TheEmpireStrikesDak

Marcus Chown’s book is a good primer on quantum theory, but it will make your head spin.

(you’ll understand the dad joke after you’ve read the book)

Some links

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/blogs/how-arts-can-help-improve-your-mental-health

https://www.mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/awareness/how-to-reach-flow-and-drift-your-consciousness-into-a-euphoric-present

Flow describes an intense and focused concentration on what one is doing in the present moment, a merger of action and awareness, a loss of reflective self-consciousness. In a sense, when someone is in a state of flow, the mind enters a meditative autonomous trance, which can distort their perception of time, as they become solely absorbed in their present action.

Most of us have experienced flow at some point when we have been so absorbed in a physical or creative activity that all our sensations and thoughts have felt reduced to a compressed euphoric singularity, and our actions have felt dissociated and involuntary.

Professor Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the psychologist who named the concept, said in a 2004 TED Talk that: “When you are really involved in this completely engaging process… [you don’t] have enough attention left over to monitor how [your] body feels, or [your] problems at home… [Your] body disappears – [your] identity disappears from [your] consciousness.”

https://katiethecreativelady.com/blog/mentalhealth

Yeah. I tried the vegan cheeses because you have to have cheese on pizza right? (Violife is the only decent tasting one I’ve found here that doesn’t contain carageenan). Then I tried making pizza without cheese and it’s just as good. So now I have cheeseless pizza. The flavour comes from the veg.

Anything creative, as a lot of people have suggested. It’s highly satisfying to see a finished product you crafted yourself. And they really make you get in the zone and hyperfocus.

Scrapbooking is a good one. Sift through your photos, find some that bring back good memories and get them printed. Invest in a small spiral bound scrapbook, some acid-free coloured paper and decorations (you can get these from poundshops/dollar stores). Look at other people’s scrapbooks online and shamelessly copy their designs until you can come up with your own.

Maybe you could even make some for the people you care about. Added bonus of being able to go over good memories with them. Maybe you can bring a smile to both of your faces.

Another cute one is making models out of greyboard (the grey cardboard on the back of refill pads).

Best of luck, I hope you feel better soon!

RiF

Yeah the infamous block editor. As an old skool hand-coder, I can’t stand it. You have to manually enable classic editing each time on WordPress.com otherwise it defaults to the Gutenberg editor. I heard it’s improved somewhat recently, but when I first used it it was the biggest load of crap, worse than the beep beep boop one, which was at least useable. It was both dumbed down and unintuitive at the same time.

At least on a .org installation, classic editor disables Gutenberg completely.

I do that. I have WordPress.org with classic editor enabled and the raw html plugin. Use a classic layout like twenty twelve if you don’t want the fancy effects. Look for a host that has softaculous or something similar to automate the installation. My host charges about £60 pa with unlimited bandwidth.

You can also use WordPress.com for free but it has Gutenberg, which I absolutely cannot bear. Some people like it though. It’s also less customisable.