Wednesday, June 5: Now
This isn’t a real “now” post like you see on peoples’ blogs. It’s in the spirit of trying not to overthink writing. Here’s what I’m thinking about today, right now, during lunch.
Due to many factors — famous people continuing to die, my parents getting older, my own eyesight and hearing getting worse — I feel intense pressure to:
- Stop obsessing over things that don’t actually matter. Giving up keeping “future-proof” text/Markdown/org-mode files for my notes for the most part and relying on Bear instead is still working great and is way more useful and looks nicer.
- Learn the keyboard parts of more songs using the gear I have (well, now that I’ve bought an Arturia KeyLab Essential 61 mk3).
- Listen to more music, not just the equipment. Abandon the idea of two stereo speakers being set up in the exact right place, at the optimum distance from the wall, and me sitting in the “sweet spot” on the couch. What if I just had two bookshelf speakers nestled in our actual bookshelf, surrounded by books, and not even facing us while we do other things? What if the turntable was put somewhere else “not as good” but easier to get to? Wouldn’t we use it way more without it being a whole ceremony involving removing the dust cover (and the cat-proofing logs of aluminum foil) and propping it up in a random place every time?
- Not be guilted into using devices or services just because I keep paying for them, which means not signing up for things as knee-jerkily as I was. Sorry, Readwise. You are great, but I probably don’t require an Obsidian-hosted archive of all the things I’ve highlighted in all the things I read later. The free Omnivore app on the very not-free Boox Palma is plenty good enough.
- Arrive at a “photo workflow” that isn’t a workflow. Especially now that it’s been a year since our Seattle trip and I still haven’t finished processing those files.
- Just read the news in Spanish or listen to Spanish YouTubers frequently with the Language Reactor plugin.
Not that I have allowed enough time in any given day or week to actually do all these things. This is where the mania creeps in.