NirodhaAvidya

In the universe I’m originally from she’s clad in shiny vinyl (yes, please) and her name was Beckinsdale.

I just wish I had the self-awareness and self-control in these moments to choose being authentic. But, alas, I am not in charge. I’m Maggie Simpson pretending she’s steering the car while Marge is actually in control. Honk honk

Yes. I have my Obsidian vaults in a synced folder. There’s a subscription option available from Obsidian for $5 but Syncthing does this just fine. Plus I get a little version control benefit from Syncthing as well. I use one vault for personal notes and another vault for TTRPG notes.

Sounds like my use case except I use Obsidian.

Easily one of the most integral and convenient pieces of software in my use. I’ve got six machines syncing up in various degrees: desktop, laptop, Android, ereader, media server, and laser controller. It along with Tailscale are among first things I install. I’m hoping version 2.0 is as stable as 1 has been. The only trouble I’ve ever had out of was when I was syncing something in my local cloud directory.

Chortle

What did you used to find stimulating?

Subtle

“You are under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago” - Alan Watts

This one is a bit hard-won for me. You see I used to be an asshole. It was my brand. I thought “it’s just in my nature”.

Fortunately, I was also a student of religion (mostly because I was a militant atheist. Know your enemy and all that). Studying Buddhism, I began to observe the nature of self. I found enough distance from it to see its transient nature.

I realized being an asshole was a choice and I could just as easily choose otherwise. Soon I began to discover this was true of most character traits.

I’m not saying you don’t have consistent patterns of behavior. I’ll hopefully always be curious and analytical. But for the most part, the way you conduct yourself and where you focus your attention is a choice.

So, if you’re not happy with who you are maybe don’t be so attached to the idea of 'who you are". And if that seems hard, observe what you pay your attention to and try to find the distance between observation and behavior. In that gap lies the choice you make, consciously or not, to be “you”.