My Scattered Brain and I Can’t Do Anything Today

You know what happened? I lost my space. I lost my space to the rain. I can’t walk where I used to walk.

I used to listen to music or listen to audiobooks or read books on my kindle while walking on the rooftop of my house but I can’t do that nowadays… all because of the rain.

It is the monsoon season in India. It is July. And all because of this, I can’t walk. I can’t walk here and record my voice diaries. There is water just pooling on this rooftop on one side. The whole roof is wet, its all damp. And I am here, at night, trying to record a voice diary because I need to, just, get it all out. But its dark and the floor is all wet.

I wanted to read a book in my tab but the tab is too heavy and I’m afraid that I might stumble in the dark on all this stuff that is here, the plants and pots, and that I’ll drop my tab and it’ll break. Its pretty fragile and I’ve already broken it once. I don’t want that to happen again.

The Physical Activity Problem

I just wanted some movement, but everything I need to do are things that I can do only in my laptop. But I can’t well, carry my laptop around and work on it while walking. It’s too heavy and how would I even type while carrying it around?

I don’t know how to incorporate physical activity with everything I need to do, all the study and preparation for exams and the projects, everything that can only be done on my laptop.

I did think about setting aside maybe an hour a day to workout. But I don’t know why it is so difficult.

One of the reasons is maybe because I don’t have a space, I don’t have a room of my own. I don’t have a room where I can be alone and do my things.

If I had a room, I would exercise there.

But also another problem is this. This heat. It’s summer and it’s really hot and there’s just one room in our house that has an AC in it and if I’m not in that room, if the AC isn’t running then I would literally be melting in the heat. It’s so hot.

There is a room upstairs but it’s really dusty and I would have to clean it. It doesn’t have any furniture in it either. So, I would have to arrange everything in it which is already a lot of stuff to do. But there is this room upstairs where I can go and make into my room and exercise there and do other stuff.

But its not exactly private. If I try to record my voice diary there, my father, in the next room, can easily hear me. But I want some privacy. I want my own room.

I don’t know why I can’t do stuff when there are other people around. When there are other people that can see me or hear me. This is one of the reasons why I can’t do stuff.

Like, exercise in itself is hard, but I’m definitely not going to exercise in front of other people. I can study on my laptop but if making notes is hard, I could just record a summary of what I studied in my voice recorder, but if other people are in my room, it just feels weird. I did try this once and it was just awkward.

If I was alone in my room with an AC then I would just record my videos for YouTube. I could just teach something when I get an idea.

I had decided before that I would go upstairs to record my videos, but I have to take my laptop and the tripod and my phone, all these things upstairs and then record and then come back with all that stuff because I have to do everything in my laptop so I need it downstairs. And I would have to turn off the fan to record but its really hot.

If I had a room with the AC, I could just turn off the fan and record the video. It would be easier. I wouldn’t have to take anything anywhere.

But the problem is I don’t have that room with the AC to myself. There are other people, my mother and my sister there. I can’t kick them out either. Not that I want to. But this is one problem and I can’t exactly solve it.

When Everything Falls Apart

And I don’t know why — like — first of all, I got sick. My back was hurting, and my stomach was hurting really bad, and I just couldn’t sit down. It hurt a lot. And even lying down didn’t help. I couldn’t find a position where it didn’t hurt. And even then, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t fall asleep because it kept hurting.

If I lay on my back, my back would start hurting. If I turned to my side, my stomach would hurt. And it just kept going like that. I thought maybe it’d be fine after a few hours — maybe the next day — but it wasn’t.

I also had indigestion. I thought maybe the pain was due to that. I didn’t want to eat anything because eating made the pain worse.

The only thing that helped was when someone rubbed my back with oil. That massage helped. It kind of took the pain away for a bit. But obviously nobody is going to do that for hours. So that was the problem. I had to take the medicine the next day.

So, I was in pain for two days straight. Then I finally took the medicine at night, yesterday.

And today, I was sleeping all day, and I woke up at 4 PM or something. Then I decided to just start my day and study but I couldn’t. I couldn’t focus. Everything was just scattered everywhere.

Everything Is Blurry and I Can’t Focus

I have so many pages in Obsidian for one subject and I don’t know what to study, where to start. And when I do decide to pick up a thing — I’m just gonna read these module slides and make notes or something — I still can’t focus on it. My brain just feels like it can’t get in there. Everything is foggy. I can’t study. I can’t focus.

I was able to some days ago. I could read, start reading a book, and highlight things in that book in Obsidian. I could make a highlight and then paste that highlighted text into my notes. In Obsidian, I had downloaded the PDF++ extension and I was using that. I was reading that web development book by Miguel Grinberg and working on my project. I was even working on my BDM project.

I went to talk to the owner of a shop, and he agreed to give his data from the shop for my project. He was okay with even collecting data and organizing everything for me. So that worked. And I was going to write a proposal, but I just can’t do anything anymore because my brain is not clear. Everything is blurry and I don’t know where to start.

Even if I pick one thing and decide to do it, I can’t focus on it. I don’t know what to do. There are so many things I’m doing and so many things that I should finish because the deadline is near. I wish I could just be done with them so I’d have fewer things to deal with. But I can’t finish anything. I can’t focus. I don’t know.

I feel like I’m wasting time. I think I should just go to sleep, but I probably shouldn’t sleep because I was sleeping for — I don’t know — I started sleeping at night, maybe around 12 a.m., and then I woke up at 4 or 5 p.m., so more than twelve hours. So I wasn’t going to sleep again. I probably should just walk because I definitely need some physical activity. Otherwise I feel fidgety and can’t sit down at one place. I just want some movement.

The Anxiety Spiral

I can’t sit down, so I probably should move. But I feel like I need to study, so I think I should just sleep now, because then tomorrow I can start studying. This way I won’t waste time. That’s how it’s going. I just don’t want to waste any time. Even walking without doing anything feels like a waste of time.

I didn’t go to sleep. I decided to eat some food and study, and I don’t know. Everything feels weird. Maybe I’m sick. I really hate it. First of all, I don’t have a room of my own. I wish I just had a place to myself where there aren’t people talking or making noises.

And if there was AC, because it’s so hot. I can’t even turn the fan on full speed — it’s so loud. And I don’t want that loud noise. It’s overstimulating or something. I want the AC, and a fan on a low speed where it doesn’t make noise, and then I want to study.

I wish I had a standing desk or something like a treadmill setup so I could walk while using my computer. That would make everything easier. But I don’t have money. I can’t buy it. What do I do?

If I had all those things, it would fix a few of the problems. There would still be more, but at least those would be out of the way. These are the things that are bothering me. These are the ones I can name.

Anyway, I think if I can exercise, I should at least walk. I used to walk a lot. That was good. One or two hours a day.

Maybe I could record a voice diary while walking. Or just listen to something. I could walk and read a book. I have a Kindle. I have books. But it’s raining a lot. And when it’s not raining, it’s too bright. Or the rooftop is still wet. So I can’t even walk here.

It’s just bad. I guess rainy season isn’t for me. I don’t know. Maybe I should just start.

I need my own room. I could go upstairs and turn off that fan — I hate the sound — and just sit there. Even if it’s hot, I could work there. But that place is so dusty. I’d need to clean it. And I can’t sit in dust either. That’ll cause more problems.

So the thing is, I can’t do anything. I’m just done with everything.

The Learning Everything Project

Anyway, I was going to work on this blog — Learning Everything Project, I called it. I was going to study things and learn them and write blogs on those things. But I haven’t written anything. I don’t know what to write. I haven’t even started studying because I don’t know.

Everything is a mess.

But ChatGPT gave me an idea. I should just take incomplete notes on something that I’m studying and have that note as the blog. Basically my working notes would be the blogs. And I don’t have to study from one source, I could just watch a video, then switch to a book, then read a webpage and so on.

Basically I shouldn’t wait until I finish studying something and then start writing a blog on it but I should just write it while I am actually studying.

I think this is a pretty good idea and I should write my blogs like this.

But I don’t know. Everything is a mess. There are too many folders. Too many repositories in my Obsidian. Even in Notion.

And because I’m not keeping to one thing — I’m not just in Notion, I’m also in Obsidian — now it’s much harder to do anything. I can’t access everything from one place. I don’t know. I think it’s a working memory problem or something. I just lose the memory of what I did before and it’s harder to bring it all back.

So yeah, everything is a mess.

When I can focus on something — when I’m really focused, when I’m in the flow — everything is great. I’m enjoying everything. I’m enjoying my life.

And then there are times like today when I can’t focus on anything and I just want to die. I don’t want to live anymore.

It sucks. Everything is overwhelming and I don’t like this. I want to focus on something but I can’t. It really sucks.

And I have deadlines. I have a week until an exam. I have to do all these things. And I try to do them. But it’s not working.

How do I even start?

I don’t know. I wish I could just make those videos I want to make. But I don’t know how to start. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what to say in my video. I don’t know how to prepare for those videos.

I don’t know what to study to actually start making notes for those videos. To start learning the things I need to know. I don’t know.

I don’t know what video to start watching.

Maybe I should use NotebookLM. Just ask questions and learn from reading the chat. I tried that. But I couldn’t even focus on the answer. I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t focus on that either.

I tried reading the module slides but I can’t do that. First of all, they don’t have enough information. Just bullet points. They’re just mentioning a topic without going into detail. It’s not enough.

Maybe I should read the book. Maybe I should find a video. I can’t watch the lectures, that’s for sure. So it’s all just a mess. I can’t do anything.

There are too many things to do. And even if there weren’t — even if there were just two things — I probably wouldn’t be able to focus on them. So there’s no point.

Everything is a mess.

I want to work on that web app. But I don’t know. I can’t even start doing anything because I don’t even know what the problem is.

And when will all of this end? I just want to take a break. I just want to stop this term and focus on my blog and study things that matter to me. I don’t want these exams.

I need to maintain my grade. I actually need to study for the exam and for the project. I need to do well. I can’t get a bad grade because that’ll ruin my CGPA. I want a good grade, and I want to study. But I can’t even focus on the things I’m studying.

I found this long lecture on Internet History by Charles Severance. I could probably focus on it. These are the kinds of videos I enjoy. But I can’t watch it.

Even if I watch it — how much of it is relevant to my course? I found another lecture, computer networking, that’s twelve hours long. That one is probably more relevant to what I’m studying. But again — I don’t know. There’s too much to do. Too many videos to watch. Even if I watch them, even if I could focus and get into them — are they even relevant?

But I want to know the history. I want to understand things — ARPANET and everything. I want to know how it all started. Because I don’t understand. The lecture I watched didn’t explain anything. It’s all fuzzy. I just want to learn.

I want the details. But you can’t just learn what’s relevant. Because you don’t know what is actually going to make it all make sense.

The Problem with Not Knowing What You Need to Know

The problem is — I can’t know what I need to know until I’ve already seen it. I can’t tell ahead of time what’s going to be the missing piece. I can’t guess which part will suddenly make everything click together. I only know something was important after I’ve read it. Like, I’ll read a chapter and some random sentence in there will finally make something else make sense. And I never would have known that if I hadn’t read the whole thing first.

I can’t just ask ChatGPT, “What’s ARPANET?” or “How did the internet start?” and get the full picture. I mean, I can ask, and it’ll give me an answer. But it’s not enough. It’s like, I don’t even know the right questions to ask unless I’ve already read a book or watched a lecture or something that shows me what’s missing.

Maybe I need to watch a lecture too. A short one. Fifteen minutes, maybe an hour. And it would just fill in a few more blanks. Because the lecture in my course only gave it twenty minutes. And I couldn’t even focus on it properly. It barely covered anything. I want more than that.

It was the same in that MAD-1 course I took last term or maybe the one before that. They talked about the Internet and the World Wide Web. That part was so interesting. Especially the bit about hyperlinks and how documents were connected, and that’s how the web worked — because everything was linked. That was cool. But again, no detail. Just a rough sketch. No depth.

So none of it stuck. It was all fuzzy. Disconnected facts. Just noise.

And to really understand, I’d need to go and find proper resources. But that takes time. And the course only gives one week to this topic. So I can’t really dive into it. But I _want_ to. That’s what’s frustrating. I _want_ to learn this properly. I want to understand. But I don’t have the time.

So then what am I supposed to do?

I want to make a video about this. I want to explain it. I want to make videos for my channel on Internet Architecture and Protocols, this is the name of the course that I’m taking. But if I don’t understand what’s going on in the course, how am I supposed to teach it to someone else?

And honestly, I don’t even know how I learn. I can’t just read the module slides. Maybe on some other day I could have. Maybe I’ll wake up one day, read the slides, and they’ll make perfect sense. I don’t know if that day would ever come but I think right now I need to just study everything. Maybe just read the assigned readings for all the modules.

The assigned readings are from that Behrouz Forouzan or whatever book on TCP/IP protocols, and I really hate it. I hate the way it’s written. I can’t focus on it at all. But maybe I’m just blaming it. Maybe the book is actually fine and I just can’t focus. Maybe I’ll read it tomorrow and it’ll all make sense. I don’t know.

I just want to study. I want to learn something. But I can’t. Because even the lectures I’m watching — I can’t focus on them either.

I don’t know why I can’t focus. Why I can’t get into anything. Maybe it’s because everything is fuzzy. Because my brain is fuzzy. Everything feels blurred today. I can’t focus on anything. I can’t narrow it down. My brain is just scattered. Everything is scattered. And I can’t focus for some reason that I can’t figure out.

And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to finish anything. Nothing made sense. Nothing makes sense.

But I think this is a good lesson for me. When things _do_ make sense, when I actually have clarity — like that one day when I was studying Java and I thought of a whole video, and I knew exactly how I’d explain it — I should just make the video right then. Because that clarity is going to go away. And I shouldn’t let it go away.

I should use that clarity. Just finish the video. Just make the video. Because now everything is hard again and I don’t know what happened. So yeah, I think I need to use this moment of clarity I have right now.

I already took all four doses of methylphenidate that I’m supposed to take today. And this is supposed to be the end of the day. And it’s — like — it’s 3AM and I didn’t sleep. I don’t even feel sleepy right now. But I already know my sleep schedule is going to get messed up again. Because it doesn’t work on my time. I can’t just decide, “Okay, it’s night, I should sleep now.” If my brain isn’t ready to fall asleep, then I’m not going to sleep. That’s it. I’ll just lie there and be awake.

So what’s the point of lying down in bed if I’m not going to fall asleep? Just lying there, doing nothing? What’s that going to do? I don’t know.

So I didn’t do that.

And also, even when I’m not sleepy, I can’t study. Because I can’t focus. So either way — sleepy or not — nothing works.

The Mess of Too Many Notes

Maybe I can’t study right now, but I still want to use this moment of clarity. This Internet thing — this course — I don’t know. There are so many pages I’ve made. Summaries of what’s in the modules, summaries of the whole course, each module on its own. That’s two pages. And then there’s another page, or PDF, that I’ve added in there.

So the point I was going to make was — there’s even a PDF with the course outline. It tells you what’s in each module. And then there are the module slides. I have slides for each module.

So many PDFs I’d have to open. And then there are the books. There’s the TCP/IP book, and then another one, and another one. Three different books, and the teacher wants us to read all of them — like, readings from all three books for every module.

So I’d have to open multiple books, go through each one, and then there’s also the page where I’m writing my notes in Obsidian. It’s too much. Too many tabs. Too much clutter. Everything is scattered.

And I was using NotebookLM to ask questions, but now I can’t even read the answers it gives because I can’t focus.

There are videos too. I found this computer networks video. Then there’s the internet history lecture. I really wanted to focus on internet history. I even started the lecture. But I couldn’t focus on it. I don’t even know what the guy was saying. Every time I open it and hit play, I just zone out. Everything goes over my head. I have to rewind, go back to the beginning, and it happens again.

So I don’t know how to focus on lectures right now. But I think if I find something really interesting — something that actually sparks something in my brain — maybe I’ll be able to get into it. I don’t know.

Maybe I’ll Just Watch the Internet History Lecture

It would actually make me want to learn — if the thing I’m watching is interesting enough. If it’s genuinely interesting, I think I would actually get into it. I’d start learning that Internet history, and it might finally start making sense.

At least that ARPANET stuff — whatever the hell that is — the beginning of the Internet. If I could watch something and it explained all of that clearly, that would be so good. I could finally make a video on the first module. That would be something.

But right now, my notes are all over the place. Earlier, I had everything in Notion. One page for each course. Everything was in that Notion database. Even though it was scattered, at least it was all in one place.

Now half my notes are in Obsidian. It’s a mess.

I can’t even access the older notes from Notion anymore unless I open Obsidian too. At least in Obsidian I’ve tried organizing things into separate repositories. Before that, everything was just dumped into one and it made things worse. Now I’ve got different repositories for different things, which helps a little.

But even then — there are just too many notes. I’ve added so many PDFs into them so I can read on one side and take notes on the other. I have the module slides as PDFs, then I have my own notes. So many pages.

Nothing’s finished.

Even module one isn’t complete. So I can’t even import it into Notion and say, okay, this is done. Everything’s scattered.

I just want to finish something. I want to be able to say — okay, I’ve studied the first five modules of this course. Done. I don’t need to touch them again. But that never happens.

So yeah. I’m just going to try and study this course — IT309: Internet Architecture and Protocols. I’ll try to finish the first five modules. Maybe I’ll watch that Internet history lecture with it. Maybe it’ll help me understand how the Internet started.

Because module one _does_ have Internet history.

There’s this big Internet history video course on YouTube. I can’t focus on it today, I know that. But maybe I should just open it and start. I don’t know if I’ll be able to focus on it.

I probably won’t. And I hate that. I hate when I can’t focus on the things I _want_ to focus on.

Anyway. I should at least try. Maybe I’ll try reading the modules too.

Although honestly, whatever is written in the modules doesn’t even connect to the lecture I’m trying to watch. So maybe this is a stupid thing. Maybe I shouldn’t even be trying to watch that lecture to study for this course. Maybe they’re not even meant to go together.

Should I just make a video on Internet history?

Would that be a better goal? Maybe I’m just learning about Internet history and that’s fine.

Actually, you know what? Let’s just go with that.

I found this amazing Internet history course by Charles Severance. I really want to watch it — even if I can’t focus right now. It’s kind of loosely connected to two of my courses. One that I’ve already finished, and one I’m doing now.

Maybe it’s only slightly connected. But whatever. I still want to watch it.

I Just Wanna Watch the Internet History Lecture, Even If It’s Not in the Exam

I have an exam in less than a month. And Internet history isn’t even going to be on the exam. But I still want to watch this lecture. I know it’s not productive. I know I should be studying something that’ll actually show up on the test. But I just want to understand how the Internet started. I just want to know.

It was really interesting — that thing I learned. So I’m just going to focus on it anyway.

So yeah. Basically, I’ve decided I’m going to make the goal: I found this amazing Internet history course, and I’m going to watch it. And then I’m going to write a blog about it. Just: “This is what I learned about the Internet.”

I don’t know how that fits into the rest of my learning journey. But whatever. Let’s try that. Because nothing else is working right now and everything is too much.

I’m overwhelmed. I hate my life. I just want to do something.

I walked a little bit, but probably not enough. I need more walking. I need more physical activity. But I don’t even know what physical activity to do. I wish it was simple.

I wish I could just go to the gym. But I can’t. You need money for that. You need some stupid subscription or membership or whatever, and I don’t have the money. My bank account has 1,090 rupees in it.

I really want to turn this recording into a blog. But asking ChatGPT to do that is the stupidest idea. So what I’m going to do is: I’ll turn it into a transcript. I’ll use that transcript. I’ll edit from there.

I’m not even going to read the whole thing. I’m not going to edit it properly. I’m just going to go to the blog and start writing. And if I don’t know what to write next, I’ll go check the transcript. Maybe I’ll find something there and pick it up from that.

That’s the plan. But I can’t do that right now.

Right now I need to watch the Internet history lecture. I need to read the module slides. I need to start reading the modules. Because how long is this going to take? I have to finish 30 modules. I’m still on the first one. And the exam is in less than a month. And it’s not even my only exam.

The Endless Cycle

Everything is messed up.

I decided I’d start with this course, then move to the next one. I was supposed to finish all 15 modules from before the midterm. Then I’d move on to the post-midterm stuff — because there’s going to be more weight on that in the exam. But I didn’t do that.

I started reading Module 16, and it referenced something in Module 13. But I hadn’t read Module 13. So I thought, okay, I’ll just go back and study the first 15 modules properly. Then I’ll study the second half.

And I was also supposed to make videos along the way. That was the goal.

Then I thought, I’ll make videos _while_ I study, and that will help everything make more sense. So now, before I even do the actual thing I need to do, I’ve added five extra steps in front of it.

And now I can’t do anything.

Things that shouldn’t take this much time are taking too much time.

I don’t know. Everything’s just a mess.

Anyway, I should probably just go. This isn’t going to make any sense anyway.

Bye.