Monstres méchants et gentils servans

C'est rare que j'écoute de la musique dubstep pendant que j'écris. Jadis, j'écoutait de la musique transe car elle ne comportait pas souvent de paroles (chose qui me dérangeait un peu), et parce que il y avait une continuation presque infinie de vagues sonore.

Maintenant, en 2017, je me retrouve à écouter Skrillex. Oké, peut-être pas grand chose - juste une chanson - mais il faut dire que la chanson (dont j'ai traduit le titre juste en haut) m'a stimulé à écrire.

Je ne suis plus de l'opinion que seule la musique transe et classique sont idéales pour être créatif en écriture. Non, je dirais plûtot que c'est l'heure de la journée qui à la plus grande influence sur mon écriture: le soir, c'est la folie qui ressort. Le matin, c'est l'obsession avec la grammaire et l'orthographe.

J'écoute encore Paramore. Ils ont un nouveau album. Je ne l'aime pas encore, mais je pense que je vais apprendre à l'aimer, comme toutes leur albums précédents.

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Quelle journée superbe! J'ai jasé avec une coolchick pendant des heures. Ça m'arrive tellement rarement dans mes vingtaines qu'il faut vraiment que j'apprécie ça. Oui, encore une fois... La gratitude. C'est tellement facile à faire! Et je le fais en répétition parce-que je suis sûr à 100% que ça améliore ma joie de vivre - les études l'on démontré. C'est de la psychologie positive, chose dans lequel je ne suis pas expert, mais dont je considère important.

Bon, avant de dégénerer dans du français incompréhensible... je vous laisse avec une photo choisie au hasard, directement de mon portable:

Greatful

It's such a good feeling to be grateful.
These days, I recognize that I am grateful for the food I eat, for the air I breathe, for the water I drink, for the music I listen to, for the flowers I see; the list goes on and on.

I'm not sure if I can really call it a feeling. It's more of a state of mind. But before I get lost in the semantics, know that none of this "grateful-ality" would be possible were it not for self-compassion.


Sure, we're taught that it's important to be nice to people, but are we ever taught to be nice to ourselves? Yes, we are sometimes, but too often this reminder occurs in yoga classes or from self-help books, places that we turn to to accomplish things.

Well, I'm sick of striving for accomplishments! Don't get me wrong: it's important to accomplish things, both for one's own sake and for society's. It's critical to accomplish things when it comes to personal health. One such goal which many can relate to (and which I've managed to do continuously for around 2 months now) is quitting sugary drinks. Namely, sodas and high-fructose juices. But now that that goal is done (I don't ever want to go back to chugging Coke), what's next?

What's next is feeling. Feeling my place in the world instead of thinking about it. Thinking about how I'm going to get in shape, thinking about how nerve-wracking it is asking that one chick out with the cool hair, thinking about how I wish I could be an anime voice-actor in Attack on Titan (which is ridiculously awesome in all senses of the word, btw); these are all good things to think about, but practically, how do I actualize?

I think gratitude can help. Instead of reaching for what I might want, I'm thankful for what I have. And from then on, no matter what happens, I know that past-me is looking out for future-me.

I'm grateful for being able to feel joy instead of pain. Although I'm kind of grateful that I can feel pain too, because it keeps me alive.

I'm grateful to Lyra for always being around even though I seldom stay in touch with her for very long. She's out there somewhere - I wonder which star by now? - and I feel all right in the knowledge that she exists, somewhere.

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Afrofest 2017 and Maker's Expo 2017 were really cool this year. Both free. I highly recommend Afrofest if you're into fantastic rhythms, delicious food, and exotic knick-knacks. I recommend Maker's Expo if you're into gadgets, science, and Nuit Blanche-esque artwork.

Cheerful, gleeful, single

Ladies, gents, and the rest:

I have the pleasure of promoting a song with vocals performed by a friend of mine! If you like 80s-style electro-pop (or you have feminist ideals), then check this one out.

Punctured

It should be as easy as plugging in a few cables here and there; buying some new hardware, but I just sit and stare

I realized for the third time today that semi-colons were the confused stepchildren of commas and full stops

So now I'm worried I'll get disused, so I'll diffuse experimental memories from my scope to keep it dope

 

I'm sick, sick, sick of words that describe other words only for the sake of describing words like verbs; like verbing a noun on the prowl

I can't even imagine that what I'm doing is foul

Hey Lyra, I need you now

Like I was saying; I want it to be easy; I want it to be; I want

Freedom for punctuation

Freedom from punctuation

Which one sounds better?

It doesn't matter

Liberty freedom respect honour talent noun noun acting playing writing feeling owning destroying recreating an anthropomorphic catalyst; incoming

No pictures. No colour. Just black and white. Just shading. It's all so drab and I'm not gonna fly a flag because a flag is to be drab and being drab gets me mad.

All I'm saying is that this white box makes me sick sometimes

NO, NO I DON'T WANT TO RHYME

I'M ALIVE

I don't want to yell either 'cause my throat's sore

Obviously this paragraph is going to end with something more.

Hey Lyra, can you tell me what that is without plugging out?

Inspiration: Demetri Martin

Darwin's Lost Paradise

I just finished watching a documentary called "Darwin's Lost Paradise". Filmed on location, it recreates Darwin's journey across the world on the HMS Beagle, one of the most famous voyages in scientific history. In my head, it rivals C.S. Lewis' fantasy novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in its scope. Except... this really happened. Almost 200 years ago.

A breathtaking journey. Alongside Captain FitzRoy and a crew of mostly young men, they travelled from England to South America, to Tierra del Fuego, onwards to the Galapagos Islands, making a stop in Sydney, Australia to finally, after half a decade, make it back to England with unparalleled tales of natural wonder.

I was struck by Darwin's strength of character. Although he eventually published (arguably) the most famous scientific treatise of all time, his personal moral struggle against the church & monotheism took a toll on him. He lived to his 70s - mostly in ill-health - but nonetheless wrote and endlessly observed the natural realm. The painful death of his 10-year old daughter Annie marked him greatly, and he devoted himself to his work to cope with the suffering.

I believe there is refuge from suffering in the natural realm. Too often we end up closed up in boxes of grey matter; of concrete and brain cells. Darwin arduously tried to show the world that we are not above nature; that we are part of the "coral of life" and that we all have a common ancestor, somewhere in time.

What a beautiful story. Definitely one of my favourite documentaries now.

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Here's a picture I took in Enora, ON over the weekend. It's a cute, touristy town about an hour's drive west of Toronto. There's a zipline nearby, but I calculated that it costs almost 3 dollars a second soooooo I didn't think it was worth it.

Birdwatching

SO I was going to start this blog post saying something like: "Well I didn't actually do any birdwatching" but then I realized that I actually did do some birdwatching: I saw some crows yesterday and some sparrows, too. And I watched them. But the real reason why I titled this post "birdwatching is because I saw a movie called Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) at the reference library and it was a good time!

I don't do spoilers; suffice to say, it's because I think part of the movie experience is (obviously) discovering something new and usually unexpected. And this movie had some great mix of real and fantasy, though it's mostly grounded in a New York Broadway setting.

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I finally got some Lights on my new phone! No, not literal pixels; the artist! The more I listen to her, the more I realize how much I miss listening to her music.

Right now, Frame and Focus is on my mind (from her second studio album, Siberia).

I'm the scene and this blog is the director.