Sometimes one really needs to go out of their way to borrow trouble.

My family and friends have always told me, "Oh, you definitely have ADHD." I'm not inclined to diagnosis shopping, so I've just assumed that's what it was and ignored it.

Recently, though, my disinterest in mostly everything and lack of focus has been worse, and it's affected my mood and my overall well-being. I decided to see if there was anything to be done about it.

I spent four hours at an intake screening for ADHD. Two hours of interview and two hours of testing. The person running the tests said that the doctor wanted to "include a few additional tests, so it might take a little longer." Fine with me.

It felt like an IQ test. Lots of "What's the next shape in this series?". There was word associations and vocabulary questions. I even had to organize blocks to match printed patterns.

At the follow up appointment a few weeks later, he informed me that it's not ADHD at all. What I suffer from is Major Depressive Disorder.

So...depression, then.

He said that during the entire interview he was mentally checking off boxes in the "depression" column.

This was a surprise to me, at first. I mean, I don't feel sad or (what I thought of as) depressed. I don't have trouble getting out of bed or anything. Didn't sound like depression to me, but then he started pointing out some of the things I had said and how they relate to depression, and it began to make sense. It's not just about feeling sad. One doesn't need a "reason" to be depressed.

When I asked the doctor about my ADHD-like symptoms, he told me that it was early in the process, but, "Testing shows you're very bright. Your brain wants things to do, but the depression prevents you from maintaining interest, so you bounce around a lot. This must be frustrating." Indeed!

I haven't liked the way I've felt for years. My brain hasn't been behaving, but I assumed it was normal for me, and did my best to ignore it. A diagnosis has helped me put a framework around it all.

Anyway, he put me on some medication and I'm going to therapy.

Why am I telling you this? I'm not sure. Probably because writing in public helps me get my head around it.

The appeal of cynicism is that it makes you sound smart without asking for a whole lot of independent thought. It’s easier to tear down than build up, to assume the worst than to evaluate evidence, to sneer than to engage, to smirk rather than smile.

Source: Joan Westenberg, Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice

We could use less of it.

I'm trying. I really am.

I've spent a while getting my head around Darktable and digiKam. That's no small feat, honestly. What weird software. It's capable, but getting to where I was with Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and sometimes Capture One has been elusive.

There are manuals, blog posts, and Youtube videos to consume, but, given the nature of Darktable, everyone tells me to do things differently. There are a dozen ways to accomplish every task. Which one's best? Who knows!?

Converting film negative scans it what I'm struggling with most. Lightroom has Negative Lab Pro, which is sort of de facto standard at this point. It makes quick work of conversion, adjustments, and metadata handling. Darktable has Negadoctor, which remains a mystery to me. I've used it to convert three rolls, and I'm getting the hang of the process, but I still can't get the look I want from them. Everything's a tad muddy, no matter how much I futz with the 175 available sliders.

One thing I've learned is that the Framework is much slower than the little Beelink with Darktable. That means the Beelink stays as the main desktop. I thought for a second I could use the Framework for both, but not if I'm going to be processing photos with it.

I'll give it until the end of October to see if I can forego the Mac entirely.

That’s not entirely fair. Wallace’s most famous book, Infinite Jest—1,079 pages and weighing 3.15 pounds (in the hardcover first edition)—is challenging. But Wallace wrote many other things, and some of them are quite accessible.

Source: Ted Gioia, Where to Start in Reading David Foster Wallace

I hope that reading and talking about DFW makes a comeback. For a while there, Book Social Media was (rightfully) aligned against sound-smart lit-bros who wouldn’t shut up about Infinite Jest. I may have been one of them, because I loved (and still love) that book, so shut up.

But definitely read This is Water, even if it’s cliche by now. and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is a ton of fun. Oh, and his piece about Federer is amazing, even if some of it might be exaggerated. Who cares?

TL;DR It’s a love/hate thing, with love in the lead.

Here are a few thoughts on how things are going so far.

I’m still using Omarchy. I really like the tiling window setup with Hyprland. I sometimes paint myself into a corner, but mostly it makes window management fast and efficient. Workspaces on Linux are so nice.

Everything on Omarchy can be done via keyboard. Once I got used to the bindings, this has made getting around, launching apps, moving windows, etc. convenient. I’m not against using a mouse, but It’s nice not to have to.

So far almost everything has worked without fuss. My Apple Studio Display works, as does its speaker volume, webcam, and microphone. I was able to print to my laser printer straight away, and never needed to install anything for it.

Speaking of installing things, using the little TUI wrapper over Pacman and the AUR is a dream. Launch the TUI, type part of the name of the app to install, and hit Return. Done. No app store, no DMGs to extract. Homebrew on macOS is pretty good, but it’s not as all-inclusive and consistent.

Mostly what I like so far about Linux is how I feel about using it. I like the feeling of “Hmm, what can I do with my computer, today” rather than, “I wonder what Apple is going to allow me to do with my computer, today.” Running Linux on this completely repairable and upgrade-able Framework laptop, I feel a sense of agency. It’s a good feeling.

That agency, however, comes with responsibility. I’m completely in charge, here. That means when things don’t work right (and sometimes things don’t work right), it’s on me to figure out some obscure way to fix it. I don’t know where anything is, yet. Thankfully, things have been working fine, but inevitably there’ll be some weird issue with the boot loader or Bluetooth will just quit working for no reason. That’s when the parts of Linux I don’t like will start.

I miss some things from the Mac. I miss BBEdit, Tinderbox, PopClip, DEVONthink, and others. I miss my photography workflow. Photo management and editing software on Linux is powerful, but it’s not fun to use. At all. When doing any significant photo management, I switch to the Mac for now. I don’t know if that will ever change. Capture One, Lightroom, and Photoshop are just too good.

Mostly, I miss having the standard Emacs bindings everywhere. It’s driving me nuts to type this post in a web browser, for example. How do people deal with text like this. Arrow keys? Gross. I just want C-f, C-b, C-a, C-e, C-n, and C-p, is all.

All I know is that I’m having a lot of fun right now.

I’ve carried one kind of paper notebook or another on my person for years. Moleskine, Field Notes, Travelers, you name it. The idea is to “capture my ideas and thoughts” while on the go.

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really have many thoughts or ideas, on the go or otherwise. I can’t remember the last time I was walking or at the store or whatever and thought, “Oooh! That’s a brilliant idea, Jack! Thank goodness I have this notebook with me!”

Mostly what I write in these notebooks are grocery lists or the name of a TV show someone said I should watch.

Who are these people that have all kinds of ideas while out? I want to be one of those people, so I still carry my notebook everywhere. Just in case, I guess.

tanrax/org-social:

Org Social is a decentralized social network that runs on an Org Mode file over HTTP.

You can create posts, interact with groups, make replies, mention other users, create polls, or personalize your profile. All this without registration, without databases… Just you and your Org Mode file.

It’s a ton of fun for us emacs nerds. Follow mine here:

https://jackbaty.com/social.org