Journal - 2025

First slip, but I think thats allowed on a birthday weekend. Went for an adventure in London with a good friend of mine, hit up a trendy pizza place then wandered through london. Found ourselves, by chance, at pretty much the only Grateful Dead London landmark, Grovesnor Square. There was, as it happens, a nip to the air. We eventually made our way to a cheap little pub and posted up for a while. On my bday proper I spent the morning chilling and playing some video games, and spent the afternoon at a friends house hanging out. I watched Del Toro's Pinnochio, really one of the best animated films ever made and an incredibly intelligent adaption.

This week I'm pretty busy with various training courses, but I've also got tickets to go see Nosferatu, and to hit up Entheon. This is an immersive expereience by Alex and Allyson Grey, who are deeply influenced by their use of psychedelics. Looks like a pretty heady time. I dont have as long to write today, gotta head off to the training, but will be back tomorrow!

3rd January

I see the year sprawl out infront of me, this little fraction of it not even a percentage. The thought not to do this today crossed my mind, but it's sheer audacity drove me here straight away. Usually it wouldn't be quite so malicious and I'd simply forget, but it got to the point where I was just looking to do other things instead. I'm feeling a little anhedonic this evening, not quite sure what to do with myself. I wanna watch a movie, but not the foggiest idea what. I've haven't been too cinematic lately, I'm feeling overdistracted. I think I need to spend some time creating instead of consuming, having grown a kind of insatibleness for content after a little too much winter indulgence, and a side helping of a lack of b12. Tackling these things head on is the first step in the year.

I forgot to check the time as I started, but I guess it's been about five mins. I want to get some papers published this year, I need to shape up my paper about Fennario and I need to solidify a paper about the Dead's use of the Murder Ballad. I had great fun reseaching that section, and always feel my most academic when I'm getting stuck into 150 year old newspapers to find out the grizzly details, and the perspective at the time. Alongside this I wanna attend a conference, and hopefully secure a bursary or two. Maybe I should just churn out some dead memes for the instagram page, it's a little stuffy at the moment. Social media sucks.

I made it to the gym fairly easily this morning but still don't feel to confident in what to do. I ran out of ideas a little faster than I planned and ended up heading hom a bit early. I should really plan the night before instead of trying to ad lib something I don't really know anything about. Who woulda thought. I'll try to be a little more prepared tomorrow. I don't set alarms, and have been waking up a little later, which has led to slightly more people in the gym than I'd like as well. I find puffing and sweating ruins my vibe a little. Hopefully I'll find myself awake a little earlier tomorrow.

I got my hands on a diary, which will make coordinating my chaos hopefully a little easier, as well as planning and tracking workouts. This may represent the backbone of the organisational drive. The diary also counts down the number of days left in the year, which to me seems a little masochistic, but maybe it'll help conceptualise it a little. What do i know? I'm naturally the opposite of that dead lyric "I see you've got your list out..", but it's all about duality and we gotta reach understanding with our opposites, so let's see where indulging some lists can take us.

Tomorrow I'll gym early, and then head into town to eat some pizza a little later on. I wanna see Nosferatu as well, so let's see what happens!

2nd January

Second day, off we go. Building good habits for me often feels like when you're first learning to ride a bike; it's all going fine until you start thinking about it, at which point the wheels promptly fall off. I still haven't really learnt how to avoid that, but I hope to start this year. Managed the gym this morning, although it's the most reluctant I've felt so far. I got a cool new gym shirt some hopefully that will help tomorrow. I really want to get my hands on some tie dye gymwear top help spice up the early morning gym runs. It doesn't seem like there's a huge market for that though. I've also been clocking how often I go to check my phone, which all too often turns into a doom scrool of some form, so I'm trying to get on top of that. I think I'm probably on twice or three times already this article. Gotta get a handle on general negative compulsions that have become fairly thoughtless.

I was reading the letters between Hunter and Mckenna about their psychedelic experiences and noticed Hunter metion his memoirs, which I don't think we've seen. I'd love to get stuck into his even more personal thoughts than those he expressed online in the days of the early internet. His openness then was remarkable still. (checks for phone, in vain as it's now out of reach). After the gym I made a good dent in the Lame Deer book which is a lot of fun, before returning some library books and searching for some at the very least mildly interesting gym wear. It took a while. This afternoon I practiced some guthrie tunes, and read a little more. I'm hoping to watch Del Toro's Pinnochio later on today. (got distracted, went to call someone, got phone, caught self, returned). I love the metaphyscial spin he puts on the story and it's mystical elements elevate it so much for me. I actually saw the premiere when it aired at the London Film Festival a couple of years ago. Still one of my favourite cinema experiences.

I've got a good app for tracking my new habit focused approach, which includes working out, reading, meditating and writing this. (nearly got me to check the app there). I'm gonna start leaving my phone in another room most of the day I think, if I'm at a computer it's not like I actually need it for anything. Half an hour seems a little longer than yesterday. I also guess I feel a little beholden to a sense of remaining interesting incase anyone is tuned in.

Last year I quit nicotine, and I hope this year to continue that whittling of bad habits that it's so easy to build up. Gotta stay on top on the daily things and the more long term things will fall into place. After my birthday on the weekend I'll add half an hour mandatory thesis writing as well, perhaps starting a concurrent third chapter to try and break my slight deadlock with it. That should bear furit fairly quickly. Anyway I gotta go eat, I hope everyone is learning their lessons gently too!

1st January

Okay, fresh start. Happy New Year! I wanna try more earnestly to do this journaling thing, and every day as well. Yesterday I met an old friend while visiting a mutual friends baby, and he told me about his journalling habits. Half an hour every day, for the whole year. Later I saw his stack of notebooks on instagram and decided to recommit here. I dunno if half an hour is a reasonable goal, especially considering the public forum, so maybe Ill try and do ten or fifteen minutes. I did also forget this new goal until 7pm, so don't trust me one bit. I've always stuggled building habits of any kind and find routine fraustrating but I think it's holding me back a little bit. With this in mind, I've signed up to the gym. PhD has given me dad bod and random pains. My last job was pretty active and I've not replaced that with anything for the last year and a bit, so it's high time to restore some balnce on that front. Four times a week is maybe the goal to start with, and working up to five one it's well established.

I just cut off all my hair, and donated it, and Billy Strings replied to my IG story about it. That was all pretty cool, and honestly the new trim is an upgrade. Hopefully representative of this slightly new and more disciplined approach. I'm gonna get a diary, to help track workouts and to support it. 2025 is the year I stop letting ADHD run the joint, at least that's how I feel about it today. I wanna increase my spirtual reading as well. On my reading list for Janurary are a text called "North American Indian Mythology" by Cottie Burland, a cool textbook from the 60s, as well as "The Ladder of Perfection" by Walter Hilton and "Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions". Hilton is a 14th Century Christian mystic, while Lame Deer is a Lakota Wicasa Wakan, a shaman. This section of vigour is inspired by a particualy mystical experience I had while meditating yesterday morning. We've got some investigating to do for sure. I'm looking forward to it.

I got distracted a couple of times writing this with various researched and doom scrolls, but I'm gonna build a bit of a longer spirtual reading list. Maybe revamp the reading list page itself. Anyway, it's been half an hour! Maybe this is doable.

P.S. I'm just gonna type this all into the html so typos and horrible mispellings are to be expected.