There Are No Words – September 9th

The Voices In My Head

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There Are No Words

5 min readSep 9, 2016

I’m backfilling right now – still catching up from Labour Day Weekend – so there’s going to be commentary about entries going back to 09.01, at least.

2015.09.09 – Disproductivity

Personal Facebook Feed – Highlights

The first link on each line is to my post. The second is to the source content.

Thinking About the iPad Pro from my own brain.

At the time I knew my beloved Nexus 10 was getting long in the tooth, and that I’d need to replace it with another tablet. The separated keyboard and tablet worked really well for me for a long time, but I could see that the day was coming where I’d want a more laptop-like experience. I was looking into the Microsoft Surface Pro at the time as well.

From TANW

I haven’t recollected September 8th yet, but I know I did a longer post about positivity, from a negative point of view. I’ll comment on that when I get to it in my catching up.

8:00PM: Today has been unproductive.
I got a few things done, sure, but mostly I just feel useless.
*WARNING* I don’t need to be told to be positive. This is a mood, and it will pass. *WARNING ENDS*
#FBAEW
Be well.
– j

The comments were encouraging without falling into the ‘be positive’ trap I complained about on the 8th. I’m feeling a lot of parallels right now. Sure, I’ve been doing stuff. Is it useful stuff? Is it productive stuff? Make the world a better place stuff? Right now I feel like I’m mostly producing messes, delays, and entropy.

September 1st – Comments On Speaking

Looking at the videos I made that day I was clearly in a very good and goofy mood. I got to use my new voice for the first time, and there was no turning back from that. Looking back, I think crossing that milestone was an emotional peak, and I wasn’t ready for the valley that followed. In some ways I was more resilient at this time last year… or at least, I didn’t have the same expectations about what I should be doing – that is, more.

2016.09.09 – Back To School

Estimated Energy Budget: 50¢

My daughter is back to school now, and finishing her first week of Grade 1 this afternoon. I’ll be picking her up at school, bringing her back to the Doghouse, and spending the evening here with her. There will be parks to frolicate, family to visit, dogs to walk, dinners to duel, games to play, readings to do, baths to splash, etc..

As noted above, my baseline mood is fairly down right now. The individual moments can be filled with joy and wonder, however. I expect time with Livé and family will make a difference.

Patterns

The pattern of the school year is quite different from the pattern of the summer. Getting back into the swing of things – especially with family visiting from Norway – will be a challenge. Last year at this time I was still recovering from my surgery, starting to learn about my voice, and figuring out what the next steps for treatment would be. I had some big ideas.

When I started this recollection I said it was a powerful tool to find patterns in my behaviours and moods. This is a somewhat wordy process, with a lot of rehashing of ideas and feelings and so on. When I have done this in the past – and in private – I have had life-altering insights about myself and the people around me. It’s starting to happen again.

The last time I did this I was in a long term relationship, and engaged to her. We had a house and had set the date for the wedding and everything. Using this recursive diary technique, I discovered a set of patterns that lead directly to the end of that relationship.

No, I’m not saying I’m breaking up with Kathleen. I’m saying that this kind of self-help / introspective writing is very powerful, and worth it. You don’t need to write long entries or mull things over to make it work, either. If you draw, you can sketch your feelings. Drop in a picture of your calendar from the year before and this year. The key is to produce a record of who you were on this day, and to re-evaluate it over time.

Technology

Last year I was just starting to evaluate my options for my next tablet. I’ll take that journey again over the coming months, but have a thought about it now. I ended up with the iPad Pro as my main machine. For a while I used the Apple Smart Cover with my Logitech K810 keyboard (still the best keyboard I have ever used). I tried a few keyboard cases as well. Eventually I settled on the Apple keyboard cover and the Apple silicone case (for grippiness). Today I’m using my Logitech K810 again, and realize just how much more pleasant an experience it is to use when compared to the Apple keyboard.

Taken altogether, the iPad Pro is a B+ user experience for me. I keep shifting the accessories I use to try to accommodate my uses for it, but I haven’t found a perfect fit. For example, the aluminum is beautiful, but the tablet should have a 1cm wide band of something grippy set about 8–10cm in from the edge. That would make holding the thing simple and easy with no case. If that band of material was actually a solid piece that could be hinged out in portrait and landscape modes – attached magnetically to an indentation in the back – the iPad Pro would be a usability dream.

…Do any of you know designers who work for Apple?