Fed pigs, didn't learn how to drive ·

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This post was written as part of the seasonal work experiment at Ghost. The office was closed for an entire month and we were free to do whatever we wanted during that time. These were my weekly updates, you can find all of them here.

Animal shelter 🐶

Volunteering at the shelter is now kinda a routine thing. I’m much faster with everyday work, so that leaves me lots of time to help out with fixing old fences, cutting down trees and doing other chores.

Needless to say, I’ve grown to love these dumb animals and I feel really crappy because I’ll miss two weeks while I’m on the retreat. My girlfriend will replace me if she finds time while I’m gone, but I definitely plan to continue helping them out at least once a week when I get back.

I’m really glad I had the opportunity and that I picked this as my off-season activity. Doing physical work surrounded by a bunch of animals simply feels really good. Somehow you don’t even feel tired until you get back home all dirty and sweaty and starving. And I also had a chance to see how the sausage is made: the logistics of keeping 70+ animals, how they finance the whole thing, how they find forever homes for dogs… This was especially useful because my dad is trying to start his own shelter, so all these tips and connections will be useful to him. Although I’m not entirely sure he 100% realizes what he’s getting himself into. 😅

I can definitely see myself doing this as a full-time job in some parallel universe. There are downsides of course. If you’re just working as hired help, you’ll only get paid peanuts, enough if you’re a student but not enough for the “grownup” life. And if you decide to run your own shelter, that means pretty much saying “no” to everything else in your life. Jelena, the shelter owner, didn’t have a vacation or a weekend in around 10 years. That’s a really big sacrifice, and I can tell how stressful it is not being able to let yourself have a bad day, or a sick day, or pretty much anything (all June she was looking forward to some rock concert, and then she didn’t even go because she was caring for a sick dog.)

Learning to drive 🏎

I failed pretty spectacularly with my other goal. Finding time to study was hard, I was really annoyed with the whole user experience of the test app and to be honest that first part (theory) absolutely clashed with my goal of spending less time staring at screens. The next time slot for the theory test is right after the retreat, and I doubt I’ll have time to study during the retreat for obvious reasons. So I guess I’ll leave that for August.

Moving to Portugal 🇵🇹

Another thing that took a lot of my time every day was preparing paperwork for moving to Portugal. The bureaucracy for this (at least in Serbia?) is insane. Even just a simple thing as giving someone Power of Attorney took me 3 weeks and having to visit a translator, photocopier, notary, or court every day kinda ruined the flow. It was kinda like some Kafkaesque intermezzo in the middle of my daily schedule.

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Trivia: I first read Process when I was like 9, because my killjoy uncle saw me watching "The Twelve Tasks of Asterix" cartoon and told me it’s a “total rip-off of Kafka”. He’s the same guy who insisted I should ignore Quake III Arena when I got my first PC and focus on learning Microsoft Office and Access. He's insane, I love him.

Kinda unexpected 👀

Something I didn’t really plan for with off-season, or set it as an explicit goal, but that happened spontaneously, was improving my routine and habits.

  • I’ve started going to the gym 4x a week, with a really good coach who helps me with my weak points
  • I’ve been meditating and journaling pretty consistently in June
  • I’ve spent an ungodly amount of time cycling
  • My screen time dropped to nearly zero: stopped playing Elden Ring, watched only 6 movies (instead of the usual 25 per month 😅) and stopped using Twitter and Instagram
  • I haven’t ordered any food and mostly relied on cooking (I think my mood goes 30% down whenever I order food… It’s like accepting defeat)

I was worried all this physical activity would be a bad idea after going through long-covid, but I feel great, and my lower back never felt better.

On the other hand, committing to all these activities and building routines meant I couldn’t really go on a trip somewhere and relax. I’m still trying to figure out if this consistency came from a healthy place or not: was I at the shelter every weekend because I enjoy it so much I can’t miss a day, or because I don’t want to disappoint Jelena and the dogs? Was I at the gym 4x a week because it feels good, or because I don’t want to disappoint my coach and I fear I’ll somehow lose my progress if I miss a day?

I feel energized and much stronger, but I’ll definitely need a week somewhere on a beach in August with nothing to think about.