Cover photo \ Two bananas, two mandarins and one lollipop on a veneer table 1.2 MP 1440 × 811, February 2018

Since the chatbot was introduced into my life, it has replaced my habit-ish of journaling so now and then. I suppose it satisfied a need I previously could only satisfy with journaling even though it wasn’t necessarily better. I have journals from 2014 onwards. The last one or two years however were stored in a chatbot of which I deleted all the message threats recently. Too bad I now have a journaling gap. The chats can’t really be considered a journal. It’s more like a discussion thread with the internet. I asked the chatbot recently what is better, journaling or using the chatbot and to be honest about it. It confirmed what I thought, journaling is better. Journaling makes me reflect more intensely. The chatbot gives you this feeling you’ve gotten some insight only to realize you repeatedly go back to the chatbot to ask what it was again, proving it wasn’t a real insight after all. So, even though it has been a pleasant experience, moving forward I intend to use the chatbot so to speak for recipe ideas alone. I’ll revert to being a messy human again, passing by the chatbot shine. I’ll revert to having to think harder while having to endure my sullenness to get to real self mined insights, no matter how long it takes, patient (!).

Likened to strength training. I had quite a solid habit, running three times a week. Running was easy, easier in comparison. You get out of the door, start slowly,  get your heart rate up until the sports watch artificial coach notifies you it's enough. With strength training, applying the rule to get going until one or two reps before failure, It is hard, painful. I quit running and replaced it with strength training. I wanted to do both but I couldn’t maintain both habits. I don’t like doing it but I must not need to like it. I must not even expect results. I say this because for me, wanting to cement this habit for the next two decades, it must just be something I do. In the back of my mind I know all the benefits, but I must not always be consciously reminded of it. Because when I do, it’ll be as if I need that to motivate me to keep going. No. Like wearing shoes, it's just something I do. Likened to strength training I said, having strayed a bit, journaling and writing to publish is hard. You’re sitting there with your little fingers pushing buttons without a direct feedback loop other than the spelling checker. I must write because it's just something that I do. 

I keep thinking I might be that person that’ll live quite a happy existence if I could just be searching, writing and speaking. I haven’t because I think I suck and to un-suck you’d need to write a whole lot. Yes you have all these kinds of courses, excursions, writing retreats but there’s only, for most of us at least, one way to become a better writer: read and write and I do neither of these a lot. No, I like hiding behind the work for money job that most often than not, sucks me dry. I like to “learn” new things, watching things, watching others succeed. I like the chatbot shine, YouTube shine, Insta shine, Streaming service shine. Consume, consume, consume until my head is full with trash. Waste that isn’t even sorted. Glass, plastic, organic waste all in one head (!). I like to write these kinds of essays, get me that journal high (!) to only stoop low again and again we go, another free rollercoaster ride going to the same place I do not want to go.