I can’t sleep so I guess the stream of consciousness starts now.

On the one hand, I don’t want to be materialistic. On the other hand, I like nice things. I want to make money. I want to make a lot of money. But I don’t want to be anxious about making money. I want nice things. But I don’t want to be so self-absorbed. I want to get paid big tech money, but I don’t want to work for big tech.

I’m so conflicted about her. Stream of consciousness this is going to be messy. She was right. There was something off. I stopped putting effort in. But I stopped doing that for so many things. As if, idk, like I only had so much effort to put into things.

But when I turn up the effort, I become more anxious. More neurotic. When I turn it down, I become happier. More relaxed. But I do less. I’m more content, so I plan less. I don’t need anything.

What do I miss? What about her? What about the times we were together? We enjoyed life together. We did things. But I was anxious. Neurotic. I wasn’t happy. Always stressed about finding the right place to eat food or the right place to travel or the right things to do.

I suppose the answer is to find a happy medium. Sure.

But if I turn down the effort, well, it’s hard to turn it on. I don’t know. Low effort has served me well at work.

But we slipped into a hole together. I slipped first, when I took a year off. It was too much to handle. It was at a time where there was high effort, and I got older so it felt like the stakes were higher.

Why do I avoid the side project? Do I know it’s not going anywhere? Or do I just feel burnt out by it? Need to start again in small waves. Numpy only.

I got stressed. I stopped putting effort into anything else besides that one thing. Then after that I only put effort into living a normal life. Idk. Bare minimum to satisfy the constraints.

Even if I go back to the whole on-top-of-life me, she won’t trust that I won’t crash and burn again. I’ve been burning out since high school. At least now I know how to deal with it, what to do and not do.

On-top-of-life me, that sounds nice, but that me is so materialistic. So self-serving. But also, revere beach is depressing. What if those people were on top of life?

I don’t know. I’ve been living my life in three year phases. Rise, plateau, fall.