Transgressions: 2
Effectiveness: Advancing
Days Since a Collapse: 2

Advancements:
1. Wrote 4 pages.
2. Ran for 1 hour.
3. Began writing a letter to my dad that I've been meaning to write for a long.

Dan--yes, you have gotten my interest with your mysterious talk about the website. What is it? Also, here's how I deal with the problem that you pointed out about changes in behavior. To me, ethical transgressions are two-dimensional in the sense that they are defined both by discreet repetitions, but also by magnitude. So each discreet transgression receives a single base point, and if it has a great severity, you could add magnitude points on top of that. Actually, to take a step back, I think about a point as a unit, which is admittedly subjective. A single transgression could represent half of that unit in magnitude, or twice that unit, or any other factor. Let's take frugality. Suppose that I conclude that $30 per week on food for myself is a frugal yet reasonable amount. If I spent $31, I might resolve to be more exact the following week, but I don't think I would penalize myself an entire point, because it doesn't seem equal to my concept of the unit. At what point does it become equal to the unit? That's tricky, but it's not completely nebulous either. Maybe if I spend between $40 and $50 I'll penalize myself a point, since the excess in terms of percentage is high. Then it would go up from there. Certainly if I spent $100, with a chunk of it being blown on garbage like a box of candy bars, I would see that as more serious than an excess of $10 or $20. I might even penalize myself in other ways, in addition to multiple points in frugality. Does this make sense? I'm trying to be clear without being wordy. Maybe my system isn't good. Maybe it's too subjective. One more example, which has actually come up for me a couple of times. You'll notice that I've scored upwards of 3 points in tranquility. Those 3 points don't represent three discreet moments of anxiety, which would be silly; they represent a measurement of magnitude. On a 3 day I was basically at war with myself and probably manifested that outwardly to the world. On a 2 day I was fighting myself to do shit and at times throughout the day people could probably tell that that was the case, but it wasn't out of control. A 1 day is a common thing, where I'm agitated, and I'm anxious about being doing the right things and avoiding failure, but I'm not freaking out, and outwardly I probably appear tranquil.

EDIT: Dan, if my response to your comments about changes in behaviour either in this post or the last one seemed condescending, I apologize--it was unintentional (I was just reading them over and I think that they might sound that way). I meant to say, 1) your observation was slick, and I hadn't realized what you were pointing out in such a concrete fashion, and that 2) even though I hadn't consciously recognized the subtlety that you were pointing out, I realized that I had actually been accomodating it intuitively in my use of the system.

Transgressions: 3
Effectiveness: Advancing
Days Since a Collapse: 1

Today was a success, although I'm not celebrating yet since it was only day one of my new system. One of my transgressions was so minor that I almost wanted to mark myself as having 2 rather than 3, but it's not a big deal. I see what you mean about changes in behavior Dan--it's a great observation, and I have a way that I've been intuitively dealing with that, but I'm not going to write too much at the moment, so I guess I'll post about it later (I'm tired as shit and I'm about to go meet Eva in town). Advancements:
1. Got a job. $9/hr with possibility of pay raises (up to $12, I think) delivering coffee and repairing brewing equipment in Baltimore, Annapolis, and DC. The place seems awesome, I like the owner's philosophy, and a big part of my job will be learning about coffee, which should be fun. I also get to spend time getting to know Bmore and the district. I already got a bag of top of the line espresso beans.
2. Worked out: did some intense calisthenics shit for 35 minutes.
3. Wrote: I wrote 2 1/2 pages.
4. Furthered the process of soliciting general letters of recommendation.

Transgressions: 5
Effectiveness: Staying the Same

I spent much of the day contemplating my new system, and now I'm ready to test it. One of my goals is going to be sustainability, or, the number of days that I can go without abandoning a system, saying fuck it i'll start tomorrow, or despairing about my situation. In order to reflect my progress with this, I'm adding a third daily score: number of days since a collapse. A collapse can be any of the things I mentioned above. I want to make sure that I keep working, do my basic shit, and continue to act cheerful and fair toward others even when things are rough. I'll give an account of my system if it works, and I'm going to define "works" as: avoiding future collapses, resulting in 6/7 days of advancement (every day except 1 day off), and a maximum of 3 transgressions per day. If I make it a month meeting those criteria, I'll give an account. We'll see what happens.

Transgressions: 7
Effectiveness: Advancing

I feel like I've been on an emotional rollercoast lately. I don't want to get into that too much, but even from the last few entries it should make sense why I say that.
Today I made a big push on the job front, worked out for a little, and did some searching for a car. I didn't write, but I spent most of my day productively. I'm tired.

Transgressions: 11
Effectiveness: Regressing

I'm sick. I couldn't sleep last night, and this morning I decided to take the day off. I woke up at noon, still feeling terrible, but I also felt like I should work. I struggled with myself, part of me thinking that I should work, part of me thinking that I should take the day off to rest so that I can come back 100% tomorrow. I did niether. I did both half-assed, and as a result, nothing was accomplished. I had a depressing realization today. I know what I want to do, but I might not be able to do it. I WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH, as in, the way things really are. I don't care if that turns out to be a philosophical pursuit, a scientific pursuit--I don't give a shit. I don't want to have to publish, I don't want to have to produce things for people. I want to read, and think, and conduct experiments...and if nothing comes of it, oh well. That's what I want to do. I want to know the true nature of space and time; I want to know if Kant was right about the limitations of epistemology; I want to know what Godel's proof is really proving, and what it's consequences are; I want to understand the arguments about God, and perhaps judge their validity; I want to know where our feelings and thoughts come from, where language comes from, and what the nature of our physical perceceptions is. I want to live in a small apartment, with a modest kitchen, and books, and notebooks, and perhaps a basic lab, and a computer. I want to wake up and contemplate. Sleep when I'm tired, eat when I'm hungry, but mostly contemplate. And I want to be able to work at my own pace, and not be afraid of any conclusions, or saying things that are unpopular or contrary to established ideas. I want to crawl out of the fucking cave. But I need fucking money. I hate this shit. I have to package myself, and finesse, and fill out forms, and compete. I don't want to compete and do all that crap. Maybe I'm stupid, does that mean I have to relinquish my dream? Even being at a university would be frustrating. I don't want to publish and give lectures. I'd love to talk to others, bluntly, not afraid to say things--I don't want to be in a profession that requires me to present the appearance of knowing when I actually don't.

Transgressions: 2
Effectiveness: Advancing

Today I wrote 10 pages, which is the most that I've written in a single day so far. The great thing is that I'm happy with what I'm creating. Also, I went with Eva to cash some checks and make a withdrawl to get funds for a car. The car deal didn't go through, but we spent time looking for alternatives, and soon we should be driving. Also, I nearly finished section 3 of the Ethics.

Transgression: 1
Effectiveness: Day off

Sunday is my day off, so I wasn't striving to advance myself. I did succeed in having a relaxing day, which will give me energy for next week. I was wondering earlier whether I should consider things like finishing a book, or watching an intelligent film as an advancement. It is one of my goals to refine myself through exposure to great culture, so in a sense I feel like they should be considered advancements. However, my material condition rarely changes in any immediate way when I finish a book, so perhaps one could argue that they are good for planting the seed for eventual action, but in itself it's not an advancement. I don't know which arguement is right, and I'm not even sure how much it matters (in other words, what's at stake in figuring this out?). For now I'll mention those things, but only weigh them slightly when determining my effectiveness, i.e., if I haven't also worked out and/or written, then I probably won't award myself a positive effectiveness rating for just reading. So far I have finished studying Mozart's Idomeneo, read the introductory materials to Eva's new cookbook (a good cookbook is more than just recipes), and now I'm working on Aristotle's Ethics.