I'm curious, have you lived in the same place this whole time? If the pain came back when you returned home, maybe there is some environmental cause for it, possibly something poorly-understood. I hesitate to even mention any examples because this can be controversial (and murky) territory, but I'm thinking of things like EMF exposure. Maybe you are really sensitive to something like that. Not sure, but could be worth experimenting with different environments and collecting data.
I may have emphasized the pain going away on the PCT too much. It was still there, but subdued. Backpacking a thru-hike like the PCT is quite a physical and mental ordeal, hiking for 12+ hours a day after day for months, camping every night, acclimating to a range temperatures and high elevations, interacting with other hikers from all over the world. I think it was a new wave of sensations that overloaded my nervous system and distracted me from my usual chronic pains, which are more apparent when I'm sitting at a desk all day.
That's interesting. If you think it could be a nervous system issue, have you tried herbs that calm the nervous system or looked into ayurveda or relaxation techniques? Sorry for the random unsolicited advice.
I really resonate with the "Acceptance" section. I came to a similar realization, that having strong negative emotions about the pain just made everything worse. Stress causes inflammation which doesn't help, and only hurts the situation.
As for actual strategies to manage emotions, I would strongly recommend reading books about REBT (the precursor to CBT) such as "How To Stubbornly Refuse To Make Yourself Miserable About Anything-yes, Anything!" It's honestly been life-changing, and I think a lot of folks here would appreciate the rational approach to adjusting one's beliefs, feelings, and actions. Being able to avoid unnecessary negative emotions, and irrational beliefs that upset you, can be a superpower.
From what I can recall, he does encourage people not to stop exercising when they experience psychosomatic pain. The idea is that stopping exercise because of pain gives it validity.
But I would add that one should be careful when exercising and stop as soon as the pain is more than a nuisance. I have pain in my ankle and after trying to sprint through the pain I couldn't walk for a couple weeks. Then when I started going on really easy runs and slowly ramping up the time/pace, it finally started to improve.
Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Remote: remote or hybrid
Willing to relocate: no
Technologies: Rust (4+ yrs), Typescript (3+ yrs), Node, Go, Python, CI/CD, backend/frontend, Emacs
Résumé/CV: https://signor.dev/resume
Email: marcin at realemail dot net
Summary: I'm an engineer with 9 years of experience in both backend and frontend. I'm looking for meaningful work outside of the blockchain industry. I'm technology-agnostic, and have proven my ability to be productive in a new language or codebase within days. I also love quality software and am highly prolific -- I've just written an asynchronous crawler and search engine in a single week: https://github.com/mrcnski/mini-search-engine. I'm also a great communicator and a very hard worker!
While it's informative, I would proceed with caution. Many users there indulge in a level of obsession that is not helpful. The basics of reducing eye strain are actually simple:
1. Don't use a display at unnecessarily high brightness.
2. Make sure there's plenty of natural light around you (avoid LEDs if possible).
3. Take frequent breaks and look off in the distance. (If you're in a social setting, assume an air of mystery with your ponderous gaze.)
4. Reduce your level of stress. Stress makes nothing better and everything worse. Enjoy life! Stretch regularly to reduce muscle tension in the body.
5. Probably diet helps, but that's a whole can of worms. Don't obsess over it, but try to reduce inflammatory foods.
Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Remote: yes, can also work in Kansas City
Willing to relocate: no
Technologies: Rust (4+ yrs), Typescript (2+ yrs), Node, Go, Python, CI/CD, backend/frontend, Emacs
Résumé/CV: https://signor.dev/resume
Email: marcin at realemail dot net
Summary: I'm an engineer with 8 years of experience in both backend and frontend. I can design, architect, and implement systems. I'm looking for meaningful work outside of the blockchain industry, which most of my background is in. I'm technology-agnostic and have proven my ability to be productive in a new language or codebase within days. I also love quality software and am highly prolific.
I didn't like frecency in this and similar tools. I would often get put in directories that I didn't want. I wrote my own simple script that just uses recency, and if there's multiple possible matches you get to choose which one you want (though this is configurable).
> I would often get put in directories that I didn't want.
I solved this by combining it with fzf. Get all the directories you've ever visited and pass on to fzf (sorted by frequency). Then do your matching. You can trivially see if the match is taking you where you want. If not it is likely the second or third match. You're no longer constrained to navigating only to the top matched directory.
I had the same thought for a restaurant website that served multiple languages. I figured customers might glance at the URL when it's being shared, and appreciate it being in their language.
What do you do when the translated slug happens to be the same in multiple languages? I ended up still having the country code in the slug.
