I have yardsticks I use to measure my state. Feedback I can use to determine what needs changing. Dissensus is one. Not just in terms of my own contributions although obviously that is important to me, how much I can do with an idea, how many directions open up, whether I can 'level-change' on an idea, take it up and out of one level onto another, how well I am able to articulate and communicate my ideas, how well I am able to Understand and appreciate the ideas of others and build on them productively, how quickly my mind is moving, how engaged and absorbed I am, how irritable I am, how inclined to pick fights, to be obstructive and obstreperous, contemptuous and impatient, but also how well the forum is functioning as a unit, is everyone happy and productive and intergrated and sharing what they have to share etc etc
If not, can I diagnose the problem? What is getting in the way? How able am I to address it? Have I got trapped in avoidant behaviour, or, at the other end of the spectrum, am I too confrontational and clumsy?
I measure it by whether or not I am able to read at or somewhere near the limit of my ability. I always try to read a book which is hard for me first thing in the morning over coffee. Is that possible today? How quickly does my attention wander? How long can I go before switching on the wifi and distracting myself? What is my attention span like today or how long can I go without needing some reward from outside and some engagement? How self contained am I today? How self sufficient?
I measure it at work. How well am I writing, how fluently, how imaginatively? Am I able to surprise myself or am I working mechanically, repeating old patterns and tropes? How emotionally congruent am I? Can I make contact with the customer? Or am I detached and disinterested? What response am I getting? Are people crying? Wanting to hug and kiss me? Are naive hippy girls sitting at my feet? Or is it all quite perfunctory? Are we not really meeting one another at all but merely conducting a dispassionate transaction?
What is my relationship like with my friends? How are we interacting? Is it niggly and antagonistic? Does it feel false or perfunctory? Which friends am I seeing or speaking too and which ones have fallen off the map? What might that mean?
I measure it by my relationship to booze and drugs. What, if anything, am I taking and crucially, what results am I getting?
I measure it by the amount of control I feel I have over my immediate environment, if the bed is made and the floor swept. I measure it by my conscience. If there are things nagging away at me. Things I know I must do but haven't. What unfinished business is hanging over. What needs apologising for and patching up.
I measure it by how good I look. How much fat I'm carrying. How bright my eyes are. How alive I look. I measure it by how much energy I have available. What speed am I walking at? How inclined to physical and mental activity?
I measure it by the degree to which I notice the world around me. It's possible to go weeks without realising it is there. In a fug which erases the outside entirely. And correspondingly, how aware am I of my own body, it's tensions and its aches. What is my posture like? Am I facing the world square on or am I angling away in eye and feet and shoulders?
Do I feel like I'm getting a clean contact with reality or are my senses dulled? Does it feel like there is a grotty film imposed between me and outside? How vivid and how intense is reality?