Weeknotes 2023 W07: A bit of therapy

February 13​–​19, 2023
800 words

I had an initial therapy session earlier this week. I’ve had a few therapists in the past, but felt that — as you might’ve have guessed if you’ve been reading my past week­notes — it was time to give therapy another go.

The therapy session was insightful, but interestingly, I think therapy might not be the most useful for me right now. My struggles aren’t quite about me, but about the world around me.

I think I have a healthy and mature way of dealing with the situation. I’m making progress. Things are evolving!

I’m thinking of not setting up a second therapy session, and either waiting a bit — there’s no urgency — or looking for a coach. (Recommendations welcome, in case you have any.)

I’ve been reflecting more on loneliness, continuing from Week­notes 2023 W06: Loneliness, specifically on connectedness in the age of the Internet.

In a world where everyone is always online, always connected to everyone all the time, I found it too easy to default to exclusively one-on-one connections. The meet-new-people apps out there (the Tinder-likes) definitely encourage it. I find it unfulfilling, because it doesn’t help build and maintain communities.

The Internet has made us more lonely. It think it has been encouraging not-very-social behavior. What hasn’t helped is that tech has appropriated terms like “community,” which makes it harder to talk about these issues.

Back in the day I used to listen to the radio a lot. Especially the late-night programs dedicated to their own musical genres, which definitely shaped my taste in music. Knowing that you’re discovering music at the same time as a whole bunch of other people, created a unique sense of connectedness, even if you’re unaware who all these other people are.

Twitter Spaces had a similar vibe — until Elon Musk killed it. (I think it’s back now, but I don’t use Twitter anymore and I know few people who stuck around.)

Speaking of Twitter: I barely log in to Twitter anymore, but the last few times that I did, Elon Musk’s own tweets show up all the way at the top, even though I do not follow the dude.

What a fucking child.

I tweaked my site design slightly, with a bit more color, and a less centered layout. It’s left-aligned now, which I think works better and feels less empty and disconnected.

The colors of the site logo now use CSS variables too, which means that I can change the color scheme and the logo will adapt. It also means I can have a different version of the logo in dark mode and light mode.

For example, here’s a blue version of my site:

I’m sticking with the teal for now, though.

It’s unfortunately that the favicon (the icon that typically appears in tabs and bookmarks) can’t be parameterised with CSS variables.

I grabbed the Databases and Data Management by Pragmatic Humble book bundle. It has a couple of good books in it! I’m already learning about Prolog.

While re-listening to Laurent Garnier’s fantastic album Unreasonable Behaviour, I wondered whether I (and the rest of the world) got the lyrics for the track Greed wrong:

On the fast track of the net
I take all I can

But wait! It’s probably not “fast track,” but rather FastTrack. Here’s what Google says:

No results found for “on the FastTrack of the net”.

I think Google is wrong. Still, only Laurent can tell us the truth. (He’s not reading my week­notes.)

Entertainment:

Links:

Tech links:

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