Yarmo - personal-development

My 2020s Christmas Gift Pledge

2021-12-16T11:22:57+00:00

Christmas and consumerism</h2>
Christmas in the 2020s = consumerism. You know it, I know it. I am not even going to give an introduction on the subject. Even the Pope has condemned the commercialization of Christmas.</p>
So, you're either here because you want to read the blog post, or you haven't received from me a Christmas gift that lives up to our society's norms, asked me "what gives?" and I sent you here.</p>

Me the Consumer</h2>
I live in a consumer society ergo I am a consumer. Be that as it may, I won't be your typical consumer though.</p>
I turn off the radio when ads come on. I look away from a TV screen during ad breaks. If I still see an ad of a product somewhere, I am instantly less prone to using it or recommending it.</p>
If I see a single billboard promoting some TV show, I'll instantly know the people behind it don't have enough faith in the show that it would organically grow an audience and thus feel the need to shove it down our throats instead. I'll pass on said show.</p>
I don't use Amazon. I condemn its use.</p>
I try and support local to the best of my abilities.</p>
Given all these idiosyncracies and more, you do not expect me to do Christmas like a well-behaving consumer, do you?</p>

Doing things differently</h2>
So I want to write a pledge, a set of rules to live by and guide me through the yearly burden that is Christmas, so that whenever I am in doubt about a gift-related decision, I can just read the pledge and know what to do.</p>
I want to make the pledge last a decade so that I won't stray from my convictions and my rejection of consumerism. I can abandon the pledge in the future but that would require me to write a new one, forcing me to re-evaluate everything in the current pledge.</p>
I also don't expect Christmas to become less commercial any time soon so I'll need this pledge for the foreseeable future anyway.</p>
I want to make my pledge public so that I can send people to it whenever my gift-related decisions are being questioned.</p>

Message to Future Me</h2>
Future Me, if you're here because peer pressure is causing you to doubt the pledge, don't. Just don't.
— 2021 Me</p>

The Pledge on Giving Gifts</h2>
My gifts will not be bought if possible. I will attempt to make something personalized, thoughtful and unique using my hands. It can be big, small, silly, helpful.</p>
My gifts are disposable. Receiving a gift is a burden, therefore no hard feelings if you decide to get rid of it.</p>
My gifts can be ephemeral. I'd rather show you my appreciation of our personal connection by spending quality time together than giving you something. An experience is worth more than an object.</p>
The rules above aren't always suitable or desirable depending on the receiver. In case a gift is bought:</p>
My gifts will not contain plastic. If unavoidable, it will contain minimal plastic wrapping. Objects made entirely of plastic are a no-no. The only exception: custom-made items containing plastic from a 3D printer (while still plastic, it wasn't mass-produced).</p>
My gifts will not be tech, especially surveillance technology. The only exception: something I built myself using an arduino or a single-board-computer like a raspberry pi.</p>
My gifts will never be obtained through Amazon. Some underpaid Amazon worker would have needed to work extra shifts and pee in a bottle to make sure the gift arrives on time. No gift of mine will ever require corporation-organized slavery to be given. Or, for that matter, any slavery of any kind.</p>

The Pledge on Receiving Gifts</h2>
I do not wish to receive bought gifts. Let's hang out for a bit and do something we both enjoy. If you truly feel an urge to give something tangible, write a poem, make a drawing, bake cookies, print out a picture of us and put it in a (non-plastic) frame.</p>
Evidently, this isn't always a realistic expectation. So, a few more guidelines:</p>
I will most likely be polite and accept a bought gift but please do not take it as a given that I will use the gift or, for that matter, keep it. It will depend. One of my ambitions this decade is to live smaller and possess less. Receiving stuff I don't want or need is counterproductive to said ambition.</p>
An exception: surveillance technology. Any gift made by Big Tech that contains microphones, cameras or other tracking capabilities will be unceremoniously rejected on the spot.</p>
Another exception: anything that goes against any of my convictions. Think objects made entirely out of plastic, objects that could cause pollution or waste of resources, objects made through corporation-organized slavery.</p>
If a gift was obtained through Amazon, you and I are going to have a chat.</p>

Conclusion</h2>
Hope you enjoyed the read and—if you know me personally—better understand how I think about Christmas and act when it comes to gifts.</p>

A personal transformation

2021-05-02T15:19:55+00:00

I'd like to share a few insights I gained during the last few months.</p>

What happened</h2>
First, a bit of background. For a while now, I have been feeling unproductive and unsure how to improve the situation.</p>
That's it, really. Whether it's adapting to a post-academia lifestyle or learning to work from home, I knew I was doing something wrong. I could spend days waiting for my head to clear up, then start working again to finally notice after a few days that my head was foggy once more.</p>
The frustrating part was that I knew how to be productive. For a little over four years, academia pushed me up to (and beyond) the limit of my mental capacity for working.</p>
I knew the post-academia recovery was still ongoing, but I felt that didn't explain the whole picture. I lacked understanding of what was going on, so I started making a few changes of my own and educating myself. The Dunning-Kruger effect was not going to keep me in my state of ignorance.</p>

My own changes</h2>
I picked up intensive bullet journaling again. While this saved my mental health during my PhD, it did little for my post-PhD predicament. Apparently, the problem was deeper than simply freeing my head from the burden of remembering stuff.</p>
I picked up more hobbies but found myself more often feeling guilty of giving in to those hobbies rather than spending time on what I wanted to do: being productive.</p>
It was also during this phase of exploring possible actions that I formulated a wish: I wanted to go abroad for a month or two to a quiet location, take nothing but a bunch of clothes and my Thinkpad X201i and just start hammering away on the keys. To my frustration, I could not provide arguments as to why I was yearning for this. I got no further than "fully reset my lifestyle, go back to basic, build a new method and take those lessons back home". It sounds reasonable but, well, knowing what I know now…</p>
I scouted for a few locations where I already knew some people but a wish it remained. The pandemic. Safety above all.</p>
And in the midst of fearing my situation was lightyears away from improving, I stumbled upon two little words on some small personal blog, a drop of wisdom easily overlooked in a vast knowledge-overloaded internet.</p>

Educating myself</h2>
I had started reading a few books but so far none had resonated with me—none, until that one book. I was reading a blog post when I got puzzled by a couple of words (paraphrasing because I lost the link to the post):</p>

[...] compatible with the concept of deep work</strong>, [...]</p> </blockquote>
Thank all the deities for being it precisely those two words that my brain decided to fixate on! A quick non-google search later and I found the book the words were referring to: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World</strong> by Cal Newport. A DRM-free purchase later and I started my read.</p>
It was after barely a few pages that I decided to not go the same route as with the other books by reading a chapter every day and steadily progress through the book—I am generally a very slow reader. No, instinct told me stop all the work I was doing and completely focus all my attention on this book.</p>
The reason for this was simple: the book almost directly begins with talking about people choosing to travel to remote locations to help them become productive. I suddenly realized this book might actually articulate the arguments I couldn't when I was planning my wishful trip.</p>
It still took me a couple of days, spending time inbetween chapters to think and re-reading a few chapters. But I came out of the isolation a changed person.</p>
Deep Work</h2>
Let's make something clear, I am not here to sell you this book. As the other books didn't work for me, this one might not for you. I am not here to tell you how to fix your productivity, I am simply stating a few steps that have worked for me so far.</p>
The book goes on to explain how important it is to work without distractions. And, as the book correctly predicted, my reaction was:</p>

Well, that doesn't really apply to me.</p> </blockquote>
A statement which I somewhat still stand by. When I worked, I did not have my phone with me. Depending on the work I was doing, I would put on some music or a stream, but would turn that off if my brain needed the extra focus. So, I was already golden, right?</p>
Not only could I improve my handling of distractions and planning of work, the book filled in some large gaps in my understanding of how work works. I will point out two of those wisdom potholes that the book has generously filled.</p>
Types of work</h2>
Not all work is created equal. Somehow, I had never stopped to consider this and use this factoid to my advantage. While I often found myself torn between programming and responding to issues, I never considered these two activities are not equal and therefore, I should not choose between them. There is a time for programming (deep work) and there is a time for responding to issues (shallow work). Shallow work is not "dumb work", it just requires my head to be in a different state than it needs to be when programming.</p>
Quantity of deep work hours</h2>
My biggest revelation, the one that truly convinced me of the logic put forth in the book and the one that triggered all that followed was this (paraphrasing for brevity):</p>

The most productive people in the world have roughly four hours</strong> of deep work every day, rarely more.</p> </blockquote>
This, I did not understand. I immediately started mentioning it to people around me and they said "yeah, makes sense". I refused the notion that this made sense. How do you get stuff done with only four hours?</p>
My take-away</h2>
Anyway, long story short: not all work is created equal and be mindful about the deep work. Once I got these concepts in my head, my situation improved drastically within days. </p>
Out with the old "as long as I am not tired, I can work a little longer" and in with the careful planning of my days around deep work hours.</p>
I will sit down every morning with my bullet journal, draw a timeline and start planning an ideal day around the work that needs to happen, making sure that both the shallow works gets dedicated time, and the deep work hours are spaced with sufficient breaks. I get annoyed when I find myself working a few minutes longer and stealing precious minutes of mental rest.</p>
I have even ignored my planning a few times to force work ahead of a deadline, only to notice the next day I was feeling significantly more foggy-headed and unable to work deep. Bad me! At least, I now know what went wrong and how I can improve it.</p>
Note about distractions</h2>
To deal with distractions, I took two drastic steps right after finishing the book's last page: no more fediverse, and only use messaging apps between 9:00-10:00 and 17:00-18:00. This helped tremendously in my quest for productivity!</p>
With regards to messaging apps: I still roughly follow this pattern. On resting days, I will allow a bit more "connected" time (helpful with family across multiple countries).</p>
With regards to fediverse: I have noticed that it's a part of my life that I am beginning to miss, because (most of the time) it generated a pleasant distraction and even connection. I have had truly meaningful interactions on the fediverse. I have even received messages from a few concerned netizens that noticed and were worried about my sudden online disappearance, something that I have appreciated a bunch! So now, I am slowly returning to the fediverse, aware of the negative side of distraction, and whole-heartedly embracing its benefits.</p>
Thanks for reading, here's to hoping it may help another wandering soul.</p>

A PhD Post-Mortem

2019-12-08T21:02:14+00:00

This is one of those stories that starts with an ending.</p>
As of January 1st 2020, a new challenge awaits for me, a new life. Because my university/academic journey will be completed. In 2010, I set out on a path that would lead me from a biology bachelor degree to a neuroscience master degree and would culminate in a four years PhD program and result in a thesis and doctorate degree to end the journey with a bang. From there, the world would have been my oyster.</p>
That journey was traveled as planned.</p>
Except.</p>
After investing a little over four years in my PhD project, I must end this leg of the trip without achieving its ultimate goal, obtaining the doctorate degree, leaving the past nine years open-ended, unrewarded, uncelebrated.</p>
This post is not vindictive in nature. In the two weeks since making my decision to end my PhD project, mere weeks before the end of the contract, I have had plenty of time to come to terms with the circumstances, to accept what has happened. At the end of the day, I burdened myself with the responsibility of taking on a PhD project, therefore the eventual outcome of said project, however positive or negative, is the product of my actions and my actions alone. Any setback can be met with positive attitude and forward thinking.</p>
This post is also not a cry for attention. That is not who I am. As a matter of fact, the old pre-PhD me would not have written this post. As hard as I'm trying, I find it difficult to figure what pre-PhD me would have done in this situation nor will I be able to, as I've changed. I have changed in ways I could not have predicted four years ago.</p>
This post is ultimately about opening the discussion on one of the big topics people within higher education do not like to talk about: mental health.</p>
I want to talk about mental health. Though not as severe as with other people I've talked to, I now have first-hand experience in dealing with a sinking ship and have felt the psychological toll that it takes. I can no longer look at fellow graduate students without wondering: are they suffering?</p>
This is my call to action.</p>
The first years</h2>
The project started off pretty slowly, a lot of administrative tasks impeded experimentation. I spent time familiarizing myself with the environment, learned the workings of the existing codebase and other similar tasks. The first major setback was a slow cooker: the protocol describing the activities I was supposed to do needed to be approved by internal committees. This. Took. So. Long. If I had known then that the approval would come after over two and a half full years...</p>
Waiting for approval of my protocol, I spent time learning the experiments, repeating it over and over so that when it would matter, I could eliminate myself as a factor of uncertainty. This process was far less innocent than it seemed. While my protocol was set in a scientific frame and had set goals, the experiments I was performing at first had no higher purpose other than serve as practice. As I grew more comfortable with the experiment and the protocol approval continued to be delayed, I, along with my supervisors, started looking at small results and enjoying minor victories. Sure, I wasn't allowed to yet do what I desperately wanted to, a number of experiments showed an unexpected and promising effect and I spent a few more experiments trying to understand it.</p>
At the time, this felt exciting. I discovered stuff!</p>
That's not what happened. These findings were not sought, they were stumbled upon. And after a couple more experiments, all failing to further our understanding of the observations, the ideas were dropped as fast as a new effect was found and more time was sunk into trying to figure that one out.</p>
And after that observation lead to nothing, there was another one.</p>
And another one.</p>
I failed to see what was happening: I was chasing shiny things. The reason there is a protocol is to keep you focused. It provides a framework in which you work. It asks a question that will be satisfied by any answer, as long as this answer is obtained using the methodology prescribed by the protocol.</p>
The solution would have been simple: write a different protocol with a simpler question. Set the framework. Gather the evidence.</p>
I did not have this wisdom.</p>
The latter years</h2>
I remember the day I received the email approving the protocol. I am not able to describe the feeling of futility that overcame me. There I was, now allowed to do the things I came here to do, but knowing full well there was no longer time to set up the experiments. My project was set to answer a forty year old question. Instead, I was chasing new shiny things, grasping for any finding that could provide meaning to my presence.</p>
For a while, the project seemed on track, I spent almost a year and a half investigating an interesting effect I observed, a shiny new thing more promising than all that came before. Yet, a shiny new thing nonetheless. Luck struck again: the interesting effect turned out to be an experimental artifact, and though I have been able to 100% confirm this, those nine months worth of data were thrown in the bin.</p>
As a little disclaimer: we had been suspicious it could have been an artifact but there was, and still is, no proper way to test this.</p>
Anyhow, in the third year, amidst all of this chaos, the effects of stress and impending doom were starting to take their toll. Fun routines became less fun. Joyful events inspired less joy. I became more isolated, first in the working environment, later in my personal life.</p>
It was during one of the more difficult periods of my PhD project that happened the most happy event: meeting my girlfriend. I felt particularly down in the days leading up to when we bumped into each other, and meeting her had an immediate positive effect on me. It gave me a reason to wake up and do something, it gave me the spirit to keep the fight going, finish the project and claim the reward.</p>
It was only a matter of time before stress caught up again. Experiments failed, stuff got delayed. The question shifted from "what is needed to finish this project" to "is there even a way to finish it at all". The last year was a race against the clock and against the requirements to hand in a thesis. Published articles were needed. More experiments were needed. Did we just throw away nine months of data? Cool, let's replace it with something new. Frustrations between my supervisors and me grew and created more stress. Weekends were spent sitting on the couch and adjusted to avoid all mental activity. Hobbies vanished. I no longer was the same cheerful person to be around anymore, and though I will always admire the strength of my then-girlfriend to put up with what she put up with, that relationship unfortunately also did not outlast the strain the project put on me.</p>
A little over a month before the end of my contract, after four years and two months of work, I had to call it. The project was dead. There were still escape routes to make something out of the project but I had to decline. My body declined. My brain declined.</p>
This was about two weeks ago, and I am only just writing this now as I've spent almost the entire time incapable of thinking. I had to accept what was happening, I had to make peace with the fact that I spent my entire being on this project, it had cost me happiness, laughter and a relationship, and all in all, it was just to quit right before the end.</p>
Science and me</h2>
The scientific world is not for me. Perhaps a different project could have stimulated me in a better way and aspired me to become the scientist I always dreamed of becoming. But somewhere in the last four years, I realized this was not the dream for me. Knowing that obtaining a PhD was no longer vital to my career, I persisted in my efforts to finish the job as it was my way of concluding in a satisfactory manner my nine years of studying biology, neuroscience and how to become a scientist.</p>
Mental health and me</h2>
I wanted to finish the PhD just for me, just for my own satisfaction but in the end, I too was the reason I could not. I was becoming more susceptible to the seasonal illnesses every year, the first few days of holidays were spent working through a persistent headache. I no longer spent time on my hobbies and less and less time behind my piano. Programming, my true passion, had become a chore. And perhaps worst of all, the love for science was gone.</p>
Final words</h2>
So, there it is. Ending in a few more weeks, I am now working to leave the project in a suitable state as well as writing to publish one scientific article. I tried to avoid thinking too much about the future as it would only distract me from my already attention-demanding present, but the time for planning has now come. Leaving a whole lot behind, I have so much to gain.</p>
But I will not simply forget about it all. I can not. The environment I worked in during the last few years did not inspire me to come forward about what was happening in my head. Much like a real-life Instagram, the scientific community celebrates success and disguises, or even denies, failure. Words embellish mistakes and misfortune. Posters filled with colorful graphs hide the hardships and perils experienced by an entire generation of upcoming scientists trying to make it in a world that does not welcome them. It inspires fraudulent behavior. The stories I've heard, from PhDs to PIs, from students to technicians.</p>
Come forward. Talk, and you will find people to listen. I know there is an entire population out there of people suffering through their academic career. You are not alone. Let's discuss this. I would like to talk to you.</p>
#mentalhealth</p>
The fediverse is a social network promoting free speech and provides a safe environment to find people in similar situations and have meaningful conversations. You'll find me there, @yarmo@fosstodon.org</a>. Let's talk.</p>

Yarmo - personal-development

My 2020s Christmas Gift Pledge

Message to Future Me</h2> Future Me, if you're here because peer pressure is causing you to doubt the pledge, don't. Just don't. — 2021 Me</p>

Conclusion</h2> Hope you enjoyed the read and—if you know me personally—better understand how I think about Christmas and act when it comes to gifts.</p>

A personal transformation

A PhD Post-Mortem

Message to Future Me</h2>
Future Me, if you're here because peer pressure is causing you to doubt the pledge, don't. Just don't.
— 2021 Me</p>

Conclusion</h2>
Hope you enjoyed the read and—if you know me personally—better understand how I think about Christmas and act when it comes to gifts.</p>