What I Do Each Day

My daily routine recently.

I’ve been reclusive since May 2022, when my last relationship ended. I’ve enjoyed the solitude more over time. I love solitarily working on my writing, hanging out with my cats, researching things that interest me, and healing my mental and physical problems, in part because I view this as a temporary phase. I haven’t been in an in-person social situation—besides my parents visiting from January 20 to March 10—since last May, when I visited New York City. My routine—I live on the Big Island in Hawaii—has changed regularly these past three years. Lately, it has been this:

Morning (first ~90 minutes)

I wake between 6:30 and 9:30 a.m., do 30 to 60 minutes breath-work, tongue exercises, and humming, ending with 90-100 forceful exhalations (what Brooke McPoyle, my breathing instructor—I did one Zoom session with her—calls “detox breathing”) and a timed breath-hold (my record is 5 minutes 30 seconds).

Then I go to my doorway pull-up bar. I hang by my arms for ~30 seconds, then I hang upside-down for ~3 minutes (during which I turn my head side-to-side—a good-seeming exercise I invented—laughed while typing that—it seems good because while using my computer my head barely moves), then I do 12, 13, or 14 pull-ups.

Then I go outside to the front patio and sit on a tatami mat and meditate for 20 minutes to an alarm on my phone. Then I consume 1-4 ounces of beef and/or chicken, a tablespoon of Sunfiber (a bifidobacteria-feeding fiber), and a Keystone Minerals capsule (30mg zinc, 150mcg molybdenum, 150mcg selenium, 113mg niacin).

Then I feed my cats Nini and Lali—I've been hand-feeding them due to a somewhat complicated reason that I don’t need to get into here, but will share at some point.

Nini.

Main Work Session

~1.5 hours after waking, I drink 120 to 140mg of caffeine powder in water, type brief notes in my document of daily notes, reply to emails (5 to 20 minutes), and begin work.

I've been working on my essay collection Reasons to Live. All the essays are 95 to 99.5 percent finished; I’m editing all of them in order, one by one, sometimes two at once, putting them into one file, searching certain words/phrases, making it a cohesive self-aware book. I’m going to be doing this until April 15.

I love tweaking my nearly-finished writing—tightening the prose, working on the language, choosing more accurate words, implementing more pleasing paragraph breaks, carefully inserting or removing phrases/sentences/ideas, etc.

Part of my work each day includes editing my writing with a pen away from the computer. I do this indoors or on a tatami mat in my yard in sunlight, sweating, shirtless. When I do this, my cats, the feral pigs, and lately a rooster often visit me.

On my first caffeine high, I work on my writing for ~120 minutes, then I drink 80 to 100mg of caffeine + one bag of green tea and work for ~90 more minutes.

Next I look at social media for 20 to 60 minutes. Usually during this time I post on X and Substack Notes, then refresh a few times to look at engagement and respond to comments. I've been locking myself out of social media—via the Freedom app—on both my phone and computer all day except these 20 to 60 minutes.

Then I drink more green tea and work for 30 to 60 more minutes, for a total morning/afternoon work time of around 4 hours, on average. I graze on fruit usually during this work session—apples, pears, rambutan, longan, lychee—and sometimes take breaks to garden or draw.

Gardening includes moving rocks around, building/arranging rock walls, picking up feral pig poop, moving feral pig poop to beneath trees and covering it with plant matter, planting things, moving plant matter to beneath trees to fertilize them, and lately creating a trail into an area of wild growth.

Nini + feral rooster.

After Work

When I finish work, the time is 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., depending on when I woke up. (I allow myself a large range of waking times, giving my body as much sleep/rest as it wants, because I’m in a years-long process of detoxifying my liver and healing myself generally, which involves irregular ups/downs as my liver excretes toxic bile—varying amounts of which will leak into my blood—for me to excrete in my feces.)

After work, I do one or more of the following, depending on how I feel:

• Drive to town. I go to town an average of maybe twice per week to buy food, get mail, and bring garbage to the garbage dump. I live between two small towns.

• Bike. I bike for 15-20 minutes, often shirtless. People in Hawaii are often shirtless. I love getting sunlight all over me while biking. I bike without shoes.

• Read. I usually save reading for before bed, but sometimes I’ll read in the afternoon. My reading so far this year has been focused on reincarnation.

• Clean/organize. I like wiping my wooden floor with a hand-towel. It gets dusty because of the gravel roads, and Nini regularly “relieves himself” indoors.

• Draw. I draw sitting on a tatami mat at my low work table, or—mostly—lying stomach-down on a tatami mat in my room or outside. I listen to podcasts while drawing. The podcast I’ve listened to most in the past year is:

  • Nutrition Detective by Dr. Garrett Smith, who I found in April 2024, almost one year ago. I’ve listened to probably 300+ hours of his livestreams. He has revelatory information on detoxification, vitamin A, copper, and essential minerals. He’s the only doctor I’ve encountered who knows, I’m convinced, how to heal people in a true, long-term manner. I recommend him for anyone with any health problems—his toxic bile paradigm is relevant to every disease.

Nini and Lali.

Night

I eat my one official meal between 5 and 8 p.m. Lately, it has been either (1) one cup of boiled adzuki beans with 14-24 ounces of raw beef + raw and/or cooked chicken plus salt, or (2) ~16 ounces of raw beef with hot chicken broth poured over it, cooking it a little, plus some chicken, and salt, or (3) steak tartare with little pieces of white onion, with chicken and chicken broth on the side. I watch YouTube videos—in a desultory manner, usually switching somewhat rapidly between videos—while eating.

I drink potassium citrate in water (reverse osmosis or mineral) with my meal.

Then sometimes I rest a little—lying supine on my bed (a tatami mat), thinking.

Then I drink half a cup of honey water and work on my writing for ~60 minutes.

Then I do the following, in an order that varies each night: Watch more videos, interact with Nini and Lali, meditate for 10 to 20 minutes, mentally review my day’s work and plan the next day’s work, use the pull-up bar, draw, read.

I’ve been going to bed between 10 p.m. and midnight. Before bed, I drink 1 to 1.33 tablespoons of activated charcoal (adsorbs bile), and rub magnesium oil or lotion on myself (I also do this sometimes during the day).

Also

Interspersed with all of the above are these: Talking to my parents on FaceTime once every two weeks for ~110 minutes, contributing to one group chat on Signal on phone, irregular text messages with one person, regular gchats with one person, audio or video interviews for my writing career, feeding the feral pigs, going through old papers/things, packing/mailing mandala prints, doing Muumuu House things, and random other tasks like taxes and vehicle upkeep and buying printer paper.

Last Night

I enjoyed pretending I was in a character-driven, minimally plotted, “literary” science-fiction released in the 1930s or 1950s.

Summary

Sleep (7.5-10.5 hours)
Write (~5 hours)
Draw (1 to 3 hours)
Read (5 to 120 minutes)
Eat (40 to 70 minutes)
Breath-work (30 to 60 minutes)
Time with just cats (30 to 60 minutes)
Meditate (30 to 40 minutes)
Bike and other exercise (20 to 60 minutes)
Clean/organize (20 to 60 minutes)
Social media (20 to 60 minutes)
Think (15 to 45 minutes)
Garden (5 to 45 minutes)
YouTube (5 to 45 minutes, not counting dinner)
Poop/pee (4 to 12 minutes)
Shower (0 to 5 minutes)

Nini has been enjoying being fully covered by blanket.