I found Jan Lehnardt's vision for CouchDB very compelling. It allows CouchDB to be the feature-rich core of a large, complex ecosystem, yet retain a ruthless focus on being the best multi-master replicating database available.
The challenge seems to be in finding or creating friendship circles with similar or compatible values/outlook. In a busy fragmented society, you have to work in a deliberate and persistent way at that. I've concluded that a key thing to do is to pursue my passions and find IRL communities that share them.
Seriously, on my Android device I have an app called Routinely which is one of probably dozens of apps focused on supporting the formation of positive habits. I've set up both a morning meditation activity and an evening meditation activity on it on a daily basis. It does regular scheduled notifications & it does the Seinfeld chain thing when you tick off a completed activity.
I'm following the Natural Stress Relief approach to meditation which is a form of mantra meditation not unrelated to Transcendental or Vedic Meditation. Each session is 18 minutes in length.
I'm not long into my practice, but I find that as a night owl, it helps me sleep more soundly if I do an evening meditation and that the morning meditation dispels the grogginess I usually have on waking. After meditation, I generally find myself refreshed, relaxed, alert and calm and there is a real delta in my state compared with before the session.
