71, 72, 73, 74, and 75

For some context, the new base I am in has really horrible WIFI. There is no WIFI in our barracks so I have to go to Starbucks to use their WIFI. As a result, I have been on social media way less and way more time to write. This explains why I wrote 5 prompts in a single random day.

71 What would your life be like without electricity? (05/01/2023)

If I was the only one without electricity, it would suck. However, if everyone had no electricity, it might suck initially but people will adjust. I enjoy long night walks. When its dark at night, and I am walking around my neighborhood with a kerosene lamp like back in Nepal, it would be so much relaxing. Without all the noise and light pollution, I can look up at the night sky and admire the stars fully. It won't just be a few stars, I will get to see a whole sea of them.
However, we need electricity. Sure, we won't be addicted to social media anymore but it will be almost impossible to connect with my friends unless they are my neighbors as well. My friends live an hour drive away so getting there is hard without transportation and finding them will even be harder since I can't send them messages nor use google maps to find their address. Electricity allows civilizations to grow by fueling everything from our communications, transportation, food, work, and almost everything. Society would collapse. Everyone would be lost. How will I continue my education to get my bachelor's degree? Where will I work?
A nuke will kill and radiate the area it explodes in. A large-scale EMP explosion will fry every electronic within its radius. It will cause chaos and some people will die due to the lack of electricity whether its by heat exhaustion in the summer months or people in hospitals relying on life support machines. Majority of people will be safe if surrounding unaffected cities offer aid to them.
Even in developing countries, there is electricity. Most people in the cities have phones and WIFI to communicate. The rare exceptions would be people in villages who farm and live without electricity. The large majority of humans don't live in villages or farms, they live in cities and apartment blocks so the lack of electricity worldwide might be humanity's downfall. It's a scary thought.


72 How much time do you think you spend on social media per day? (05/01/2023)

At least 2 hours between being on my phone and on my tablet. I would say a good half an hour scrolling through Facebook and Instagram occasionally to see if anything interesting pops up. Most of my time wasted is on Youtube as I watch video after video endlessly. It only stops after I find a video that is so boring that I do something outside of Youtube or when I realize how much time has flew by since watching Youtube.
On Facebook, I usually check for any messages from anyone (very rare), any interesting selling posts on the military base Craigslist, or to see if Pratibha accepted my friend request. On Instagram, most of my friends are on it posting about their daily lives. Occasionally there is a major life update like my friend Tom being on an advertisement, somebody being married, or them partying after finals. Out of most of my friends, I mainly check stories of my close friends Sam, Canyon, Champ, David, and Pan to see what they are up to.
I definitely spend way more than 2 hours on social media. I would say at least 4 hours everyday on it. There are also few minutes here and then that add up. I would often go on Netflix or Crunchyroll to see anything interesting. After scrolling around for a few hours I decide not to watch anything and go back to whatever else I was doing.
Other than social media, gaming and watching does take a huge portion of my time. When I find a game I really love, I am playing that thing from start to end everyday usually for 5+ hours each day. I take the same approach for a TV series that I love. For example, i finished the Attack on Titan Series within 10 days. It has 88 episodes and each episode is roughly 22 minutes long. I watched 3+ hours of it everyday on average which is 9 episodes length.
When I don't have anything to binge on, other than social media, I just don't do anything. I just think and relax. Whether its me walking around the base or me just sitting at a desk and just staring at the wall. Sometimes I take a step outside if its night or cool and just look at the sky. Whatever thoughts come into my head, I let them in and ponder over them.

73 List five things in your room. (05/01/2023)

Right now, I am in transient housing so I don't have my own room. I am in a big room with 50 other guys in each bunk bed. Before this when I had my own room, I always had five things:
-a lamp hanging on top of the bunk bed to shine over my bed so that I can read or write right before I sleep.
-a disposable air freshener. It's a Febreze gel with "after the rain" flavor. I open the packaging and twist it open. Over time, the gel slowly mixes with the water vapor in the air to scent the entire room. I always have multiples of these at a time to reduce the odor.
-my notebook on my desk. I write down what happens each day into my diary. To make it more convenient for myself, I leave the book right next to my bed.
-my national parks calendar hanging on the wall. For important future events, I mark them as reminders on my google calendar. As for my physical calendar, I write down a short list of events for each day. On January, I wrote down the amount of miles I walked/ran which amounted to over 100 miles for January. For February and after, I did it the event format because I started doing more weight exercises and stopped doing excessive cardio. Its more accessible and simple compared to my daily diary.
-My portable projector. Before deployment, I bought a portable projector that is roughly the size of a big soda can. It's usually in my room fully charged. I often play either my Xbox or switch in the office since we have a large tv. When I am feeling too lazy, I just hook up my Xbox to the projector, put it on my bed and adjust it until it projects to the white wall beside my bed bunk clearly. I sit upright on the floor with both my feet and knees touching, and I rest my arms on the bed and play my Xbox. Since it's a portable projector, it isn't that powerful so even it projects into a big screen, the graphics aren't as impressive. I usually prefer to play giant open world games like Elden ring on it. Other games like resident evil 4 remake or Yakuza 7 where the graphics are top notch due to their short-limited gameplay, I prefer to play them on a real tv.
Based on my top 5 choices, I like to document a lot of stuff and I love being in my room relaxing. When I am back home, another thing that will be added to this list is soju. It's my favorite alcohol and I drink it like water. I might pair it with guava nectar to make it easier to drink it right before I head to a party or to meet someone. I can't socialize without alcohol. I will also purchase a large whey protein powder bucket along with a shaker bottle.

74 What’s your favorite color? (05/01/2023)

My favorite color is ice blue. It's a peaceful color. It's not too intense nor is it too light. It just has the right amount of color to it. Clothing wise, 90% of my fashion choices are limited to the colors white and black. Sometimes I prefer all black and other times white and black. For my accessories, I prefer ice blue. My phone, my Instant

-mini camera, and my laptop case is ice blue.
The color also matches my personality. I am not an outspoken person and I am usually quiet. Occasionally, I will speak my mind when needed. I just want to relax and be free. The ice blue reminds me of the sky which is so vast and open. It also looks similar to water as my favorite weather is rain on a cool night.
When I was a kid, my favorite color was blue, regular blue. It just seemed like a boy color so I picked it. Red seemed a bit girly for 8 year old me and green seemed weird so blue seemed like a safe choice. As I got older, I was exposed to the entire color spectrum. Alongside the main colors, you had colors in between that were a mix like teal, grassy green, cornfield yellow, etc. Initially, I liked grassy green because the mix of green-yellow reminded me of the grass fields back in Nepal. Whenever I was in my mom and dad's villages, I would spend a lot of time looking down at the large rice fields below from the top of the hills. Watching the grass and crops move back and forth from the wind was soothing. However, its a color that is very uncommon in fashion and is only found in drawings and paintings. So my next option was icy blue. It still had the peaceful vibe but it was also common enough in fashion for me to embrace it fully. I also love girls who dye their hair icy blue. They seem more cute and understanding of others.

75 Who’s your biggest role model? And why? (05/01/2023)

Mark Manson. There have been many role models throughout my life that I look up to. In regards to being a good human being, I look up to my sister. Whenever you are speaking with her, she seems to understand and care about what you are going through. For being a good leader, I looked up to Tech Sergeant Spencer from my deployment in Qatar. I just felt confident working with him. Even if I ended up failing and making mistakes, I felt reassured that he would both understand and give me correct feedback to improve and reach my best potential. For expertise in human relations, I look up to Dale Carnegie who seems to have an answer to almost every life problem. He taught me to listen actively and utilize others' ego to your own best interests.
However, Mark Manson has one thing that separates him from others. He also suffered from overcompensation. I was a nobody for most of my life. I wasn't academically gifted, was ugly due to my baby face, and fat as shit. I was near the bottom in terms of social status for guys. That left me with a huge hole in my ego. That hole eats at me everyday and is one of the main reason I keep refusing to kill myself. If I die right now, I will never be able to make up for my shitty past. I will never be able to prove that I am capable of greatness as well. That past eats at me and constantly reminds me to keep going forward, keep fighting everyday until I have avenged my inferior past. Both of us are cursed with the need to overcompensate. It isn't enough to be just successful and happy anymore. You have to be more than that. You have to be better than everyone else. You need to work at the top company, be an expert at everything, be able to date anyone. It's a dream full of delusions and unrealistic expectations. Yet, it's the main thing that keeps me going in this world, to keep on self-improving, often at the detriment of my own personal relationships with the people I care about.
My dream is that one day, I can find peace with myself and no longer feel the need to overcompensate and prove myself just like how Mark Manson stopped. Until then, I keep on grinding. Another thought I had was what if I do overcompensate to the point I feel satisfied with my progress? Then what? What do I next? That was my whole purpose for staying alive? I don't have anything else pushing me forward. What will I do then? I don't know. That will remain a problem for future BG to solve.