When young lifetips grow up, I imagine they look up to the successful ones that made it onto tiles, memes or calendars. In comparison to the three life lessons I shared previously, this fourth one has a greater chance of ever becoming an inspirational quote of some sort.
Jesse Frederik first introduced this lifetip to me in somewhat confusing terms:
You don’t have to believe everything you think.
To me it means that it’s OK to let go of ideas you may have had in the past. For example, I used to think vegetarians were delusional, annoying and unhealthy. Now I believe that being vegetarian does not mean forsaking flavor, nor do I have to dress in hemp and grow dreadlocks. Also, it’s just undeniably better for the planet than maintaining a meat-based diet will ever be.
Another interpretation of this motto would start by breaking with the commonplace assumption that a person’s internal thoughts are always a monologue.
I suppose we all know the catholic mantra “What would Jesus do?”. It is a way of internalizing the voice of someone who’s morality you would want to apply to specific dilemma. Without getting too psychological about it, I hope we can agree that every person also has a “What would my mother do?” checkpoint, that pops up at specific moments (not always conveniently).
The happiness gurus of the 21st century might say the line refers to the negative thoughts we all have sometimes. Thoughts such as:
I am not good enough.
The world is unkind / dangerous.
I can’t do it (so I’m not even going to try).
A meaningful (and sad) metaphor that is sometimes used in this context is that of the domesticated elephant, that has been chained and ‘broken’ at an early age. During this time, she may have struggled to free herself but failed, leading her to believe it is impossible to do. Once grown, the elephant obeys orders to move and carry heavy objects. The same chain would be no match for the power she could apply to it as an adult elephant. At that point though, what keeps her from trying, is the belief that she can’t.
So.
Evaluate the thoughts you have every now and then. Don’t be afraid of changing a strong opinion you may have had out of fear of being seen as inconsistent or unstable.
Discuss your insecurities with the ones you love and trust. It will oftentimes be those moments, when you vocalize your thoughts, that you realize that is not what you believe at all. Saying them out loud will reveal their untruth. Just like a ridiculous dream, that makes total sense until the moment you wake up.
As January passed me by, I realized I had very little mind-rubbish to clean out. So I decided to wait until the end of February to go through my mental cobwebs.
I hope everyone had a wonderful leap day!
Musing: What is pride?
I’m not sure when, where or why it started, but something triggered me to try and decipher the concept of “pride”.
I know the word has somehow gotten entangled with the LGBTQ community, but that is not the aspect of it that has been on my mind.
What I have been gnawing on, is the feeling of pride in general.
How do you describe it? Does it have something to do with love? It usually has to do with an accomplishment, I guess.
You can be proud of yourself, which I kind of get.
But how is it that you can be proud of someone else? What is that and how does it work? If a mother is proud a child, you could say she feels pride for having created a being that is now accomplishing so-and-so. But how can I be proud of a friend? Is it the same as saying “I am happy for you”?
I’m still untangling that one… Insights are welcome!
Films / Series
I started watching ‘The Good Place‘, which I found wildly amusing. Such an interesting storyline!
Questions of morality and defining what makes someone “good” remind me of some of the episodes in Black Mirror. Contrary to Black Mirror though, the Good Place does not emphasize how shitty we are as a species and actually let’s you sleep comfortably at night.
I also watched A Monster Calls, which is a beautifully touching movie about grief. It reminded me of ‘Big Fish’. I definitely cried.
I also re-watched the Avatar (Last Aribender) TV series, which first aired 15 years ago. I have an odd fascination for the series. I admire the simpleness of the individual episodes and the intense complexity of the overall story. I started watching the Korra spinoff years ago but it didn’t quite have the same effect on me.
Music
My wonderful friend Zeef gave me tickets for Avi Kaplan‘s concert in Paradiso, Amsterdam on the 22nd of January. It was awesome. Anyone who has the chance to see him live, should go. His studio songs are good, but live he is breathtaking. My favorite song of the set is a song he hasn’t released yet, but I’m sure he will soon. It’s called Nature Girl. Once it’s available on Spotify or YouTube, I’ll be sure to post it.
If you’re into Avi’s music and also enjoy bands like Coldplay or Keane I’m sure you would also enjoy Dutch band Haevn. I was about to say they just released a new album, but it turns out it’s actually an old album that I’m only now discovering. It’s music that’s comfortable to have on in the background but also interesting enough to listen to on the foreground.
And for the true romantics among us, I recommend John Legend‘s song Conversations in the dark. I know, I should’ve mentioned it before Valentine’s day… But hey, there is always next year,
I just remembered I also recently stumbled upon a Youtube vid in which John Legend explains the lyrics and meaning of his song Penthouse Floor. If you didn’t already love him, you will now:
Other recent discoveries:
Shey Baba
Sam Brookes
Cynthia Erivo (yes, thanks to her Oscar performance)
I realize all of the above musicians are quite… eum… solemn? Apparently that was my mood these last two months.
Tech
At work our laptops run on Linux and I’ve been considering switching over at home as well. The only thing stopping me is that, at work, I can ask my IT-buddies to help me update or change things which makes me feel like I would completely fail with my own PC at home… I’ve watched a few tutorials. It’s a lot of Abracadabra lingo, but the steps seem doable. All I’ve got to do now is find the balls (and time, I guess)…
My list and taskmanager app of choice, Wunderlist, will be discontinued this May, after having been taken over by Microsoft. Booooo!
I tested a few non-Micorosoft ( I know, I’m childish that way) alternatives and came to the following conclusions:
ToDoist
It’s too strictly a planner thing.
It all revolves around what will I do today & tomorrow
It wants me to order everything in projects… So even my groceries are a project now?
In Wunderlist I have a lot of useless lists (names I would give a Cat, Places I want to go, Gift ideas for my mother, etc) which I wouldn’t know where to put in todoist.
CONCLUSION: Nope.
Any.do
Looks pretty basic, but turns out having a lot of different pages and views
I found it all kind of confusing , especially since you need the premium account for a lot of the options. It annoys me that all the stuff I can’t use are constantly in my face (Todoist did the same btw).
CONCLUSION: No
Ike
A bit rigid in its layout (every category always has to have the four priority blocks).
I did some experiments and could definitely work with it…
CONCLUSION: OK, but not quite.
Meistertask
I used it for a few weeks now and kind of of like it.
I am annoyed by the limits of the “free version” which makes me not want to switch to the Pro-version (because it makes me feel like I don’t have a choice).
CONCLUSION: It’s the one I’m sticking with for now
Trello
I’ve been recommended this one by several people.
CONCLUSION: Haven’t tried it yet.
Today is the 1st of March. It’s my dad’s birthday. Happy 73rd, daddyo!
UPDATE: WordPress tells me this is my 200th post on this blog. Congratulations to me!
Epiphany 