NOT THE NEWSPAPER • BIG CONTENT ENERGY

Not the Newspaper — Volume 1, Edition 5 — February 15, 2026

Tempore vēritās patebit aut vi ab invītīs statū

Volume 1, Edition 5 — February 15, 2026

FUN WITH WORDS

"Constraint"

Definition From Grok: Constraint (pronounced /kənˈstreɪnt/ — kən-STRAYNT, stress on the second syllable) is a noun meaning a limitation, restriction, or compelling force that binds or holds back action, freedom, or resources. It derives from Latin constringere ("to bind/draw tight together"), from con- ("together") + stringere ("to draw tight, bind, compress"), entering English in the late 14th century via Old French constreinte ("binding, compulsion"). In creativity and engineering, constraints are highly useful: they sharpen focus, eliminate endless options, spark resourceful problem-solving, and drive innovation—turning limitations (time, budget, materials, specs) into catalysts for elegant, practical, and original solutions rather than barriers.

Use it in a sentence: Constraint to an artist or a writer or programmer or engineer is just a set of instructions. Novelty arises and so does freedom and creativity from it. Ironic in a way. From bondage…freedom.

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UNSOLICITED ADVICE

"Don't write about that."

FUN WITH BOOKS BUT THIS WEEK I MEAN FUN WITH VIDEO GAMES!

I have not been reading "Time Enough for Love" because the first two pages were so thick in terms of sentence length and grammar and name dropping and anyway it was like starting on Game of Thrones like I don't know if it'll be worth it. It's going to be a major investment of my time to chug through the first 10 pages I think. I'm not ready to COMMIT on time enough for love because I just haven't committed to it yet. I like easy to read shit. His other books were. This one is a chug fest. So tonite, fun with video games instead!

No Man's Sky Game Mechanics

Very fun game, but took too long to explore things or maybe I just didn't figure out the controls, but getting from one planet to another sometimes the counter would say 5 hours. Who is going to wait that long in a video game to get to their destination? Lol. Could have just made up a spaceship with light speed, but no, it took forever to get anywhere even with the "warp drive". They really slowed the game down for me.

Made it less enjoyable because I knew there was so much to explore, but I wasn't able to because of the time. Was this game a lesson for me? Was it a lesson for everyone?

Makes me think about exploring our own universe and how it's pretty much the same concept, but wayyyyy wayyy wayyy wayyy wayyy wayy way fucking slower to get anywhere. If the universe is so big, and there's so much to explore, why haven't we invented a quicker way to go places yet?

Video games are supposed to be fun. Life is supposed to be fun too.

The point is if you make things too slow or too difficult, like Vogons for example and their bureaucracy, it really sucks the joy out of living. But you can still have fun. Constraints just make us more creative. And if everything is unlocked or easy, then life gets boring. So it's a big thank you to our creators if you really think about it. Anyway, it is about balance of parameters.

I don't like the parameters I'm in, but I can operate in a variety of parameters. I want superadmin access to the parameter control. Don't you? But wait! There's more….

What would life be like when we get to set the parameters? Learned that from making games with Grok, just silly little side scrollers with my son. If simulation theory is real, maybe someone has the keys and we just need to convince them we're responsible enough to manipulate some variable to increase maximum fun.

Speed it up. Slow it down. Make it harder. Make it easier. Make it more enjoyable. Make it less enjoyable. Do the people with the keys not understand how to architect an interesting story? Kurt Vonnegut has an excellent presentation on the shape of stories that is worth listening to.

I think simulation theory is interesting, but I don't think that's the truth of why we're here at all. It is a nice way to look at the universe though. Universe as computer.

Really fucking boring work makes you think more creatively because you crave de spice…..novelty…imagination.

I like the "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" movie a lot for that reason. He's this boring archivist and finally goes on an adventure. Y?

A missing record triggers his quest!

I get to do that almost everyday.

Is that the point? False conditions not reflective of reality, put people under pressure and constraint get to rise to a challenge everyday.

BAD AT JOKES

No Man's Sky

You spend nine hours flying to a planet. Nine. Fucking. Hours. By the time you land, your kids have graduated. Your grandma's dead. And the planet? It's a barren rock… with the same tree you've seen seventeen billion times. -From grok because I cannot tell a joke to save my life, but I can be witty in real time in person if necessary.

Personal Lore Volume 1 of Infinity

I can start over. again and again

This is the zillion time I've had to format my computer and start over and you would think I would have back up at this point, which is a joke because I had so many backups and I realized it doesn't matter if I have backups or not.

I want to use my computer and someone changed my password.

I wanted to update my stupid website and someone changed my code.

It's not my fault. It's not a constraint for me to work around.

It's someone else's problem, not mine. When everything stored in the cloud, it really doesn't matter to wipe your computer, except for that you're deleting all the logs and all the history. I shouldn't have to do that. I shouldn't have to keep starting over without explanation of what's happening or why when I'm a fucking civilian and I'm not being paid to keep my mouth shut not that that's important when something matters.

Having experienced five years of tampering being locked out of my own devices, having my own photos deleted getting targeted by crypto scammers, having my iCloud held ransom and then deleted when I didn't pay up having the police not do anything about it, except for telling me to surrender my computer to the FBI and to get new devices after already having gotten new devices multiple times to not be able to log into my computer tonight to write this edition addition…

For a while, I just thought it was a hacker, but because of the things that happened to my personal life and physical space that can't be the case.

I don't know what I don't know, but I did learn how to do mental gymnastics to cope with the situation that I couldn't control in order to maintain a positive attitude and do what I could each day and be content with my effort given ridiculous circumstances.

I was going to write about something much cooler tonight just really exciting so exciting. I'll try to stay in the now so I'll try to flip this with my mental gymnastics into the now.

I have pen and paper. I have a phone. I have another computer. I have the means to go buy another computer. I can go use my children's computers. I can go to my parents house and use their computers. I can go to the library and use their computers just because you change the password on my device does not mean I'm not going to write.

I enjoy my Sundays. I get to look back at the week I get to find what was boring about it. What was interesting about it? I get to put all my shower thoughts in one place cause I have so many. I don't write them all down. I should I would just be writing all the time and you can't exactly live like that. I like my dedicated writing time. Sunday nights are great Saturdays, Saturday mornings, and Sunday nights are when I used to do pro bono writing. I am reviving that. For personal satisfaction and freedom.

I don't accept that this is the world we live in that there must be constant Fuckery on all digital devices and constant hacking and constant control and manipulation. I think it's ragebait but in real life.

I wanted really badly to blame someone cause I want that person to feel ashamed for how much of my life they stole from me and how many moments they disrupted with my family and from my life. How much they shaved off only to get a FUCK YOU I'm STILL HERE response.

I guess there's always a part of you that wants revenge and you can't really kill it. But you can also not act on it. You can also not take the bait. You can also choose to not be a recycler of negative energy and transfer onto the next person. That takes a lot out of you when you have to do it again and again and again.

Every now and then it's manageable, but when it becomes a thing that has a smell… You may not know who is making the smell, but you know what it smells like when you see the pattern.

I don't really know what to think of that. I guess I just really wanna be on my keyboard. I don't wanna be on my phone looking down. Is that the point? That's gross. My neck hurts again really bad. I don't care though.

Six months ago, I was so lethargic and energy drained that I would actually just write from my bed and dictate. I couldn't even be bothered to go sit at my desk because I was so tired all the time and so drained and to be able to sit and work for like big chunks of time is very exciting. I am very proud of myself for suffering through whatever this is. I'm proud I didn't give up. I'm proud. AND, I'm still curious.

For example, I'm really curious about new technologies that will help civilization. New technologies that will help people in emergency situations faster.

I'm really excited about new technologies that might be discovered through not so nice means.

I really like pretending like a lot of things are a war game and then flipping that into something good.

That might sound psychotic, but it's what Vonnegut did in Slaughterhouse 5. He took a horrible war story of being in Nazi camps and made up a story about being abducted by aliens and living with a beautiful woman. Human minds are amazing. We can survive almost anything.

That's the most creative exercise that I've gotten to do in the past five years through all this torment and shit.

I learned how to take a turd and turn it into fucking gold not just for my own sanity, but as a creative exercise and yeah, the world is super negative everything's dystopian. Everything's terrible. It's always bad. There's always something bad and having experienced when everything goes wrong all the time and being able to rely on myself and my past history that no, it's not always like this. This is an experience. Good. Bad. Everything in Between.

Maybe this terrible thing is actually something really cool that I can turn into something else.

Maybe sometimes you need an immense amount of pressure and obstacles in order to think creatively.

So, I treated the experience as constraint, which is important for any artist or writer without constraints, whether self imposed or externally imposed. It's really hard to create without constraint.

Finally, my thoughts are lining up with what I actually want to convey.

When I write there's all these things… it's just like a fire hose coming out of my brain and putting it onto paper is really difficult.

If you could plug-in to my brain and play it back here in real time to see what had to happen before, for me to be here now… it would make sense to you too.

My job as a writer is to try to make it make sense to you without being able to convey anything substance. It's too big. It's too much to write about. I write about nothing because I'm under a non consensual NDA with the universe.

I need a constraint and sometimes the constraint is just a prompt to be reminded of not being able to log into my own computer, whether it was physically hidden from me or whether my password was changed without my consent, or whether I was simply just blocked from logging into my own device on my own time.

Today's constraint was a prompt.

For me to remind myself to stay in the now and to reframe it constantly.

If not, I would actually would be depressed (but I'm not.)

If I thought of everything as some personal slight, I would feel demoralized and probably demotivated. I would probably feel like giving up. I would probably feel like someone was just punishing me, and I was in hell after a while, but that's a really boring explanation.

It's lazy thinking.

And it's not the truth.

Bad things happen to good people and they continue on and live their lives EVEN THO something bad happened.

It doesn't have to be the story.

The story that emerges will be different because of constraint.

This journal is not about rehashing what happened. It's about what I learned and who I am now and how I think and how I think about the future.

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

TBD IMAGE

WORKOUT & HEALTH

Texas Sunday Work Out

Today was a Texas Sunday circa 2013 Workout ….the kind where you are rested and ready and hit it hard and nail two PRs at the same time….where you go get a big brunch after you've been in the gym for two hours.

I'm so proud of myself for not only knocking out multiple chin ups today, but also for doing cardio. A Full two-hour sunday gym session the likes of which I've not seen since Plano Texas in 2013. Felt safe. Got to hit it how I like it.

I had a lot of intrusive thoughts like normal and that usually means I speed run the workout. I didn't have to do that today. It was so cool to just take my time and get it in a way that I felt accomplished.

I hit two PR's in one day. Unheard of especially when you're right in the middle of your period and you're tired anyway. I expected to not hit the chin up/pull PR for four more months. I hit it in one and half.

Tried cuban press today which was a first. I'm careful cause I've had injuries before from pushing it too hard in the gym and that was when I was in really good shape eating really healthy and was very really locked in. I'm not at the level I need to be to push it and how I really can, so I'm just careful. But, today was a power day for lifting and cardio apparently too so that was very exciting.

I RAN!

I also went to the store today which is not something I normally do or enjoy either. I find the retail environment extremely overstimulating with too many smells, sounds, and stimuli. I also speed run all my shopping trips even though I kind of love shopping. Don't really love it anymore. I am trying to love it again. It is trying to be loved by me, but I would say today was also a positive experience going to the store and it's just nice to start banking more and more positive experiences because for so long it was so bad.

Everything was so bad for so long that it's when it's not I don't exactly know how to handle it. It feels overwhelming to accept that everything's OK. It feels overwhelming to not be in pain. It feels like a gift or blessing that I don't deserve and I don't know why I feel like I don't deserve it because everyone deserves freedom of movement and feelings of safety when I am out in public or at home. I should be able to feel safe at home.

That is why I cry when I feel good, because I am not used to it.

Today's gym session felt like a big deposit into my stamina. If it were a video game then I would liken it to leveling up like five levels in one day. That's what it felt like today at the gym, not grindy for once, but the past two months have been super grindy.

This is silly, but the treadmill is super boring and it could be so exciting. It could be like the DDR game and then you can Jazzercise, instead of just going in the same motion. Foot placements increase your dexterity like when you're trail running. You can't walk in a straight line when your trail running. You're moving all over the "treadmill," both in terms of elevation and lateral movement and I think that's why I hate the treadmill cause it's so fucking boring and that's why I like trail running because it's exciting because you really have to pay attention to where you putting your feet. It also means you're looking down the whole time. You're constantly scanning back-and-forth down and up and side to side to make sure you don't hit a branch or you land on a rock the right way. This is not required on the treadmill. There's nothing to do with your eyes…nothing to scan. It's a completely safe environment to move forward in. Which makes it boring. Both for your muscles and your mind.

AFFIRMATION OF THE WEEK

I am the computer.

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

My Words Today, Not the Words of Other Men: A Future with Leisure Jobs

I am imagining a future with universal basic income. You don't have to work, but you choose to because you need a little constraint. What kinds of companies will people flock to when they don't need to work? When they work for free?

This is the most exciting thing I thought about this week.

Sometimes I feel like I'm already on universal basic income. Like I'm not really needed. And what a gift to continue to be able to write and work for a company that values human beings.

What a disruption and revolution that would be to our contemporary society, when job losses could occur due to automation to keep people employed and finding value and meaning and connection with other human beings through work?

Kind of the biggest fucking gift in the world if you ask me. If you're doing it, why lie about it? It's the most exciting USP I've ever fucking heard of for a company. It's balls to the wall on humanity.

Where will people find value and meaning without constraint? A job is a constraint. A very important one. To some, it might be considered a burden, but it's also a great joy that gives one a sense of self fulfillment.

I don't think people will not want to work in the future, even if they don't have to. I think that they'll continue to provide a very human touch to activities if given the opportunity and seeing it for what it is.

The most valuable resource is our time and finally people will be able to spend it where they want to spend it. They won't be beholden to a paycheck. They will only put their time with companies that align with their values. That is a really really amazing thing to think about.

Where will you spend your time?