Got AI dungeon on my phone -- so much fun. Speaking of which,  this blog is being written on my phone,  so excuse the typos.

I have been putting some more effort into my anthropological project lately. It's nowhere near complete, but I think that of all my projects, that one has the clearest milestones,  and is most likely to actually ever be completed -- God willing,  of course.

All this being unable to live in my own stinking house is making me wish I had my own personal laptop, instead of the work laptop. I'd like to install some games on it.

Speaking of which, did I mention my house is broken again and we aren't living in it again?

At least this time we have a hotel room, but Chowon wants to switch to another hotel. The thought of packing up and moving to another hotel kinda makes me nauseous.

I had a nasty cold that lasted from about Thanksgiving to about January 10th(?). I think it's now finally just a cough... but my chest still kinda hurts.

It seems like a good life is within reach,  but I'm not sure I'm allowed to grasp it. There are a few things that haven't lined up yet and I'm anxious that things will end way worse than they are now.

I'm in a no-win situation again, and I'm beginning to think that "no-win" is a lifestyle that I've received in exchange for something better than winning,  and that my goal must be to "count it all joy". In some sense,  I've always hated winning. It makes me feel guilty, like i know winning wasn't a big deal to me and i know that my competitors would have been happier than I am if they won.  The net increase in world happiness is greater when i lose than when i win,  because I'm not that competitive. Several times in my life,  I chose second place in order to avoid that feeling. Even for single player games,  I like "rogue" games,  where losing is part of the game.  The game instantly becomes uninteresting to me when I finally win. Maybe being in a lose-lose situation is exactly the kind of life I enjoy.  Maybe I'm thrilled by the prospect of choosing the more advantageous of two losses, and life is a big RTS of compromises.  Can I end my life,  having compromised as little as possible of the values that impassioned my youth?

I remember the  feeling of being infuriated by the state of the world. In high school,  I was constantly rolling the question over in my head,"how did things get this bad,  and why aren't we doing anything about it?". The conclusion I eventually came to was this: that a better world can only come about by individual decisions to live in that world. Individuals must choose to be generous to all those asking, to act motivated by kindness, to strive at performing well in their role and assume that others will do likewise,  so when things go bad there is no room to pass blame -- everyone did their best,  so a better outcome was impossible -- and to trust one another enough for the above.

So I tried that,  and I've been called naive by people who harm one another in order to protect themselves from others who may or may not be doing anything wrong,  but just because we don't trust those "other" people.  I've been called a doormat -- someone who is regularly taken advantage of -- but nobody can take advantage of me if I know they're doing it.  If I'm not deceived about the situation, then I am in control,  and am at liberty to cut the other person off from whatever resource they expect to receive from me at any time; and I would do ( / have done) that to anyone who told me to my face that they were taking advantage of me; but until that time it is not my right to read their minds,  and I must trust others to express their needs with integrity,  because I want them to trust me too.

No-win is possibly the best and only way to really test the merits of that world that I've chosen to live in,  (in spite of common wisdom which shouts to me that such a world does not exist).  Even Satan will not be punished before his trial in God's court.

"Let that day be stricken from the calendar."