Category: Writing

Week’s Highlights

by MAÔ, posted in Social, Writing

Some of the things that caught my interest this week.

  • Stu Larsen’s “I Will Be Happy“. This may be my new travel anthem for a while. I had listened to George Ezra’s Wanted on Voyage, especially on my last trip to Europe. (Barcelona was a particular favorite.)
  • Fountain Pen usage. After listening to Neil Gaiman’s interview on the Tim Ferriss Show, where he talked about Moleskine and Leuchtturm notebooks, and the fountain pens he uses, I decided to look into breaking out some pens that I’ve had stashed away for quite a while. I usually use Uni-Ball Vision Micro, but I’m always willing to try something new.
  • “How Not to be Boring”. This was an interesting video that I think came to me from one of the few newsletters I didn’t unsubscribe to. There’s a lot going on here, and I think it touches on charisma, introversion, honest and truthful exchanges with others, and self-discovery.
  • Godel, Escher, Bach. This is a book I came to through Seth Godin’s blog some years ago, and I started reading it but never finished. While perusing a used book store a couple of weeks ago I found a well-thumbed copy, and I decided to give it a go. It’s been my go-to nonfiction for the past week, and I’m excited to make a dent in this tome.

Why fasting is a spiritual practice

by MAÔ, posted in Biohacking, Writing

I started intermittent fasting a few weeks ago, on a trial basis for health and energy purposes. I noticed something, more of a byproduct than an intentional effect:

Meditation becomes easier in a fast.

We’re accosted by thoughts arising from Monkey Brain (or lizard brain, or whatever you’d like to call it). It tells is to eat, procreate, find shelter, drink fluids. It also sends the irrational fear signals. And the criticisms. It’s insidious, and it’s always going.

Now, with a lack of food it tends to focus more on hunger. I become used to thoughts of “is it time to eat yet?” I can learn to tune those out easier, and it’s mostly sending me those thoughts. I’m then able to filter past them and listen to more higher-level thoughts.

It’s been an interesting endeavor, and I’m enjoying the increased concentration from the intermittent fasting.

Week’s Highlights

by MAÔ, posted in Social, Writing

Some of the things that caught my interest this week.

  • Beetlejuice the Musical. Well, I seem to be heading to New York in September. It’s odd how things happen so quickly. But, I’ll be attending this musical while up there, and hopefully seeing a few more.
  • The Magic Flute by W.A. Mozart, with book by Emanuel Schikaneder & Carl Ludwig Giesecke. I was tuning in to the radio station I do my show for, and heard this piece from Die , where the baritone was singing “papagena, papagena, papagena.” I thought that I could sing the whole piece, so I borrowed the music from my friend and accompanist and began working on my German… which is atrocious.
  • Online shopping vs. in-person, with relation to adverse weather conditions. Did you know rainy days can increase online sales?
  • Newly-created interest in video games, as it pertains to my weekly recording sessions, has led me to some previously-unvisited corners of the internet. If you’re looking for free games to play, try this piece from Games Radar.

But wasn’t there a spellcheck

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

Just a quick note/rant. WordPress is a platform that I do enjoy. I have the app on my iOS devices, and have it on my MacBook. Now, I usually type it up on the go – either phone or iPad – or I’ll handwrite thoughts and later migrate them to the MacBook. However, I’d always do a spellcheck on the MacBook before scheduling the post.

Now, it seems spellcheck it gone. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. I’ve not even looked into it. I just went to spellcheck, and the little icon wasn’t there to select.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Walking a fine line

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

I’ve been thinking lately about the types of posts I make here. Some are little thoughts I have about this and that (theatre and performance, or books I’m reading/have read);  advice I’ve been given or came across; bits of motivation; very personal thoughts on loss and struggling; finance and investing; or even poetry. All these things are a hodgepodge of who I am and what I’m thinking right now.

Some of it may be interesting to someone. Many more may not find anything here. Others may not want to read each and every post I make, because who knows what I’ll be writing about on any given day.

I struggle with that – providing content (even content that no one may see) which goes back and forth from business to personal, and relevant to downright absurd. But, it’s who I am.

I started writing this blog because I’d kept a journal since 2015. Some times I’ve written daily. Right now I’m best at weekly in the journal, with other writing thrown in during the week. But it was entirely private, and no one was going to come across it. I may even pull a Dickens and have them all burnt before I go. Who knows…

So I put it up online, just another WordPress blog. And I’ve grown it a bit. I’ve grown a bit myself. Now it’s out there for anyone to see. Maybe no one will. But it’s out there.

Counterintuitive

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

The oddest little thing has come to my attention. When I was writing one or two blog posts a week, I always seemed to find excuses for not doing them. I was always too busy.

Now, with a daily post, I don’t seem to run out of things to say. I can knock out three or four every time I sit in front of the computer. Most are short. Some are longer, and may take me three-ten tries to tie them up. But I am able still to move through my thoughts in an easier, more-streamlined way.

It’s either the commitment (though I had committed to twice a week before, which I let slip), or it’s the routine, or it’s writing so often that I don’t worry about the quality of work as much. As long as it’s grammatically correct and (mostly) spellchecked, then I’m pretty happy with the result. Even if it’s a lot of nonsense, tomorrow is another day.

Week’s Highlights

by MAÔ, posted in Social, Writing

Some of the things that caught my interest this week.

If you’re thinking about how you’ll make it to retirement, here are six suggestions from NBC’s Kelsey Butler in January of last year. I’ve been thinking about retirement accounts a lot over the past couple of months, having blown through three of them over ten years.

The Tim Ferriss podcast with my hands-down favorite author Neil Gaiman. I first read Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek last spring (listened to the audiobook, twice in a row on several trips across Florida). Gaiman’s Neverwhere I read as a high-schooler, and that was my first introduction to the author. I’ve since read just about everything he’s written, including the Sandman series (straight through and then with the annotated editions from Leslie Klinger), American Gods, Stardust, and The Graveyard Book, to name a few.

If you have an Aubible subscription, get Sam Shepard’s True West, the West End production featuring Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones‘ Jon Snow) & Johnny Flynn. It’s a free download for subscribers (up to two Audible originals each month), and it’s really good.

Unroll.me. I was slow to get this one, but it really works! I’ve gone from a couple hundred emails a day down to less than 30. I’ve still got some clearing out to do, especially across multiple email addresses. but thus far, this has been an amazing help. Plus, its single daily email with previews of each email you’ve rolled (not unsubscribed but not individually let in) gives me one place to see if there’s anything there that I need.

 

1 month

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

That’s it! One month of daily postings. I wasn’t sure that I would have the tenacity to maintain a writing schedule. But, knowing that I had to do one every day made it a little bit easier to write, just about every day.

A friend of mine is a writer, of fiction, screenplays, etc. He says that sometimes his wife will have dinner ready, and he’ll tell her just a minute so that he can finish his thought. But that becomes a paragraph, then a page, and by the time he joins her dinner has gotten cold.

She says she doesn’t mind, because that’s his dream and his work. She can wait for him to eat, and it doesn’t bother her that the food is a little cold. (She won’t eat till he joins her, which I think is incredibly sweet.)

But he says he has to write when he can, because sometimes other work gets in the way. But he commits to writing at least a little every day. Good, bad, doesn’t matter. As long as words get to the page.

Well, on to May!

Week’s highlights

by MAÔ, posted in Social, Writing

Inspired by Tim Ferris’s five-bullet Friday, and having a little time at many points during the week to browse and peruse, here are things that I across which you may like:

Be More Chill original cast recording. Check out the animatic version, which rocketed the failing musical to new popularity.

Alex Strohl’s methods for defeating burnout. As a creative and recovering busy-person, I’ve experienced burnout more than a handful of times. Leading a board, raising money, and creating original work all left me feeling spent from time to time. Strohl’s routines may not be for everybody, but I like to take suggestions from those I new face the same challenges I do.

Fundrise. For a minimum deposit of $500, get into the real estate business with this Real Estate Investment Trust. Great dashboard and communication with their DC headquarters makes this an appealing addition to my portfolio.

Japan’s Sea of Trees, Aokigahara. It’s on my list for visiting in 2020, along with other areas of Japan. Following my friend’s wedding in the Philippines, I’m planning on visiting Japan, India, and Thailand.

Other thoughts about Instagram

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

There’s a certain joy of democratization of photography that Instagram offers. The only problem is Instagram as a platform has been used to further the vanity of our need-obsessed culture, rather than to express the joy of image – a joy which feels to me that perhaps the programmers had originally intended.

Rather than have an annual edition of Time or NatGeo showcasing the year’s best photographs, here’s a platform with real updates of the greatest photos at this time. Only, we fall short because we find the lowest common denominators. Of course it isn’t that the content is limited on Instagram, but it’s designed in such a way to engage our time – and that’s time that could be spent elsewhere.