Filling in the Blog Gaps to Cover Missing Days

For the most part, I have continued to be faithful in writing and posting daily blog articles.  Sometimes, though, a calendar day will come and go without any posted article from me.  But I have a way to get around that: backpost "yesterday's" article!  Which is exactly what I'm doing this morning.  The trick is for me to search my short-term memory for information I can write about, as if it were ongoing and not just something that happened the previous day.  "Officially", tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the 24th of December.  That's the date I'm posting this blog entry about filling in missing days with blog articles.  I looked up "back-posting" on Google and got answers related to crocheting, for all the good it did me.  Still, I fully intend to make use of this blogging ploy to fill in as many of my blogging gaps as possible.  Merry Christmas!

Signed Up to Run Marathon Race Next Month

I recently signed up to run the 26.2-mile marathon in an upcoming race, held in Hawthorne...or, more precisely, the outskirts thereof...a few miles southeast of Gainesville.  With the theme of cinnamon buns in mind (to be provided on race day by Panera Bread), it's called "Run Your Buns Off" and offers 5K, 10K, half-marathon and marathon choices...all to take place on the exact stretch of the woodsy-but-paved  Hawthorne Trail on which I ran the Florida Track Club's Mary Andrews half-marathon back in January.  If you read my article from back then, you'd note that I was originally going to sign up for their marathon instead, but they were stuck on capping finishing times for it at five hours...very elitist of them in my view.  So I'm going nearly three months later for essentially the same thing, although I'm not too enthusiastic as to the probably warmer and possibly wetter weather conditions come April 7th, when the race is scheduled to happen.  The course is about as basic as you could make it...unless you do what ultra-marathoner Dean Karnazes once did in his youth and run a marathon by going 105 laps around his high school track.  It's a four-cycle out and back, taking place on the same 3.27 mile stretch of trail...yawn.  Yet I do have an imagination, and my idea is to take whatever stage of the race I'm in and pretend that it's that same place in the New York City Marathon, which I've watched (and trained) to on YouTube many times to the point that I think I know the layout of some streets better than a lot of the natives there.  In any event, I see this race for me as an experiment as well as a fork in the road about what direction I will subsequently go with my running, as well as walking.  Should things work out as foreseen, this would be my second official marathon run, the other occurring back in 2011 and "highlighted" by me having to slowly walk its final seven miles while suffering from a very painful leg strain... 

Just Finished Reading Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte

Tiago Forte is a computer/IT expert with an interesting premise: that we all could use a "second", external brain, in which the incredible amount of detailed information we accumulate over the years is processed, prioritized, organized and arranged for easy access.  Forte believes that use of digitalized notetaking apps can greatly enhance the function of this all, although traditionally people have relied on notepads and other paper-based media...count me as one of them.  He expresses this in his 2022 book Building a Second Brain, which I just finished reading.  I agree with that premise of his, although his language is such that I felt as if Mr. Spock on Star Trek were feeding me a lot of incomprehensible gobbledygook without actual laying out specifics on how to maneuver around the often very arcane field of knowledge management, especially as it applies to using computer technology.  Forte also has a tendency to go heavy on acronyms...not a good way to endear me to his message. Still, I recognize that over the years I have been bombarded with information and memories, much of which is lost, deeply buried in my mental recesses without an effective means to retrieve it.  Fortunately, with some things...like my running record and list of books and short stories read...I have this very blog as an external memory device...and therefore an element of Forte's suggested "second brain": I just need to streamline the data and make the articles with all the info easy to access.  That's why I used yesterday's article to update my running race history: I plan to place links on each race entry to be able to quickly access the pertinent articles.  I plan to do the same with my reading list...that project is going to be much longer, though.  And there are some areas more personal and financial in nature, for which using a public blog is inappropriate, yet still demanding a better external organization of prioritized and retrievable information.  So, although the author's writing style, in my opinion, left a lot to be desired, his core message strongly resonates with me as I already see a strong need to better organize my personal information.  Thank you, Tiago Forte...

Podcaster Stresses Living in the Future Instead of the Past

Personal development coach Rob Dial has a successful podcast titled Mindset Mentor.  Four days a week he spends about 20 minutes on various topics relating to success, motivation and self-improvement.  On a recent show he discussed how too many people allow their pasts to dictate their present outlook and behavior, consequently holding them back from success.  Instead, he proposes that we project ourselves into the future...Dial suggests about 10 years ahead...and visualize the kind of person we want to become. Consequently, we would be tackling the kinds of life situations we are experiencing in the present based on that future vision of ourselves. In other words, get the brain to go into the future instead of the past when determining our actions.  This sounds a little counterintuitive to me, especially since the same podcaster has in past episodes stressed living in the present moment, with the past and future only representing abstractions instead of reality.  But it's a good habit to have a sense of direction in life and taking some time and effort to know what person I want to become.  James Clear's book Atomic Habits lays a similar foundation when he stresses "becoming" over "goals" as a guide for eliminating bad habits and growing into new ones.  For me, at age 65 I have a long span of memories that I can let negatively influence what I undertake now, and, yes, projecting myself into the future and letting that vision guide me sounds reasonable.  On the other hand, and Rob Dial acknowledges this to an extent, I didn't get to where I am today by dismissing my past experiences wholesale: memory is an important survival mechanism.  So, as with so many other things, this comes down to discernment and a sense of balance...