Starting with not-so-good news this time: I sat in front of the computer for 9–11 hours a day this week, despite my goal to keep it around 5–6 hours max. The main reason is my sudden decision to change jobs, which led to the necessity of working three jobs in parallel for basically the entire month. To my surprise, it doesn’t suck - I was sure it would - but spending so much time on the computer again is definitely making me feel worse. I think it doesn’t bother me too much now because, in a few weeks, I’ll have much more free time. This new job is more about quality over quantity, with the same income as the previous one but a much lighter workload, which is exactly what I wanted (and even wrote about in my 2024 yearly review as one of my main goals). I just need to power through a couple more weeks of this temporary crazy schedule.
It’s funny how I’ve turned myself into a lab rat, constantly testing different approaches to digital time restrictions and other life experiments. I even take notes on it all the time, but they read like complete schizophrenic delusions, so I won’t post them here. But the difference is noticeable - eye strain, mood changes, sleep quality, desire to do creative work, and much more.
On the other hand, it’s been almost a month since I started practicing meditation, and I’m already seeing a lot of results. I can’t say I practice as much as I initially planned, but it’s somewhere between once a day and once every two days. I’ve tried different methods, different times of day, different moods - calm or annoyed - and I feel like I’ve got a grip on it to some extent. The most interesting thing for me is that some methods work great, while others feel incredibly difficult. My favorites (and basically the only ones that work for me) are sensory and heart-centered meditation. Everything else feels off - like tonglen, mantra meditation, and more esoteric stuff. I’ll try everything anyway, but I’m already making progress with the easier ones. It’s much easier to focus or just do nothing, my overall mood is better, and I feel a new kind of calmness and indifference to unimportant stuff. I also have far fewer cyclical thoughts, which were driving me crazy.
Also, I still think from time to time about my issue with having too many interests and not dedicating enough to any of them, but it seems I don’t care about it as much anymore - at least not like I did before. I was reminded of it this week while reading a post on spasic.me called Refuse to Choose: Too Many Interests to Pick Just One?, which really resonated with me. Here’s a small excerpt:
I learned that no knowledge is for nothing! It may not have a straightforward or tangible effect on my life right now, but as you move on, you will know that the time invested in your interests is never wasted. It is for you and experiencing this world with passion and a sense of wonder is what some of us see as our life purpose.
And lastly, some music talk as usual! As I wrote in last week’s note, I’m trying to get into classical music right now, which is pretty difficult for many reasons. But this week, I found an amazing service that makes the learning process much easier. It’s called IDAGIO, and it’s basically Spotify but exclusively for classical music. I haven’t used Spotify in a long time - I have downloaded files for every album I listen to - but with classical music, I quickly realized that method wouldn’t work. Not only is it much harder to find pieces in high quality, but every well-known piece has an overwhelming number of different performances. And those performances can be drastically different in terms of quality, tempo, and many other aspects, meaning you’d have to listen to them all, compare them, and then find the version you like. Because of that, I found IDAGIO incredibly useful: it offers lossless quality, tons of different performances, weekly mixes, playlists with essential works from any composer you want, and even some lectures explaining various pieces. It’s subscription-based ($10/month), but there’s a free version with ads, which seems much better than Spotify’s free version. I enjoy listening to curated playlists and just exploring what I like and don’t like - it’s much more interesting than just googling random pieces, especially when you’re just starting out. I’ll test it for the two-week free trial and then decide if I’ll subscribe. Given the lack of good resources for exploring classical music, I probably will.
The piece I’m really into this week: Maurice Ravel – Adagio assai from Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G major, M.83, performed by Josep Pons, Orchestre de Paris, and Javier Perianes. It’s only nine minutes long, so I highly recommend listening to it if you can find some free time in a quiet place. It’s absolutely charming, I swear.
Because of this work situation, I don’t have much energy to write posts or emails, but by April, everything should be back to normal - or even better. Have a great week, everyone!