Note: This site is currently "Under construction". I'm migrating to a new version of my site building software. Lots of things are in a state of disrepair as a result (for example, footnote links aren't working). It's all part of the process of building in public. Most things should still be readable though.

Journal Sept 16 2020

Pretty well rested... Should be, got 10 hours last night.

I need more sleep on these meds. Or, maybe it's that the abilify that I take at night keeps me knocked out until I get the modafinil in the morning? Actually, no, that's not it. It's just that I need more sleep. Makes me wonder if the brain is still healing.

Doc said it can take two years for it to heal (as much as it can) from a bipolar episode. And, I was in the depression for all of 2018 and the start of 2019. So, we aren't at the two year mark. Though, something changed a few weeks back. Some other part of my/it came back online. It wasn't like a switch, exactly, it was close.

I absolutely remember the day that the voice in my head came back. It was there again one morning when I woke it. Prior to that, it was like it was almost gone, or, just speaking less and it was muted. When it came back, it came back with the proper volume. It was like the difference of hearing music from two rooms away and hearing it in headphones.

I don't know if I wrote about it the day it happened. I'm not sure if I was writing at that point.

Anyway, just wanted to put that in here so I've got a marker for the time around when it happened. Actually, I kinda know, cause it's when I first started writing The Click Sounds

So, a new Twitch live stream thing just happened. Someone just said hello in chat (hi there emirhan_4_3_3). It's taking my brain a second to adjust to that. Like, I'm streaming this live and I know people pop in from time to time, but this is the first time someone's said hi during a journal write. When I'm coding, it's a different thing.

It definitely changed things. Like, previous, I've completely forgotten that I'm streaming, but now I'm more aware of it. I expect that'll go away pretty quick, maybe? It's just that it's new. Or, maybe it won't go away since the hypothetica audience just because real.

Anyway, I was talking with one of my professor buddies about all the streaming I've been doing and a little about how I wasn't really sure how to describe it, or how to describe what I'm doing. He said, "it's like a performance art piece". And that clicked perfectly in my brain. He went on to say that this is basically an experiment to see what it's like to do private things in public.

Here's the discord exchange:

_SophisticSteveYesterday at 6:37 PM_

yea you are doing something experimental

like performance art in a way

It's an experiment where you are making a text for an audience that isn't adjusted at all for that audience, so I'd say it's some sort of experimental performance, or inquiry: What happens to typically private work when it's done publicly?

_TheIdOfAlanYesterday at 6:37 PM_

may run outta steam, but with all the remote stuff, it has a littel feel like a social thing.

_SophisticSteveYesterday at 6:37 PM_

yea for sure

gives you an audience to chat with

I think it's a great hobby

_TheIdOfAlanYesterday at 6:38 PM_

and, like, even if there's nobody talking it's still public.

_TheIdOfAlanYesterday at 6:38 PM_

maybe a coffee shop is a good analogy

_SophisticSteveYesterday at 6:38 PM_

I mean some theories would say the presence of the audience doesn't matter as much as your conception of who you are when you are imagining you are talking to an audience

you change what you are going to say because of that perspective to meet what you think they expect from you, in the way that you imagine they see you

it's very much like a house of mirrors

_TheIdOfAlanYesterday at 6:39 PM_

yeah, that's been going around my mind some.

_SophisticSteveYesterday at 6:39 PM_

the payoff is this leads you to new understandings wehther there's someone there or not

you are more able to quickly and efficiently address and articulate needs and problems because of it

or reach new understandings

just from he process

_TheIdOfAlanYesterday at 6:40 PM_

anotehr thing I'm just realizing is that I'm not worried about the "purity" of what I'm doing. LIke,, the entire thing is streaming. So, there's not some idea under there.

at least, not really

_SophisticSteveYesterday at 6:40 PM_

yea for sure

So, anyway, when I get a little apprehensive about doing this, I'm falling back to the idea that this is a performance art piece. I don't/won't always think of it like that, but with these journal entries, that's probably pretty close. Though, I guess that makes total sense. When I made the first one I thought it would just be something interesting to do. Like, something neat. I still balk a little at calling things I do art. It just feels pretentious most of the time.

But, whatever, this is just a thing that I'm doing.

Not because "it's there", or, even, really "because it's not there", though, I do like that, but just because it's a thing that I'm doing.

Anyway, that'll do it for now,

Y'all take care and be kind,

-a