2026-07-11 — lonely at the beach with family; the discipline / goal-setting gap surfaces together
Not a clean no-motivation-state instance. Reflective, affect-heavy (loneliness, nostalgia) like 2026-07-10, plus one behavioral data point (the kickboxing skip) and two methodology gaps Denys named himself: discipline and goal-setting. The two gaps turn out to be one thing seen from both ends.
Raw entry
Vaguely planned to go to kickboxing sparring, even packed my bag, but didn’t go — stayed playing with Alan instead. I enjoy sparring, but there’s still a bit of resistance to overcome to get there — mostly the social aspect (the guys speak Dutch). Once I’m there it’s fine. Another factor: I don’t have a good plan for why I go or what I want from it long-term. I like the feeling of progressing and mastering something — but that’s not happening with kickboxing, because of the lack of goals, my sporadic visits, the way sessions work.
One golden rule out of this: I must train my discipline muscle, especially if I promised something to myself — unless I can override it with a very good reason.
Later, beach with Anna and Alan. Felt very lonely. This “three of us” pattern repeats pretty much every single day. It’s great and I appreciate it, but it’s really JUST three of us. No-one else, every single time. Many thoughts about my 20s came up — I wanted to “go back,” as if I missed something there. I also felt I don’t want every day of my life to be JUST like this. I want more meaningful activity, more adventures, more friendships. I have childhood memories of joining barbecues with my mother and her friends. I want Alan to have that. But for that we need friends.
When Anna asked what I want from a new place — since I again surfaced that I hate delft — I couldn’t answer. I really don’t know. It’s just not THIS.
I really need to develop the skill of goal-setting. It’s come up dozens of times in the last five years.
What’s new here
- Loneliness-in-presence is now confirmed. loneliness listed “loneliness-in-presence vs. loneliness-in-absence” as an open dimension. This entry answers it: he felt very lonely while surrounded by his family at the beach. The loneliness does not lift with family presence — it persists straight through it. That’s a strong result: the gap is tier-specific, not a general “need people around” hunger.
- The gap is the friends/peers/community tier, not family. “JUST three of us, every single day” — family presence is saturated; friend/peer/communal presence is zero. Family cannot substitute for the missing tier. Sharpens the loneliness “family vs. friends vs. peers” dimension: this is lopsided toward family and starved of everything else.
- New texture: communal/group life, not just dyadic evening-companions. 2026-07-10 framed the want as “someone to spend an evening with” (dyadic). The barbecue memory reframes it: the missing thing is a group — a scene, a circle, the kind of ambient social life a child absorbs. Plus a generational-transmission motive: he wants Alan to have the barbecue-with-friends childhood he had. Friendship isn’t only for him now; it’s something he wants to provide as a parent.
- Nostalgia for his 20s = wanting a self, not a time. “Go back,” “missed something,” “don’t want every day to be JUST like this,” “more adventures, more friendships.” This is the inverse of the find-pull deficit: he can vividly picture a past texture that pulled (adventure, friends, openness) even while no future pulls. The pull-sense may not be dead — it may be pointed backward. Worth testing whether the 20s-texture can be reconstructed forward rather than mourned.
- Relocation: strong push, no nameable pull. Anna asked what he wants from a new place; he couldn’t answer. “It’s just not THIS.” He can articulate the push (hates delft) but not the pull (what he’s moving toward). This is the same shape as find-pull — the negative is legible, the positive isn’t — now showing up on the geography axis. A relocation decided on push alone risks reproducing the gap somewhere new.
- The kickboxing skip is not (only) a discipline failure. He bailed on a self-promise — but the promise had no why behind it (“no good plan for why I go, no goals”), and the resistance was social (Dutch-speaking gym, an aspect he doesn’t enjoy). He does value mastery/progress; kickboxing just isn’t structured to deliver it. So the skip is better read as: a goalless, low-fit commitment failing to hold — not a weak will.
- Discipline and goal-setting are one problem, two ends. He proposes a discipline rule and names a goal-setting deficit in the same breath. They’re coupled: discipline is easy to summon in service of a goal that pulls, and nearly impossible to fake in service of one that doesn’t. Weak follow-through here looks downstream of absent goals + offline pull (find-pull), not a standalone character defect. A discipline rule that ignores this would just manufacture guilt for skipping things that shouldn’t have been committed to.
Follow-ups (pending Denys’s decisions — not yet filed)
- Golden rule — FILED (rescoped). Denys chose the rescoped version: Self-promise needs a why — don’t commit without a stated reason; once it has one, honor it (override only for a genuinely good reason); repeated overrides mean the why was wrong, not the will. Now in Golden rules.
- Goal-setting — FILED as a mental framework. Denys chose the mental-framework home (not open-tab / not a new theme), so it doesn’t consume a top-5 slot. Now in Mental frameworks as a skill-in-development; promotion to its own sub-page once a formal method is chosen and in use.
- Feed loneliness-in-presence + the tier/communal findings into loneliness. (Doing now.)
- Cross-link relocation and find-pull — DONE. “Push without pull” filed as a second instance of the pull-deficit on find-pull (geography axis, strengthens the category-level read over a one-off) and as a live risk on relocation’s decision log + current lean (a move on push alone likely reproduces the portable part of the gap).
- Re-check on a good day (per What this is not): the beach-loneliness and 20s-nostalgia were felt in a reflective/low mood. Verify the tier-specific read holds on a flat day.