, and I tend to attract them easily. But even around family, I have a baseline level of discomfort. If I spend too much time with someone, I accumulate a nauseated feeling in my stomach that's only relieved by periods of solitude.

Night is the perfect time, because everyone else is gone. They're asleep or they're kindred spirits and don't expect my acknowledgement any more than I want theirs.

I love what nighttime sounds like.

Even the highway by my house is silent but for the perfectly digestible sound of one or two cars pushing like boats through a river of asphalt. The night is so still that the sound of my parent's antique modem clicking away in the kitchen can be heard clearly from the carpeted living room. The TV is on, and although I've muted the late-night advertisement for a new and innovative CPAP machine, I can still hear the small whine of static electricity arcing from red to green to blue. This small whine is overwhelming. I can smell it if I focus on it. It smells like hot dust. If I'm feeling particularly aspirational, I know that birdsong will eclipse the modem and the pixels when the sun stretches its first amber fingers and brushes their tips over the roofs of my neighborhood.

'Alone' to me means 'relaxed.' People bring tension, and they take me from my thoughts.

I'm still sussing out the underlying reasons here, but that's the basic phenomenon - I can only relax on my own, and I'm always alone at night. I think for now a simple description of the phenomenon is good enough. I'll keep sussing, and maybe I'll bring you an epiphany next week.