StreamOf.me

On winter solstice I had my personal "new-year" and I started an experimental journal of self. My motivation was to see if my experiences and awareness change through the type of journaling that I do. Will tallying the days that I glimpse the moon, counting the number of bird species spotted, or writing a cinquain enable a more present self, a more meditative state, or a different self-awareness? My hypothesis is yes.

What is the mathematics of self and how does observing, hypothesizing, and experimenting change you?

Let's jump into the details of what I've been doing, what I've observed, how I have done it and where I am going.

Birds

• What I track
  • Every day I note how many bird species I see
  • A small note on location (most are "BY" or Backyard).
• What I've observed
  • At first new species were daily, but now it's a big day when I get to add a bird for this year.
  • The days I see many birds are the days that I am more present - it means I am looking up.
  • By knowing I am counting birds, I look out the window more often and pick the right spots to walk
  • Listening for birds while sitting in nature is meditation. It is labeling sounds and being in the space awareness of thought, no thought, and the simplicity of noting: Townsend, Ruby-crowned, Ruby-crowned, Crow, Mallard, Ruby-crowned...
• How I track and where I am going:
  • While I'm out and about I just keep a temporary note on my phone for the day. (Merlin is great for confirmation with sounds if I am unsure.)
• I update a Numbers spreadsheet at night by throwing a 1 if a bird is seen or adding a row for a new bird.
• I hope to create some visuals with this data of me at some point, but am still pondering how I want to do this.

Distance

• What I track
  • I note the distance traveled on foot (running/walking)
  • I add notes or thoughts from my time on foot
• What I've observed
  • By tracking my distance I have seen a slight increase in the distance I have covered on my health tracking, but not a ton.
  • Reflecting on my thoughts while walking has been beneficial before bed. It calls to memory the beauty of my day.
• How I track and where I am going:
  • In the same Numbers file I note my distances and notes.
  • I use a color to show my distance on a 19x19 grid with 4 extra days. (This is done with a ton of CSS using each 0.1km as a different color.)
    • 19 is the largest square number that fits in 365
  • I plan to look for patterns as I go, but nothing yet.

Tallies

• What I track
  • Instead of streaks and stress, I wanted to just note the days in a tally that I glimpse the moon, am aware the sun is rising, play music, talk to a tree, take time to stretch (I have a yin yoga practice).
• What I've observed
  • I feel like tallies are the way to go for me. There is no guilt or hamster-wheel pressure to maintain streaks.
  • By noting that I am aware, and that is all.
  • By knowing that I am noting, I make time for these things sometimes when I might not have otherwise.
    • When I get up in the middle of the night - I open the curtain a crack and glimpse the moon
    • I am more aware of the sunrise getting earlier and when the perihelion occurred.
• How I track and where I am going:
  • I note my tallies in the same Numbers file
  • I use a font to tally where each letter in the font is a symbol for this page. (music is n-p, stretch is a-o, sunrise is S,V,or T, etc)
  • I don't plan to do more than I am doing at this point. I may change what I tally in a following year, but I'm not there yet.
    
    

Cinquains

• What I do
  • I write a daily cinquain
• What I've observed
  • I am finding that by knowing I will write a poem at the end of the day, I note my poetic thoughts throughout the day. (this also happened in a previous haiku project)
  • Cinquains have been harder for me to get into and I have had to adjust some of my flow to find my way with this form.
• How I track and where I am going:
  • These are in my Numbers file
  • I may do a form of oulipo eventually with these
  • I may change the form of poetry yearly

Micro

This is exactly as it sounds - just a micro blog. I try to post a picture, thought, or what I did each day in a sentence or two.

Icons

These only happen as I feel the need to make a new one. They are black and white icons for touch grass, balance, gather yourself, and other such notions.

Other Features

Because this is an experiment, I have added some features that may be temporary.

• I have added a couple of small buttons for Genuary sketches that make a grid of hourly tiles and then take you to the actual sketch (there are two of them on the site).
• I have a button for a mandala of shovelers at the bottom of my birds page.
• I just started a "secret" stickers feed - you have to use an rss reader or grab links from the feed to get them. (https://www.streamof.me/feed/ - this is not a website.)
  • I plan to make a sticker for every bird seen (I started with the Acorn Woodpecker)

Implementation

• Everything is in a Numbers file for my tracking.
• By keeping it in spreadsheets I am able to note birds or poetry from my phone and I love having it local first.
• Some of the additional features are just thrown in when I feel like it.
• I thought about having a listener look for changes in my Numbers file and then committing, but I like the process of committing my journal at the end of the day.
• I run a python script to update any HTML once I am done logging and commit to git
• It is deployed as a GitHub page.
• I would say that running the script and committing take less than 2 minutes.
• Most of my time is spent writing and logging - which is how I want my journal to work.

Conclusion

Well - there isn't one. This is an experiment and journey in progress. I look forward to seeing where it goes and how it affects me.

I encourage everyone to journal and play with what a journal actually is. What is the purpose of a journal? to remember? to change? to play? What is the math - the patterns of self that we wish to be aware and present with?