Accounted For

Tried something different today. Instead of using Focusmate — my subscription's long over anyway — I decided to make my own replacement using a janky setup between Notion and Claude Cowork, an app I found online that calls me at pre-scheduled times. And man, it actually worked.

Not only was I focused for long stretches, I was also able to reflect on what I'm doing and the patterns underneath it, thanks to the Claude AI side of the setup. It was actually quite insightful — even harsh at one point, lol. But we figured out how to make it really work in the end.

Today was successful partly because of that. I felt like I was actually growing and accounted for.

Going to Taipei 101's café and working there was also a good move. Even with a lot of people and noise around, I was able to focus for hours. Good Wi-Fi, comfortable enough setup, and the kind of ambient activity that ends up working for you instead of against you.

On the way back home I was running pretty late for food, so I had to go farther than usual to find something open. Ended up with another bowl of beef noodle soup. Still really good.

While walking back, I started thinking about how my game doesn't actually have to stop at the moment civilization and written language first appears. Because the core gameplay is always built around a human life. And a human life is still a human life throughout history — even with everything changing around it, even as the scale of the world scales to infinity. The shape of caring about food, family, work, meaning, mortality — none of that fundamentally changes. Just the surroundings do.

That's kind of a fun realization. It opens the door way wider than I'd been thinking.

But for now — I should just focus on the first push. I can do this!!