What I’m Doing Now #3
A 2-minute read
Cooking & Food
I’ve been hyper-focusing on Chinese cuisine lately when I cook. I’m genuinely enjoying learning about the eight major regional cuisines and the broader food culture; there’s something satisfying about understanding the logic behind different flavour profiles and cooking techniques rather than just following recipes blindly. If anyone has any suggestions for authentic recipes (books, websites, videos, anything), I’d be truly grateful if you shared.
Thinking & Writing
I’ve been thinking about culture and public morality for about a year now, engaging with research from various global perspectives alongside my own reasoning. I’ve only recently started to get a proper handle on what I actually think, as opposed to what I’ve inherited or absorbed uncritically, and I’ve been sharing some of this thinking through writing on the blog, and will likely continue doing so as my ideas solidify.
Health & Energy Management
I’ve been struggling with my health again this month, which has predictably led to reduced productivity. The pattern is familiar by now: I keep pushing through until I crash, then wonder why I’m unwell again. My spouse has been noticing this cycle for long enough to help me identify exactly what drains or restores my energy, so armed with their observations, I built a solution.
I created a PWA that gamifies my energy expenditure. It works like a status tracker in an RPG: I check off tasks throughout the day, each of which costs or provides a certain amount of stamina and health depending on whether it’s draining or restorative. I can set status effects—“poisoned” when I’m sick, “well rested” after good sleep—that modify my starting stamina, and if I go into stamina debt, the next day is penalised at one of three levels depending on how badly I overdrew. There’s also a mechanic that forces me to do resting activities before I can tackle certain demanding tasks, plus analytics showing where I most often crash.
It’s early days, but having external structure that won’t let me proceed until I rest is proving more effective than my usual approach of simply ignoring all warning signs. I guess I just needed a visual representation of my actual reserves to better manage my resources and condition.
Reading
I’ve been reading significantly more than usual and gaming less. Most of what I’m reading is on personal topics relevant to my life right now—things I’d rather not discuss publicly for now—so there’s not much to report here beyond the fact that I’m working through some dense books on related themes.
Recent Reading
Most of my current reading is on personal topics right now, as aforementioned. I’ll go back to my previous reading when I’ve worked through this topic enough to feel I have a decent handle on it.
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