A case of chronic nostalgia

Note: I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. This is an exploration of the condition of nostalgia as I experience it, not a description or diagnosis of an actual disease.

It was originally conceived as a medical diagnosis. The word was coined by Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer in 1688. His reports described a condition characterized by a longing for home  (nostos = native, algos = grief), which could be fatal by way of self-neglect or suicide. Its origin was mysterious; Hofer blamed animal spirits.

Today, most of the symptoms of nostalgia the disease are encompassed by other diagnoses: anxiety, PTSD, depression. But I still believe I have an acute case of nostalgia. The older I get, the more emotional my memories make me. 

Not all my memories are sad or even interesting. But I'm overwhelmed by the volume of moments and eras that have ended. Rather than long for past experiences, I should simply appreciate it for the value it has brought me. Those times are done, but I still get to keep them in my mind.

Maybe that's part of the problem. My memory has always been impeccable, but it's starting to show its age. Small details have started to slip: last names of grade school friends, lyrics to obscure songs... Nothing major. But it's enough to make me anxious about what I'll eventually lose. 

And of course, I have a lot of residual feelings. Closure has never been my strong point. Guilt and uncertainty about the past can surprise me with their intensity. It usually starts with some innocuous trigger, like listening to a song I heard a lot during a certain era of my life. Sometimes I think this kind of reaction is trending stronger. On a bad day, I can't listen to my favorite playlist with dry eyes. 

Clearly I've upset the animal spirits.

In all seriousness, I associate it most with depression. Recalling happy times can feel sad when the present seems bleak. Maybe my current overreaction is in turn a reaction to feelings I'd suppressed.

Today I had a thought that I'd like to make a new mantra: Recall life with joy. Or maybe... Reflect happily. (I make all my mantras five syllables or less. If I can't remember it, I won't live it!) Regardless of the content of my memory, I can choose a positive perspective.

Happy new year!

Musical musings and misgivings

In a previous post, I mentioned listening to Imagine Gold by Frameworks. It's pretty typical of my musical experience these days; upbeat instrumentals help keep me focused. Songs with prominent lyrics scramble my brain when I'm trying to put words on a page. In some cases even an overly familiar instrumental snags my attention. So music discovery has become an obsession.

My search is equal parts methodical and chaotic. Each week, IFTTT transfers my full Discover Weekly list (which is curated by Spotify) to a work playlist I listen to every day. When I hear a song that fits, I add the artist's entire discography to the list. As I shuffle through, I remove songs that don't belong. Sometimes, if I come across something enjoyable but distracting, I'll add it to a different playlist. 

This method has yielded almost too much music in the last few years. Even listening several hours per day, I'll never be able to traverse the collection I've amassed across several Spotify playlists. Several times, I've run into a 10,000-song limit on playlists. But I recently discovered that you can shuffle a playlist folder. My Work folder now has two full playlists and a third quickly growing. 

Next I'll probably hit a limit on playlists. What a hassle.

Another gripe: Spotify won't do random ordering---only shuffle ordering---so I hear the same artists and songs with some regularity. 

But these are petty complaints about user experience. More problematic is the moral dilemma of paying fractions of a penny per play. I've tried making a living as a musician and recording engineer. Streaming services are the worst in terms of paying artists a fair cut---I'm basically paying for the privilege to steal. But it's the only way I can possibly consume this much music.

What's the alternative? Buy all the tracks? I don't even know what price is fair. 

When I was a teenager, a CD cost about $15. That's around $1.50 per song, assuming 10 songs per album. And there were really only 2-3 songs you were trying to buy. The cost structure didn't scale well. That's why piracy became all the rage. I went with Napster and never looked back.

I was also collecting music from everyone I knew, since the original run of iPod allowed it. Unlike my current collection, most of it was classic rock, indie, and alternative. At its height, that collection was around 20,000 songs. I felt like a demigod. 

By the time Napster went out of vogue, I was buying music from a Russian website for 5-10 cents per track, about a dollar per album. That seemed pretty reasonable at the time. I probably bought a few thousand tracks that way. 

But soon enough I heard about torrents, and all bets were off. It was like Napster, but better organized. I could download full, high quality albums with art and metadata included over a high-speed connection. My only limitation was the size of my hard drive. Honestly, I couldn't tell you how much music I had at that point. More than 200 GB, but less than a TB. 

At some point, I got rid of most of it. Digital storage became more important for my own audio, video, and photo projects. Maybe I miss the quality a bit. My ears don't work as well as they used to anyway, so I try not to think about it too much. 

Now I pay $16/mo for access to *checks Google* over 80 million tracks. My massive collection of playlists only covers .025% of it. The per-track breakdown is absurd. If I spend $200 per year and subscribe for 30 years, that's $6,000 for an eight-figure track count, or $.000075 per track. Realistically, you could only listen to around 5 million tracks in that time, which reduces the actual per-track cost to $.0012.

Personally, I've been on Spotify for a good decade. According to my last.fm stats, I've listened to about 42 tracks per day on average since 2019. At that rate, I've listened to about 150,000 tracks (with plenty of repeats, of course) since I joined Spotify. I wasn't paying $16/mo the whole time, but if I were, that would be about $.013 per track. That's not counting podcasts.

It seems unfair to everyone involved. But listening is a vice I'm not willing to abandon.

A penance post.

It's been five days since my last post. At this rate, I won't achieve my five-per-week goal. What keeps me from writing?

Excuses abound. It's true that I've been busy with holidays, work, other obligations. But that doesn't matter. Jotting down a few thoughts doesn't take long enough for any of these to justify not doing it. If I can spend several hours playing video games in the evening, I can damn well carve out time to write.

Maybe I think I have nothing to say. That's never true, but I frequently manage to convince myself it is. Sometimes I don't know (or remember) what I want to say until I start writing. My brain needs to warm up, especially with the amount of context-switching and information processing it does all day.

Nobody reads this blog. That's okay; I haven't told anyone about it. This has been a sort of trial period. That's the whole point: I need to write even when nobody is reading. Even if I'm tired and emotional. Especially if my ideas aren't refined. Regular writing makes my ideas better.

Success starts with effective habits. What's been working?

I like the neatness of the Blogger interface. I get distracted easily with complex tools and busy screens. Blogger is easy to look at, and despite its limitations, it serves its purpose well. It doesn't do more than it needs to. I can't overthink it.

Listening to music helps as well. Right now I'm checking out Imagine Gold by Frameworks*. It's very smooth but upbeat electronica with some samples and very few lyrics. It keeps me energized without distracting me too much (i.e. without me involuntarily singing along). And an album is about the right length for a good writing session.

Setting out to write immediately after work usually seems effective. A bit of residual productivity helps kickstart the process. Even if I walk away to eat dinner, it's easy to come back once I've already set up my space.

Of course, writing about writing is a cop-out. It works in a pinch, but I'd like to cover topics that are more broadly interesting.

As I was writing this, I got to thinking about my musical tastes to the point of writing several more paragraphs about that topic. My next post will be an exploration of that.

How cold is cold?

Today in Rockford, the high is below zero.

It seems absurd on the surface. After increasing by several degrees today, the temperature will still be less than nothing. The absurdity comes not from the weather conditions, but from our flawed measuring system. That's not a dig at the Fahrenheit system; Celsius is more precisely defined, but suffers the same issue. If anything, we should all be using Kelvins.

But never mind the number. This is the point where the wind pierces every layer. It seems to creep in through my pores and chill my bones. Even thinking about it makes me shiver.

The extreme cold and strong winds change how snow behaves. Flakes don't stick. The trees are stark, lacking the whimsical sparkle of regular snow accumulation. Their swaying limbs strain with an icy stiffness. A layer of white powder hangs in the air around them, sporadically swirling across the landscape. 

Matching this visual landscape is the hum of white noise. It's a strong, steady reminder of the latent power in the air around us. Low, bordering on ominous, it sets an apocalyptic tone. A warning to any who trek through this wasteland.

All this to say... I'm staying inside today.

My cardinal source of inspiration

Walking through a snowstorm is surreal. A violent torrent in a silent medium. No thunder booming, no heavy drops pattering; even the normal sounds of the world are muted. White blankets the air, ground, and the 

Today's isn't a dense storm---middling flake size and volume---but it's all blowing sideways. I should've worn a scarf and glasses. A part of me enjoys the low-stakes test of endurance. My face could go numb; I might have to turn around. But I continue forward.

Lost in consideration of freezing nose hairs, I barely notice the flash of a lone cardinal crossing the street. The red bird streaks past, pushing against the wind as though mounting a frontal attack on the storm. Part of me envies the bird, as I envy all flying birds for their natural ability and grace. I wonder what has brought it out in this weather. Mostly, I admire its tenacity in defying the blizzard in both velocity and hue.

I grab my phone to take a picture, but the bird has already obscured itself in the branches of a spruce tree. It's visible to me, but not to the camera. When I try to get close enough for a good picture, I can no longer see my subject. I frown at my inability to share this moment with others. 

And yet, here I write. 

Let this be a reminder to me. Taking a picture is a convenient way to capture a moment; by no means is it the only way. Writing it down takes more time and effort, but it's worth it. 

Inspiration is like that cardinal. It takes you by surprise. You're compelled to a heightened state for reasons you can't quite explain. And though the experience itself is confined to your own perception, you can capture the impression it leaves on you. Sharing and comparing those ideas gives us all a greater sense of connectedness. 

In this case "others" also includes your future self. If you don't capture the moments of reverence in your life, they're bound to fade. 

It's one reason I think we like holidays and traditions so much. They give us shared checkpoints. We can use them to check our progress, start or end phases, and generally reflect on our lives' trajectories. Bringing the past, present, and future together in our minds can give a sense of continuity. 

So be sure to take note of inspiring moments. Keep them in your memory by keeping them in a tangible form. And if it suits you, spread them around. Maybe someone else could use the inspiration.

Workaholism in the USA

The newest spending bill from Congress includes a section that's supposed to help Americans save for retirement. Apparently they're increasing the age you're required to start drawing from retirement accounts from 72 to 75.

So... We get to work for three more years? Is that really a solution?

Most Americans aren't ready for retirement. All this is going to do is let rich people hoard money and avoid taxes for a few extra years.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm hoping to retire long before 75. 

Notes on pragmatic optimism

Positive thinking can be practical.

Many people seem convinced that a bias toward optimism is unrealistic and counterproductive. I believe the opposite.

Optimism gives me the courage to look at a daunting situation and say, "I can figure this out."

Believing in tomorrow helps me plan for the long term.

I plan for worst-case scenarios, too. But I delve deeper into positive outcomes. 

Although religion doesn't appeal to me, faith holds special power over my psyche. Does belief in statistical likelihood count as faith? I believe in the reliability of the probabilistic laws of the universe. But faith in science is borne out by repeated observation. 

Either way, having some kind of belief in future success is more helpful in achieving that success than pessimistic worry.

Sources of willpower

What is the origin of willpower?

I'm not even sure how to classify the question. From a linguistic standpoint, it's straightforward. Power of will. Control exerted over your urges. The ability to react to and interact with your environment in a deliberate way. It's easy to compare to similar traits---motivation, perseverance, resilience. Though we can pin down the nuances in meaning, the common source still eludes us.

Another approach is to view it as a biological question---maybe even chemical. Neurological. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known to be willpower's physical location. But this literal answer is only as useful as its explanatory power. We can't observe the PFC producing a molecule of willpower, though it is certainly related to the reactions that happen there. 

Psychology holds some helpful conceptual models. Willpower is an energy reservoir that fuels every decision. As our reserves deplete, our reasoning ability diminishes. We start applying flawed heuristics and jumping to conclusions to get through the day.

None of this adds up to a phenomenological explanation. Maybe the better question is, Why does willpower (or a lack thereof) manifest in a certain person or situation? What causes it? Perhaps the factors are too complex to fully grasp. 

Still, it's a question I find myself asking regularly. Today, I decided to write this blog post, and I did it. Compare to the countless prior days when I have chosen not to write. How and why did I make the decision that I did?

Habit plays a big part; I've been pushing myself to write every day. Ingrained, repeated decisions become easier to resolve over time. That counts for bad habits, too; if I get drunk every day, that decision gets easier over time as well. And those tendencies take the reins when my reserves are low.

I figure the best time to form a habit is when you have the energy to commit to it. Once you've reinforced it enough, it will start to become the default when your energy is low.

So willpower is at least partly manufactured. We can increase the capacity of our tanks and conserve our energy. Building better habits is the best way to save your energy for the important decisions.

Beyond that, I suspect outlook matters. Willpower can be seized by anxiety and doubt. So it helps to have some foundation of faith or belief to support your choices. 

Willpower feels like a split-second decision. But most people have made the decision ahead of time.

Lacking ambition

Blended words are a hobby of mine, and I came across a real doozie today: humbitious. 

Humble... Ambitious. Humbitious.

It resonates with me because I have difficulty reconciling the two. 

Humility is one of the highest virtues I strive toward in my life. Experience has proven to me that a community is wiser than any of its individuals. If I assume my own superiority, I could be missing out on valuable input from everyone around me. Assuming my ignorance and asking questions gets me a broader perspective. 

In contrast, ambition doesn't come naturally to me. Life is a journey, and I'm a wanderer. Asserting myself on the universe for a purpose that belongs only to me just seems arrogant. The world isn't mine to mold to my will. And besides, what if my actions have negative consequences?

Also, I've never needed it. Humility has enriched my life and probably saved it. Ambition has mostly wrought trouble or disappointment in the few instances I've attempted it. Perhaps finishing my degree is an exception.

What I usually miss is that ambition doesn't have to be personal. Having ambition on behalf of a group can be a different experience. 

I'll think about it while I finish my Squotch.

Gamer in a world of NPCs

Gamification appeals to me immensely; my brain works in game analogies. Every road trip is a quest. An increase in my credit score is a reward. When Fitbit informs me of my 90 sleep score, I start to wonder how I could reach 95. 

The point is to track progress. I like the immediate reward of watching the meter go up as they perform a task or improve a skill. Still, the idea doesn't appeal to everyone. Some folks choose not to play.

Non-player characters (NPCs) in live productive but shallow lives and are driven by simplistic motivations. NPCs don't know or care about the business of other NPCs. You might find them mingling, chatting about mundane ideas of the day, or transacting goods and services in public. What you won't find is an NPC trying to change the world on their own. 

Only when a Hero (TM) engages with the NPC are they inspired to make a difference. Pursuing a quest of singular importance, the hero activates the NPC to elevate them to their chosen role. Once activated, they need the hero's constant guidance and protection, lest they wander into danger (or maybe just back home). 

As in games, NPCs can be difficult to deal with in reality. Micromanagement is not a productive mode for anyone involved. Find the right delegation method, give clear instructions, and you might set them to work independently for a stretch. However, attention is limited, and engagement will taper off without active management.

My real-life run-ins with NPCs seem far too frequent for me to be one of them. I want to help them lead more fulfilling lives. But I'm no hero---just a gamer.

For My Best Friend David

This is the speech I wrote for my best friend's wedding last month. I adlibbed a bit, so this isn't everything I said. David is a writer and musician, so I made a goal to fit as many song titles of his into the speech as possible---I managed 24.

Enjoy. If you are curious about the songs, check out PhYr, Cloudkill, and Go Nova. (David and I played together in all three bands.)

Intention and adaptation

I wrote for a half-hour about Give Up (while listening through). I'll spend another half-hour later this week finishing it, but I wanted to at least document that I'd started the thing. Posting here almost daily should help hold me accountable for larger projects I'm working on. 

Next, it's time to write some emails for the co-op. No problem.

Five ideas per week

I'm adjusting my expectation down to avoid scrapping the whole experiment. Writing on five of seven days each week seems like a reasonable goal still. And I get the breathing room to say "no" every once in a while.

Some days writing can be draining. I'm still working through a lot of personal, emotional material these days. Finding the energy to be my true self on the page is overwhelming some days, and it comes through as a rant when I try to write about it. I know not all of my writing will turn out great---that's fine. But I don't want to look back and realize that I've been harming my state of mind with blunt force methods.

Which brings me to another shift in gears: I need to establish focus in my writing. This blog is a vast remote property for me to map out the labyrinth of my imagination. With no other keep redecorating the entryway. 

Of the forms described in the book I've been reading, the only two I've done recently are personal, technical/scientific, and business writing (though he refers to personal writing as memoir writing, which is not quite how I'd describe a journaling blog). The other types listed are:

• Interview
• Travel
• Sports
• Arts (review and criticism)
• Humor

I should try some of these and see what happens. Maybe some fiction, too?

But again... Focus. Art seems like a good first topic. I can think of plenty of musical albums to review. "Give Up" by Postal Service is fresh in my mind, since it accompanied my flight to Austin last month. I'll write a review of the album and tie in some of the story of my trip. No more than an hour---hopefully less---it will be editable anyway.

One thing I don't want to do, specifically because I'm inclined to, is write separate reviews for every song. They're all great, or I wouldn't care about the album.

After that, maybe I should think about some other reviews. Technology? TV shows? Please stop me if I start hocking products here.

The first lapse

I missed writing yesterday. I spent most of the evening relaxing instead, since I didn't have any obligations for once. 

It was bound to happen at some point, and it's fine. But I'm having some difficulty thinking of something meaningful to write. I guess this is just a journal entry, then.

I've been playing music a lot lately, which feels great. The new guitar I bought last month has been a great inspiration. At first I was a little intimidated by its volume---my previous guitars have been easy to sing over. I'm coming to appreciate the challenge. It also sounds great through a cable (acoustic-electric) so I don't have to fiddle around with microphones to record.

Not that I mind fiddling with microphones. I'm enjoying the new vocal mic I bought after pining for it a while. I've been recording some acoustic and vocal videos, and the results are pretty satisfying.

I've also been collaborating with an old friend on some music. Playing along with other people's music uniquely satisfies my brain. Especially when I know they appreciate my input.

Other than that, I've been reading about writing. Last week I decided to get a few books about the craft of writing, rather than the normal historical, economic, and productivity related stuff. I've enjoyed On Writing Well by William Zinsser so far. I'm probably 2/3 through. A lot of it doesn't apply to technical writing, but he does spend a chapter on that topic.

I like to spend the time between my birthday and New Years sorting out my goals and direction for the next year. It's a convenient chance to assess what I'm doing and why---and maybe what I shouldn't be doing. Extra reflection time helps me feel like I'm improving over time.

That is, if I follow my own advice. Which is rare. 

I hope I'm at least not getting worse.

On returning to perfect squarehood

Start with 1 and start adding odd numbers in order. Do you notice a pattern? 

1 + 3 = 4

4 + 5 = 9

9 + 7 = 16

16 + 9 = 25

Adding odd numbers yields perfect squares.

It's one of my favorite surprising math facts, partly because I noticed it myself while doodling in the margins of my middle school math notebook. These patterns fascinate me. 

Today is my 36th birthday---a perfect square. It's been 11 years since the last one, and it'll be another 13 years until the next. 

Math facts are my favorite way to celebrate birthdays, because both have arbitrary significance. Birthdays, odd numbers, and perfect squares are all human concepts. They don't matter, they simply exist. 

Celebrating a birthday seems forced anyhow; being born wasn't my accomplishment. Maybe staying alive is the real feat. Isn't every day significant in that way? 

For whatever reason, I'm always excited by number theory. So it gives me a little extra joy to muse on the pretend significance of the number. 

I'm a perfect square. Perhaps in the 50's slang sense of an old-fashioned person? Maybe I'm just in good shape. Or it could be a commentary on the balance of factors in my life.

It also happens to be the first perfect square that is the product of two other perfect squares (9 x 4). That feels powerful, somehow. 

I promise I won't let it go to my head.

Sound, in fifteen minutes or less.

In the interest of becoming a faster thinker and better writer, I thought I'd try a timed writing exercise. The following is all I have to say about sound in fifteen minutes. (I didn't plan for it to be so science-y, but of course it is.)

Have you ever stopped to think about sound? Acoustics is a fascinating area of study.

Sound is a wave of vibration that travels through matter. It doesn't work in space. But it does move through solids in intriguing ways. 

It's a longitudinal wave. That means the pressure of the vibration is applied parallel to the direction the sound is moving. When you hear a sound, your ear is picking up energy that's been passed from layer to layer of particles between the source and your ear. Think of a series of balls bumping each other across a pool table, but in this case they bounce back.

Any sound wave has the same basic properties. Amplitude is the range of oscillation---how far does the back-and-forth motion extend? We hear this as the volume of the sound. Frequency is how quickly the motion is happening. That defines the pitch we hear, low or high. 

All that is in the time domain. Now, enter the frequency domain, where things get really interesting. Resonance can make things levitate. But that'll have to wait for another post.

Thinking slow in the fast lane

I'm a slow thinker.

Sure, my brain moves fast in a lot of ways. I can dig up the right word for a concept, or the lyrics to just about any song I've sung in the past 20 years. Puzzles and riddles usually come easily. But when I'm working on an open-ended creative project, the constant decisions slow me down.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes two general mental approaches that are optimal for different situations. Thinking fast is instinctive and emotional. I relate it to phenomena like intuition and muscle memory. Thinking slow is more deliberative and rational. It's working through a problem logically to find the best solution.

My brain defaults to the latter, even when it's disadvantageous. I've been facing a lot of professional and personal situations lately that call for speed over depth, and it's been difficult to adapt. So I'm trying to train myself to think fast. Ordering the first thing on the menu that sounds interesting. Sending the initial draft of a text message. Writing whatever comes to mind without continually editing every piece.

So I guess this is an exercise in thinking faster. I'm trying to keep from over-editing, but even as I'm typing this, it's irresistible. My hope is that I'll improve as I keep blogging every day.

This still took over a half-hour to write. But I'm finished!

One idea per day

Life has been moving fast for a while. But isn't it always? This blog needs an update, and life isn't going slow down anytime soon. 

Outside work, I haven't done any real writing in a long time. I journal on and off, for my own sake. When life gets confusing and complex, it's helpful to get ideas out of my head and into reality. Everything seems more manageable.

Yet I rarely share my thoughts. I don't even post on social media anymore. Why?

Music and writing have been my creative and emotional outlets for decades. I've only received praise for my work, and I enjoy starting discussions around topics I find interesting. It's energizing. Why should publishing make me nervous?

My current theory: I fear influence. Anytime I find out my words affected someone, I find an excuse to retreat. It's a pattern I'd like to shatter.

I've been writing songs for twenty years. As an instrumentalist, technician, and producer, I've contributed to countless other people's musical projects. Despite people saying my music has helped them or brought them some new insight, I've never released an album of my own. I worry my lyrics will influence someone in a way that leads to a bad outcome. I don't want my words to do harm. 

When I started blogging a few years ago, it felt great. I set a goal to write at least once per month. After a few posts, I got some positive comments from close friends and family. It started some good conversations and helped give me the perspective to sort through some confusing situations.

Everything was fine until a co-worker told me one of my posts had changed their life for the better. Consciously, I was thrilled. It was the highest praise I could get for something I'd written mainly for myself. And yet, almost immediately, I stopped writing again.

For several years, I've been trying to do more difficult things. It's the best I know to learn and grow. Publishing and sharing my ideas has been high on my list for too long. I've inched toward better habits around this (e.g. my previous attempt to blog), but I need to build more momentum. 

So starting today, I'm going to publish something here every day. I don't think I'm going to apply any strict requirements---just write a few paragraphs about an experience or idea. I'm convinced I can devote at least fifteen minutes per day to writing. Maybe some days will just have one or two sentences. That's fine.

My goal is to form the habit of writing and sharing something every day. Life moves fast. Direction matters.