ok, time passes: how’s the “shutting off the noise” working?

well, it’s pretty ok. it was easier than I expected. I mostly just don’t go into a big loop of searching for information to soothe myself now, beyond just my emails and slack. arguably, I’m just satisfying the same urge with slightly different and less satisfying means, but it doesn’t last as long though, so that’s ok.
some days I don’t yell at cars. I do still play video games, because I hadn’t beat a20 with Defect yet. (now I have. it’s way easier than the Silent, I gotta say. but now I gotta get on the Watcher train!)
I log into twitter maybe once a day, usually when I have something to toot. I like it as a mostly-write-only medium.

I kinda want to know about good jokes from the McElroys, webcomics, and any good memes. (apparently now we’ve got problems clown? it’s pretty good.) But I feel like maybe I’m making a little progress towards something - or rather, I’m taking it on faith that maybe I’m making a little progress towards something. Ideally I’d be more attuned to feelings, and maybe kinder and more patient, because those seem like skills that could make life more pleasant. I realized recently that one of the most important skills in life seems to be the ability to understand and predict your feelings - then you just do the things that will make you feel good! (for some value of “good”, of course.)

(anyway, is all this working? who knows? this is frustrating - it’s hard for me to take things on faith! but otoh I’m not losing much. reading a bunch of webcomics and listening to a bunch of podcasts: I guess these were not providing as much value to my life as I thought.)