Weekend Accountability Post

Alright, so, it's the weekend, the most dangerous time for me in regards to the potential for relapse into all manner of unhealthy behaviours.

I went to sleep at 8.40 last night, listening to the cues my body gave me rather than pushing to stay awake. Awoke at around 5.30; this bodes well. I feel rested and in a good frame of mind to enact some serious self-care this weekend.

From what I know having read the many success stories on here, and from listening to my favourite podcast at the moment, Porn Free Radio ( www.recoveredman.com ) I need to make sure I'm doing things. One of the episodes I listened to yesterday covered a broader definition of 'edging' than I have ever been aware of-- that of engaging in behaviours that seem completely removed from porn consumption which are actually indicators that one is headed in the wrong direction. I'll list a few of the ones I've noticed here for posterity:

- Conspiracy theories, particularly crappy Youtube 'illuminati project monarch' videos.
- Having many, many ideas of what to do with the day and not choosing one of them to make progress on.
- Reddit. I have a couple of ongoing dialogs to wrap up on that platform, but ultimately I will be deleting my account very soon and taking it off the 'acceptable web viewing' list. I was observing my behaviour on it the other day and despite that I am only subscribed to recovery subs, I was still utilising the 'endless scroll' feature, which amounts to information overload to me and renders any benefit to using it completely ineffective.
- Looking to anything outside of myself to alleviate the discomfort I'm feeling. At the moment this basically amounts to drinking coffee or eating shit food way beyond the point of satiety.

I'm going to post my to-do list for the weekend, and check in to let you know how I went with it all. As a baseline level of activity, I'm going to go and vote this morning and go for a decent walk in the forest, and tomorrow I'm catching up with my parents.

- Breakfast, lunch and dinner, home-made, both days, no exceptions.

- Finally get the confidence up to resolder a dead joint on my midi keyboard so I can use the knobs and buttons again. Further my understanding of the way that the knobs are wired 'series in parallel,' which is why the one dead joint has knocked out all of the knobs but the keys and USB MIDI connection still works.

- Open up my main mixer, clean it all out and inspect for potential problems in the future, see if I can further my understanding of circuitry by studying the PCBs against the service manual. See if I can diagnose and fix the issue which is causing the onboard effects to be almost inaudible.

- Research what I am going to plant out into the garden beds I prepared over the last couple of weeks. I'd like to make a low-maintenance, perennial ornamental garden which will give me pretty flowers year round.

- Rearrange my bookshelf so I can easily access my books on health, psychology, spirituality, religion, electronics etc.

- Find a home for the stuff that I've had laying around in the living room for the last couple of months which makes me feel as though the place is never orderly, despite that I've figured out methods of making it easily maintainable and I have developed a good routine for doing my dishes etc.

- Same for my bedroom, so I'm waking up into an immaculate space every morning, creating a filing system for my clothes to get out of the habit of keeping everything in the floordrobe.

- Bonus round: Open up this old mixer I acquired (70's ensemble mixer with a spring reverb tank and unique drum machine, one of the best distortion sounds I've ever heard when you run it hot,) and take photos of the circuitry; some of the models have the schematic under the lid so hopefully I can find that, otherwise it'll be a slow exercise in reverse engineering.
Ultimately I want to figure out how to activate the drum sounds via voltage control and make an Arduino/Teensy MIDI interface for it, so I can control it from my DAW. I also want to wire in direct outputs for each of the 6 channels so I can use each channel in an effects loop. For now it'll simply be documenting the circuitry and cleaning it so as I learn, I can refer back to it and build on it.

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I'd like to invite you to share your own goals for the weekend and check in with me as to how much you managed to get through. I'm not making absolutes (ie, I HAVE to get all of this done,) with myself as it leads to disappointment and precarious mental states; I am however, going to get through as much as I am able to and roll the unfinished items over onto the list for next week until I get it all done.

My highest priorities are the self-care (eating,) and organising my living space. All of the audio stuff will be a fun adventure, but not vitally important. If I find myself sitting there intentionally dithering on what to do however, I shall be forcing my hands to work on one of those list items.

 

Alright! So, I'm going to check in on this but in future I'll keep similar posts to my journal.

CBF writing a novel right now, but in essence-- I got everything done but the audio stuff. Instead I ended up going to a local market, catching up with my folks for lunch and spending a bit more time on organising my house than I initially intended. Actually, I lie, heheh... Haven't done the bookshelf yet but I picked up Devin Townsend's new album to listen to while I do it. DT is a legend, he's been in recovery for some time now (for alcohol, drugs AND pornography,) and has been incredibly vocal about it. I
t really seems that he's found a great degree of peace in his life since his days as frontman of Strapping Young Lad. His new album's apparently about his struggle to find peace and equinimity, it's called Empath, I haven't heard much at all but apparently it's super chaotic and I can't wait. He's a full on virtuoso guitarist and has been adding more and more orchestral and choral elements to his music over the years. Can't get enough.

A couple of bonuses included finding a good book on perennial plants to research for the garden bed, a book called 'sexual energy and yoga,' which isn't some bullcrap 'tantric sex' book but actually goes into the metaphysics and importance of sexual abstention for spiritual growth.

Good times!!