I’ve been thinking (for a long time) about how it’s getting difficult to “prove you’re human” online if a stranger is encountering you (or your writing/photos/videos/music) for the first time.

Back in the day you could tell someone was human by how they write. Then generative AI ruined that.

Then, you could post a “verification” photo (kinda how they do on Reddit during AMAs), but that has become impossible too. Dito.

I’ve been thinking “I should start a YouTube channel now so that I have a way to show people I’m a real human.”

But it seems like that’s on its way out as well.

There’s still time. I think that video actually works as a “verification” method and will continue to work for some time (6 months? A year?).

Generative AI has trouble creating videos that are longer than 30 seconds long.
Shifting perspectives in videos often create artifacts.
Things moving in the foreground AND the background tend to confuse generative AI.

So, as of now, as far as I can tell:
If you want to have a “placeholder” piece of proof that you’re a real person you need to film a 1-2 minute video with shifting perspectives and objects moving in the foreground AND background and upload it somewhere.

I knew that hormones dictate mood and there are a bunch of built-in schedules that our bodies keep in order to “survive”. What I recently learned, though, was that the thing that “wakes you up in the morning” isn’t the first cup of coffee of the day or a nice little bit of sunlight coming in through the windowshades, but a cortisol spike.
Which is not great.

How I found out

So, like, technically, I can sleep until 9AM and still wake up, journal, have coffee, and clock into work on time. Shoutout to remote work!
But what I’ve noticed is that I’ll “naturally” wake up at around 7 and immediatelly start feeling anxious about the work day ahead. Just an endless barage of anxious thoughts about all the tasks that are due soon, all the difficult conversations I might have to have during the day, all the possible (bad) surprises that might come out of left-field that I’ll have to deal with.
It’s terrible.
And once that engine starts running — I can’t shut it down.
So I just struggle to fall back asleep for another two hours and then end up getting out of bed at my usual time, but more exhausted than when I was going to bed the night before.

So I was like, “what gives?” and started researching.
And that’s how I found out about the morning cortisol spike thing.

The Internet is Full of Unhelpful Advice

The first psychiatrist I ever went to when I wanted an official anxiety/depression diagnosis asked me if I have “negative thoughts”.
Uh, yeah, dude, of course. That’s why I’m here!
You know what his advice was?
“Just don’t think about it!”
That’ll be $50, thank you very much.

And most of the information that I find online about avoiding this cortisol-induced anxiety is just “try to lie down and relax and not think about the things that are stressing you out.”
Which, like, obviously that’s the right thing to do. If I can train my brain to not be anxious first thing in the morning my life will be 100x better right away. But that’s not helpful advice, though, is it?

So, uhm… yeah… This was another episode of “learning about the underlying reasons for why I feel like shit without finding any useful and actionable steps I can take to deal with it.”
I’ll be sure to add that to the list of “if you have ADHD you should try time-blocking” and “if you struggle to cook healthy meals for yourself you should prep healthy meals for yourself ahead of time.”
Cheers.

The main event of the week is that I got food poisoning. Up until I got it I thought the main event would be my gf’s birthday and the awesome gift I got here (iPad + Apple Pencil so she can start working on her backburner dream/goal of becoming an illustrator), but then the bad sushi happened.

Food poisoning -> lack of sleep -> sick day from work -> missed deadlines -> stress -> exacerbated symptoms-> lack of sleep -> rinse -> repeat.

Barely made it to Friday. I feel better now (Sunday).

What got me through

• Lots of tea
• Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
• Doing One Thing at a Time
• Lots of tea

Honestly, other than my mental health getting much worse, that’s all the updates I have.

I’m experiencing the Sunday Scaries of knowing I’ll have to deal with all the overdue work tomorrow.

Big breakthrough with my productivity! I have found a system!
It’s only going to work temporarily (as all systems I’ve ever tried have), but I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

Step 1: Keep my todo list digital. GTD, tags and categories, due dates and contexts — all that jazz.
Step 2: Choose 3 (and only 3) things to do during any particular day and put them in a paper notebook.
Step 3: Break the first item down to it’s first immediate actio, put that on a separate sheet of paper labeled “next actions”.
Step 4a: Do the thing. Check it off once it’s done.
Step 4b: If I get distracted and end up doing something else — write down what distracted me. Get back to the “main activity” ASAP.
Step 5: When done — mark the task as done.
Step 6: Repeat steps 3-6 until all 3 of the daily “must do” taks are completed.

I mean, it’s so fucking simple, but if it works — it works. I’ll keep you updated on how long this system works for me.

Work

I have been behind on work since about mid-September. People going on vacations, organizational mishaps, and a bunch of other factors all coincided and now I’m out here in mid-October still dealing with a bunch of overdue tasks.
This isn’t good for my mental health + my general “avoidance” response to things that make me anxious.
But I managed to get my shit together and do my best to catch up.
The verdict is still out on the quality of my work, but at least meaningful progress has been made and hopefully I’ll be able to end October with no overdue tasks.

Books

Who has time to read when there are so many things to be anxious about?

Blog

I figured out how to write/upload/publish posts with just my phone. For months I’ve been toying with the idea of going back to WordPress just so I could easily update my blog “on the go” (not that I ever “go” anywhere). But a few hours of messing around with iOS shortcuts + working with Working Copy, Drafts, and 1Writer has gotten me to a place where I can draft a post and then make it go live with just a few button presses.
With that, the temptation to ever leave the comfort of static site generators is gone. Finally.
I can even post photos!

TV

It’s all been Taskmaster and Would I Lie to You this week. I don’t have the attention span for anything other than British pannel shows.

If you’ve somehow managed to gamify building good habits and your approach is at least a little unconventional, can you let me know what your system is like?

I’m really struggling here.

I’ve mostly been playing League of Legends, and I am not happy about it. It’s a great game where at any given moment things can go in a million different directions. It’s also the biggest source of dopamine (and cortisol?) I have right now.
But it takes up a lot of my time and it just is NOT a joyful or satisfying experience.

I quote I stumbled across this week that’s etched itself onto the back of my eyelids:

You gotta stop going after what you want and go for things you like.

I might want to play a dumb game, but do I like
it?

I might not want to make music, but I definitely like it more than most other things. Even when it’s frustrating it still ends up being more rewarding than even the best game of League where I get 20 kills and never die.

But every time I have the choice, I still go for the easy dopamine. And it really makes me hate myself.

It’s been a tough week. Mostly because it’s the start of a new month and that is always a stressful time at work. Also — because russia launched over 800 drones and 10+ rockets on Saturday night, and whatever “rest” I experienced went right out the window.
But, there are good news, too.

Work

I passed my trial period at work. I’m “officially” an employee (still a contractor, legally) and that means vacation time, health insurance, and some other (minor but appreciated) workplace perks.
Healthcare in Ukraine is pretty good and cheap/free, but it’s good to know that if something happens to me, I’ve got insurance to foot the bill.

Books

It’s been a slow week for reading. I’m done with the Dungeon Crawler Carl series (all the books published so far), and it’s taking me forever to get into something new. So far I’ve tried:

• Harrow the Ninth
• Red Rising
• Snow Crash

It looks like Snow Crash is going to stick, but it’s going slow so far.

Movies & TV

Haven’t really watched anything this week. Even our yearly re-watch of Schitt’s Creek is on hold right now.