My Duolingo streak is a lie, and other shameful thoughts
I really want to be a productive person. But I’m really dang tired. And recently I’ve been so tired I’ve done nothing other than play video games and watch YouTube videos. There’s nothing wrong with that, in small doses or large ones, as long as you’re happy, content with life, and able to do what you need and want to get done. But man, I haven’t gotten much of anything done these past few weeks.
When I posted my last article, I was excited to start writing once a week. I was gonna be diligent about it! Disciplined, even! I had topics lined up: plugins, retrieval-augmented generation, how ChatGPT is just a wrapper around a search engine, ChatGPT-generated code to exploit security flaws, Microsoft’s copilot announcements and technical details, new open-source frameworks, the nature of consciousness, GPT-Vision, so many things! They’re all just languishing in my drafts folder because I’ve been so dang tired.
Beyond my failure to write, I’ve been slacking a bit on the exercise front. I’ve gained a good 50 pounds these past 3 years, but since I was underweight before I’m now at the edge of a healthy weight. Not really a big deal, but it feels weird to feel my body jiggle as I walk. It’s probably not so good for my heart, either. My weight’s been stable for several months now, so I’m not too concerned, but I always figured losing weight would be easy. Ha! It’s not. I’m dumb.
And don’t even get me started on socialization! Sure, I’ve set up a board game night with my friends for this Friday, but outside of that I haven’t organized anything for weeks. Ugh! Planning is hard but I have such good friends and I barely even text them, I feel like I’m failing to take charge on such an easy and valuable part of life. I’m trying my bestest but I’ve been pretty dang tired.
And yeah, on Duolingo most days I just go to my mistakes, click “can’t speak now,” and complete the lesson in literally 5 seconds because my only mistakes are speaking ones. It’s cheating. I feel shame every time I do it. But I’d feel worse if my streak froze! I’m at nearly 600 days, technically, even though I’ve gotten two dozen frozen days and dozens more “cheat” days. Can you imagine the horror of losing a 600-day Duolingo streak! I can’t bear to imagine it!
It still feels good to write. Thank you for joining my pity party. I’m glad my life is so good that these are the biggest complaints I have. On days when I get more than 4 hours of good sleep (few and far between, recently), I wake up pretty dang happy to be building a Microsoft copilot, playing No Man’s Sky and House Flipper, and going for walks in the weirdly warm October that we’ve had this year. I’m still able to hang out with my little brother and play video games with my older brothers, and everyone in my family is happy and healthy. Life is going pretty dang well for me despite how dang tired I’ve been.
My biggest takeaway from this sleepless month is that you can’t substitute true value. That is, no amount of video games on sale will make you whole. Joy always, always comes from a balanced life, and we all have our own balances. But when you’re stuck in a rut, the way out isn’t to chill in your happy place of virtual spaceships or imaginary home renovations. You’ve got to see people, touch grass, take breaks, take care of yourself, and take deep breaths. Lots of deep breaths. Because life is hard. But life does not equal difficulty.
Edit October 28: Turns out I have two dozen frozen days, not one dozen.
