encyclopedia ei ( エイ ) do ( ド ) li ( リ ) ca ( カ )

I’ve had a few gap periods in my life; while they started out freeform, over the years a sabbatical or a break would come to have an inherent focus, a meaning behind it. I think in 2024 it started to pick up, as I recognised that I wanted rhythm and intention; I recognised my own reflexivity as needing to be mastered, made deliberate.

At the same time I’ve come to fall into pitfalls of self-optimisation, so I didn’t want to necessarily overscrutinise my time. I felt like without any structure, each day would flow to the next, and my attention was always driven to some passing interest that didn’t build into anything. If I wanted it to build into something, I needed to take time to actually focus on it.

I’ve come to appreciate forming a syllabus for myself. I tried it in 2025 and found it overall beneficial for feeling like my life had ongoing values, ongoing interests, as though I had “school” and “extracurriculars”; instead of pursuing an interest idly, picking it up and dropping it after only a surface-level understanding, I could home in on a topic, a genre, an author, whatever. And at the same time I could schedule in additional things, make different goals for an entire quarter of my life.

I think in this regard I’ve measurably improved upon the concerns I recognised in 2024. I think it’s actually had some bleedover in making me more — well, not “reflective,” because I already think too much — but intentional with my time. I don’t let weeks and months go by.

I’ll show you 2025’s. You’ll laugh. Just wait and see.

The first attempt

---
Headstart: 2025-02-07
Start: 2025-03-13
End: 2025-09-01
---

**Thesis project: Finish the game (writing at minimum, everything at best).**

> [!tip]
> BONUS MODE: Bootstrap a project with partners 1 day a week.

### Video games

#### Lightheart block
- [ ] ==Disgaea D2 *(25 hrs)*==
- [x] Atelier Sophie 2 *(46 hours)*
- [x] KonoSuba VN *(8 hrs)*

Can be played in evenings casually.

#### Narrative block
- [x] Kanon *(14 hrs)*
- [ ] Chaos;Head *(28 hrs)*
- [x] Winter Polaris *(7 hrs)*
- [x] World End Economica *(5 hrs)*
- [ ] Ever17 *(24 hrs)*
Clannad (optional) *(57 hrs)*
Umineko (optional) *(102 hrs)*

Vary from 50h huge games to 5-7h evening spurts.

#### Big Game Block
- [ ] Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance *(45 hrs)*
- [ ] Final Fantasy X *(46 hrs)*
*.hack//GU Last Recode (88 hrs)*

70h gargantuan titles. Needs focus over a week.

#### Retro Block
- [ ] Resident Evil 4 *(15 hrs)*
*Jeanne D'arc (31 hrs)*

Fun with friends. Anywhere from 10h to 50h. Retroachievementable (Discord streaming?)

### Books

#### Revisiting philosophy
- [x] Spinal Catastrophism by Thomas Moynihan
- [x] Otaku: Japan's Database Animals

*Essential Schopenhauer (optional)*

#### Current events
- [x] Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation by Byrne Hobart

*On the Edge by Nate Silver (optional)*

#### Revisiting Christianity
- [x] [[Personalism]] by Emmanuel Mounier
- [x] [[Christ The Eternal Tao]]
- [x] [[Cosmic Liturgy The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor|Cosmic Liturgy]]
- [x] [[Gospel of St. John]] by Rudolf Steiner

#### Sciences
- [x] [[Science and the Modern World]]

*Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution*
*Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes our Thoughts (optional)*

#### Other languages
- [ ] A Pattern Language

*[[The Timeless Way of Building]] (optional)*

#### My girlfriend
- [x] [[Middlemarch]] by George Eliot
- [x] [[Benjamin readings|"On Language as Such and the Language of Man," "Critique of Violence," and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" by Walter Benjamin (weekly seminars)]]

### Albums

Pick one album from [[album listenlist|the to-listen pile]] per week on Mondays.

### Later projects
- Ambient bedroom pop record ... ?
	- With a friend?
- A non-game game (a software toy), inspired by Will Wright and Christopher Alexander
	- Try playing some older Sim games?
- Fucking *Proust*

Okay, so, of course, “why so many video games?” Or “an album a week? wtf”, these are all valid questions.

In the preceding period I had basically neglected anything I did for fun. I had this huge backlog of media I wanted to tackle, and I had this project I wanted to finish, and I wanted to get through it all.

This syllabus, however, is too packed. It actually overburdened me with random stuff to consume, and it ended up taking away time from the actual project. The game did end up being written in time (-ish, I think first draft was done by Sep 10th? 15th?)

I’m happy with the book choices; I think they were all pretty well-founded. After this syllabus, I just went on to read more theological stuff, but I had a solid basis to pursue it, and I think it led me to clarify a lot within myself; I think I’ve left 2025 forming a basis to my ethics, which itself answered a lot of my questions in the subsequent post at the start of the year.

I also like looking back at the stretch goals because they become little threads to pull on later in life. Like, “oh, I could definitely pursue that…” and it can go into the Future Log.¹

Additional sketches

I remember being in Hiroshima and walking around and suddenly wanting to spend some time learning physics. My university degree was in the arts, so it wasn’t something I necessarily knew how to even start. But I had the Feynman lectures from an old Christmas gift, and I had access to a handy, portable “professor”. I got in the habit of drafting reading lists and research directions with Claude, and I came up with the equivalent of a very high level, four-year undergraduate physics series for myself based on a merger of the Feynman lectures with University Physics. But I haven’t set aside the time, because Physics has so far not been directly relevant to my life.²

The current attempt

So, in spring 2026, my next high-level goal is to segue back into work.³ In the meantime, I want to get a few things done:

• I want to stay connected with my friends’ intellectual interests
• I want to continually upskill
• I want to stay artistically and intellectually curious
• I want to improve my French

And so I’ve taken a more “project-based” approach. My reading list is much shorter; I have a recommended, high-level schedule, and I’m taking any additional things I can fit as more of an ad-hoc addition. If I get through what’s there, and still have time during the day, I can add another book or game or whatever for fun, while treating the dictated syllabus as a set of higher priority goals.

I really enjoy this structure because it sort of takes informal learning toward a milestone structure; I can point to things I’ve done and things I’ve learned and see how I’m shaping myself intentionally, without falling too far into self-optimisation. I’ve also found that it’s never been easier to teach yourself. We all essentially have personal tutors at our service, free of charge, so long as you treat them as high-level guideposts.