Nova Daily - 28 June 2025: Scotoma

Hi!

It happened today as I was writing a judgement on one of the TBA submissions. I was reading the post on my laptop and had my document open on second screen. I had just managed to switch off my personal opinions so as to judge more objectively based on the criteria that I had set for myself. It passed the just/like-test, to my delight.

One of the words suddenly disappeared from my view. I thought I had looked into the light of outside for a little too long, because that's how it looked. I thought that it'd disappear from my vision on short notice, but it didn't.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my eyelids for a few seconds, to see if that's help. But it didn't. The flashing blur that had polluted my sight didn't go away. It became worse: another blur appeared, a bit below the first blur.

The blurs expanded over the next couple of minutes, until they had formed a half moon shaped zigzag line. It was moving, flashing, shaking. I saw it, but it wasn't there. A hallucination, a figment of my imagination...

Scotoma

The sensation is unfortunately not new to me. I've had it before, and I know what it is: a flickering scotoma. It's a precursor to migraine.

I'm lucky to say that migraines are reasonably rare occurrences. But when they do happen, it's a signal that my body is trying to give me: "You're overworking yourself. Take it slower, take it easier. Pause."

I take such signs very seriously. I don't want to end up like Mozart, who worked himself into burnout. Or like the guitarist I mentioned a while ago, who collapsed on a plane and has never been the same since. Like him, I need to take my rest consciously. I need to sleep better and take better stock of how and for what I spend my energy.

I had wanted to enter my game analysis today, but I'll postpone that until at least tomorrow. 

In the mean time, feel free to try your luck at yesterday's position: