Fieldnotes #07
On knowing what you need, and the cost of saying it out loud.
I know more clearly than ever what environments I work best in.
Years of working from home recalibrated something. The quiet, the control, the absence of constant background input — it turns out these aren’t preferences. They’re conditions. For a neurodivergent brain, the difference between the two only becomes obvious when they’re removed.
The commute is a tax. Financially, physically, mentally — before the day has even started. I manage it, because that’s what you do. But managing something and being fine with it aren’t the same thing, and the gap between the two has been getting wider.
The antidote this month has been getting back to craft. Rebuilding gbbns.co from the ground up — new design, proper token system, the works. The kind of work that asks exactly the right amount of me. Considered, deliberate, on my own terms. It’s also reminded me what working well actually feels like. That’s useful information.
I’ve also been reading again. Finished Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad, currently working through Vagabond: A Hiker’s Homage to Rural Spain by Mark Eveleigh. Reading for pleasure is one of the first things that goes when things get hard, and one of the last things that comes back. It’s back.