I woke up late, at 10:00am. I had trouble sleeping last night, simply from the siesta I had in the afternoon. Many dreams were had, among them one in which I was in a lab with a researcher who handed me a VR set.
He instructed me to go outside unto the street, and with the headset on I would experience a sort of themed/skinned reality in realtime, but with a slight delay. This was originally a technological constraint (lag), but they wanted to investigate the intentional binding phenomena. I put on the headset and went outside, and was quite amazed at how real everything seemed. The streets were empty and I worried about bumping into someone inside reality, so I was going quite slow, experiencing some lag between my movements and what happened in VR. After some time of this I grew anxious (like when you walk with your eyes closed) so I stripped off the VR headset and saw that it was simply transparent, like a diving mask. I felt duped but then I understood the study was about inducing the sensation of lag in reality.
The last laugh was had by the mind, which simulated all of this.
I made it to the library 10 minutes before the time I arrived yesterday, at 10:50am. This was not my idea of "earlier" but the fact that I was able to quickly have breakfast and not lose much time made me notice it takes me longer than necessary to get prepared. So my goal is not be waking up earlier, it arriving to the library closer to the opening hour.
I worked during two hours, deeply concentrated, and it was a throughly enjoyable experience. I didn't have internet (the reason is irrelevant), so I instead of checking the API documentation online, I relied on Web Inspector's autocomplete to figure it out. I may try this out more to see if the lack of internet may be a boost to concentration.
I felt hungry and came back home for lunch, then had a brief nap, and got back to work from home. I noticed a certain layout problem which would be tremendously difficult to work through, and started seeking for less time consuming alternatives. I had an idea in mind, and after two hours of working I had it implemented, but it looked terrible! I was deflated and wondered if I should call it a day. But what I would do now? I would have to go to the gym, since I've been putting it off under the excuse that I'm busy at work.
I had a great workout and came back home cheerful. Why did I deflate from not achieving what I had in mind in just two hours? "The activity itself is the reward, don't attach to the results" I thought. And I remembered my mantra when I don't want to exercise: I will do it simply because it makes me feel better afterwards. This should be my mantra for work too: "I will focus because it makes me feel better afterwards". Losing oneself in any activity has that virtue.
I then went to a monthly event called "Encuentros con lo sutil" (encounters with the subtle realm) where they usually have conferences on new agey topics, but this time there was a practical approach to the topic at hand: dance therapy. And so they made space in the auditorium for some 70 people to dance. It's been a year since I've done this kind of work, but it was exhilarating and was able to once again lose myself in work.