Music to start your day - Classic Thursday

Today I started with Chopin nocturnes

Here is a video with the whole collection although I was listening to other performer on my phone.

Driving to work was a blast, I heard the new episode of Under the Needle by KESP

Concerta day 4 - a bit afraid of the weekend

As usual I took the pills about 8AM (2 pills of Concerta 36 mg)
Slowly slipped into productive mod and started clearing up the tasks from my list.

Seems that this med is here to stay. At least for now.

I am a bit concerned about the weekend with no meds.


Last time it was like this:

Concerta day 3 - in isolated environemnt

Took the 2 pills of Concerta 36 mg at 8 AM.
Then I tried to get a short sleep approximately at 8:40 because I was tired from taking care of my little one, her teeth are coming out and she doesn't deal with it very well.

Basically I took the pills at home with no one or nothing to interrupt me so I can concentrate on my feelings. I couldn't get to sleep, not sure why. It could be concerta kicking in slowly or my habit of not sleeping mornings or maybe the excitement of yesterdays beginning of writing a book.
Anyway I made coffe, fired up my work laptop, reviewed some emails and proceeded drinking coffee while on my private computer and reading reddits deepdive subjects. 


Remembering yesterdays experience:

Music to listen while working from home

To kickstart the day I listened to a 2 minute video of a street artist from Paris

Then I continued to a long music video

Ambient tracks for work

I got new headphones, the JVC XX (HA-SBT200X)
The sound is excellent with cable or bluetooth but seems that bluetooth is missing few frequencies, maybe because of compression.

Anyway here are the good stuff to listen to at work today:

This one is a nice listen for sure, suits well for writing. The track is well written with emotion and nice mixing.

Concerta day 2 - I think it works

Took the 2 pills of Concerta 36 MG at 8 AM.
It's suppose to kick in after about 2 hours , seems that I get it around 1.5 hours. Maybe not, the effect is so subtle that I cannot accurately pinpoint the exact time. On Ritalin LA I was able to tell the exact minute I felt it. (on 60 mg not on 40 mg)

Anyway I am productive and I don't feel the drugs presence on its own. I just observe the effect.
I do get itchy here and there. Yesterday it was because I was sitting still for hours but now its the beginning of the day and I feel some irritating itches in my legs.

Concerta Day 1 - not sure

Took 2 pills of Concerta 36 mg at 7AM

Did the regular chores with kids. Came up with a new song idea while I was at it. Basic morning routine.
Around 8:30 AM I started moving faster, the chores of vacuuming and washing the floor, hanging the laundry and replacing a light switch were done easily with no internal fights.

New Idea - Comparing music Ideas on Ritalin

An interesting Idea!

I thought that Ritalin will take all my creativity away. It didn't! In fact I still have a ton of them.

But I do feel the difference in how and when they come up so I will try to log the Ideas on Keep and then implement them as accurately as I can, this will allow me to see the difference without distorting the intent.

Brain storm music genres and ability to make them seen.

This is a stream of conciseness. Unstructured.


The current situation with the music creators and performers is a total over saturation.
From YouTube and soundcloud alone you can see that there is too much performances and new original content to even closely be unique or have a value of its own based on aesthetic value of the art itself.

Looking at the popular artists on youtube - its a matter of production value for the most part, Lindsey sterling - super professional videos and not so may compositions even at the beginning of her way.
Famous music teaching channels also have strong video creation skills plus charisma plus some promoting as they admit from time to time.
The last interesting category is the channels the went viral, those split into 2. The ones that don't create anything anymore and the ones that actually kick started the rest of the path.

Ritalin Day 13 - Last day of Ritalin LA

Got to the chemist shop with the new prescription and recommendation letter from the Neurologist. 

The problem is that Last week I already bought Ritalin LA 20 and 2 weeks before that I got Ritalin LA 40 MG in another chemist shop. So getting Concerta in high (72 mg) dose is problematic within the same month.

The chemist called the superiors and eventually made a copy of the recommendation (stating that I need to change treatment and the LA is no longer relevant)

Ritalin - rest weekend - mood changes

I took 2 rest days because I do;t intend to take Ritalin when i'm not working.
This is for 2 reasons:

1. I don't want to be dependent and also I want to be in check in case I get addicted or have some side effects (good Idea as it turned out)
2. I don't like the feeling or Ritalin when I don't have a tasks to do or when the amount of interference is outside of my control

Ritalin Day 12 - Visiting the neurologist

Today is the day I meet my neurologist for the second time.
It might not look like a big deal but the journey to get treated and the fear of getting a wrong treatment or side effects from medications make me uncomfortable and out of control. So I try to have some control over what I can.
I hope this makes sense.

Today I forgot to eat breakfast before taking the Ritalin LA 40+20 MG, so the meds kicked in after 15 minutes instead of one hour. I ate at work immediately, hope this settles it.

So what do I tell the doctor - I will share my experience with 40 Mg henI was sick and how they almost did not work when I was well. And about the 60mg dose that I feel the med's effect physically.
Hopefully this will help determining if we continue the same path or change the dose.

So that't a summary of the neurologist visit:

Ritalin day 11 - Conclusions before going to neurologist

Took the 2 pills at 9:45 AM (Ritalin 40 and 20 mg)
Did not feel them kick in, almost no physical response - but I do feel the urge to do stuff.
Actually I would define it as Create Stuff - simple consumption makes me feel irritated

Ritalin day 10 - Doctor appointment in 2 days and I have no clue

Took the pill at approx 9AM (Ritalin LA 40 + 20 MG)
It's 10 AM and I did not feel it kick in physically like I did yesterday.

I was composing though and did quite a lot of learning and composing in a short time so I guess it did kick in somewhere there. But nothing like yesterday. To be fair, yesterday I had better conditions to observe the feeling. There was no music and something that interesting in front of me.



The important part is 2 days from now. I need to give feedback about the Ritalin to my neurologist. Without a proper one I would not get a adjusted treatment and slip into daily routine.
To be more precise - I'm not sure that the Ritalin is working beyond placebo and I'm not sure if I need to switch meds.

To conclude the last 2 weeks - I had a 40mg dose and it worked when I was weakened by the flu but not so much when I was healthy.
On the 60mg I felt the effect (who wouldn't) but i'm not sure if it works all 8 hours.
I was able to procrastinate easily and I did wonder off  in a meeting after approx 15 minutes. Maybe it took longer then before but not dramatically.

I do feel a change in my behavior and was able to accomplish few tasks but I'm not sure if should attribute this to placebo, the sense of urgency in those tasks or to medicine.

Conclusion - no conclusion. I feel a bit confused and not sure about what I have experienced. I guess that my experience is 100% standard and not unique. In that case the doctor will know what to do.

I will see how this day goes and continue logging until the doctor meeting.


5 hours in - the day is bust, when I get interrupted by off work stuff every 2 minutes I cannot maintain a positive attitude and let it go. Same goes if I don't have a well defined task at hand or the environment does not fit well for work.

Damn.

Conclusion - the meds are definitely working but not entirely in a way that I would expect.

Ritalin day 9 - new dose

Its so terrible to get the meds!
I got a prescription from the doctor but I had to send my wife to pick it up - cannot be emailed :(
The in went to the chemist and they told me that since I got the 40MG from them I need to go to another place for the 20 mg.
Needless to say hat every time I show them the Ritalin prescription they look at me as a lost man or something. Judgmental  - that's how I would describe it.

Ritalin day 8 - not working and it sucks

Took the pill at 8. I don't feel it work at all.
ON my first day, I was weakened by the flu and it worked perfectly. I was focused on a task and had no problem with staying on the target for 7 hours.
Since i'm back to healthy, the effect faded into nonexistance

Today I asked to up the dose. No point writing until i get the prescription

See you on next day

Ritalin day 7 - final test before upping the dose

Took the Ritalin 40mg LA pill at 10Am

Planned the day to isolate any noise or external contributing factors to focus.

Basically my worst days are when I am let alone to do work. I can;t complete a single thing on those days.

So today - no big meetings, hovering managers or pressing issues + took the pill after doing all the housework chores.

This helped a bit, definitely felt the kick in at approx 10:50.

Feels like taking the bass knob down.

We will see how it works later on.

Normal day at work with fare amount of distractions. Seems that it does not work

Ritalin day 6 - still nothing

Had the Ritalin 40mg LA pill at 8:20 AM
I did not feel the change so far.

Its been  busy morning and I still had no opportunities to procrastinate.

I'm not sure if I have some placebo effect out of the "new thing" or not

Ritalin Day 5 - is it working?

took the ill at 9 - did not feel it kick in at all

Went to a full day course - almost fell asleep at the fist row! after just 20 minutes
Kept drifting off to other places very often, probably as often as I usually do.

Hypothesis - I might have felt the 40 MG LA because I was weakened by the flu. Neurologist mentioned that this dose might be too small for me


Didn't feel is wear of at all.
Just a regular day

Ritalin Day 4 - feeling numb

Took the Ritalin 40 mg LA pill at 9,
it kicked in @ 9:50 - the feeling is a sudden realization of it and maybe a bit physical sensation which I cannot describe verbally yet

Overall the feeling is ok, I'm remembering to drink often and ate at the middle, I must say that the hunger is gone but I could definitely eat and feel the foods taste and appeal :). But not as much as i would usually.

Ritalin day 3 - no ritalin day

I woke up with a headache and soar throat.
Had an Advil, again.
No Ritalin.

Still felt pretty sick and weak all day but not as much as last 2 evenings.
Could not bend over as the head would get a sudden ache :). Same for coughing.

At the evening got 1 chill and some sore muscles.
Seems that I maintain all of the last 2 day symptoms even without the med.

Ritalin Day 2

Today I woke up with a headache and had an Advil 200mg
This dulled the pain and after a breakfast I got the Ritalin 40MG LA at approx 7AM

I took the kids to the zoo and their grandparents
in the Zoo I was barely able to mange enough water, and Boy was i thirsty!

The focus part - hard to judge - probably good but there were no activities that need much of it. I took it to learn the symptoms because I have a meeting with Neurologist in 2 weeks and I need to understand my experiences before we meet, otherwise it would be a waste of time.

Ritalin day 1

I got the prescription for Ritalin 40 mg LA.
So I went to the local pharm and got it.

Here is a bit of a funny things that happen to people with conditions:

My Neurologist gave me prescription for LA 40mg but told me that she left a note for my Family Doctor to up the dose to 60 mg if 40 does nothing.
She also mentioned that there are 40mg and 20 mg capsules and I need to take them both if I will get them
I forgot that part.
Now in my pharm they treat ritalin as if it was something shady AF. You get the long stares and what not. And those people know me for years, but they don't know that I'm a hightech engineer but rather a part time laborer or something.

Writing my first song

seems that to write a song I need to use a lead sheet.
basically a map of the song as I imagine it.
never tried it before hope this works.

here is what I came up with.

the feeling I had in the past week or so is sadness and somehow inability to focus and hating myself for it.

I wrote rhymed songs in the past but I feel that this is not good enough for ambient song type. I'll do chants or aphorisms instead

So here are some thoughts about the lyrics or just words in the songs:

"I feel so sad and powerless, I can't breathe"
"I do so much of nothing, and nothing that I need" maybe a looooong scream at the end of this one.

"There is someone behind the glass. Focused, happy, rested - looks like me. I wish I was me"

"I hide myself, from myself, I hate myself for seeing myself" this one is very dark. I feel a shade of it but not more than that. but nice depth, maybe I will hint it to someone who writes this kind of stuff

"I avoid mirrors, there is a lonely man" a better variation is " it does not show how i feel"

This song theme is mega egocentric. Well maybe this is me as an artist expressing myself, since i cannot express anyone else.

Music. What do i have?
Electric guitar with effect generator + amp with effect generator, mike, tambourine, darbouka, flute-recorder, Kazoo, base, ukulele, trombone whistle, some shakers, computer foe electronic stuff (no idea how to use it his way), akkordeon (almost forgot it), harp, mouth harp

Its tiring to think about all of these

What do I want to achieve? Approximately 5 minutes of ambient uptempo music, no harsh percussion, sad, maybe express a story of "I look happy, I'm not, now i think about and it makes me feel bad"

so part one is slow happy or slow build up. middle part get something riffy. Last part - extravaganza

so I'll try this then:

beginning - start with loooong chords, clean guitar (tempo about 100) slowly turning to distorted one.
introduce the tempo via some sort of shaker or tambourine chimes
get the base going
stop, make heart beat sounds by tapping guitar for few seconds
start the beat again and fade in the base drum, probably same guitar tapping or darbouka
get the single notes over reverbed delay, think about overlaying the lyrics here.
play variations for a minute or two
stop
get the beat going loud and scream the same words with loong fade outs, using only vocals
fade into silence over repeating phrase both verbal and musical

maybe i should thing about how many bars etc. since this is the first time, i have no idea if really should. so now i need just to try it out

How to spend some time and matter

As I'm developing more interest to guitar playing, I find out more interesting things over the internet.

Gradually I found out that there are guitar competitions and the new format allow to vote up one secure place for a video competitor

So you can sit all day and listen to great, top notch performers and actually help one of them to get to the second stage

Monk Mind

Monk Mind is a set of axioms that allows you be at peace with your self and others.
The core of it is borrowing ideas from various philosophies and applying them.
The outcome of it is tranquility and generally good feeling about being alive at all times.

1. Monk Mind is not to be shared with anyone, unless upon direct request.
2. Establish a quiet place for your mind. In most cases, doing an art will serve this purpose.
3. Life is long. Take the time.
4. Changing your interpretation of circumbstance is easier than changing it.
5. Changing your circumbstance is inavitable but not mandatory
6. Do one thing instead of many when possible.

First concern - Monk Mind is not for sharing

Converting other to your brand of spirituality is a common trade of organized religions and lately all things new age, spiritual, mystical or non-mainstream.

Spirituality, calmness and philosophy became another product in the Idea market, once you have something push it on others.

For what?

Fame? Profit? Making a change in the world? Self accomplishment?

Self accomplishment is an interesting part of it as Monk Mind deal largely with this sensation, yet this is what you want to feel no what you must do. You can do and not feel, you can do and feel and you can feel but not do.

The fist one is very common, this is where you don’t want to be, the last one is unstable because lying to yourself might backfire any moment. The middle one sounds great but if you take it as it is without adding parts it nowhere says that the “Do” part has to be public or imposed on others.

And thus comes the idea of not sharing, if you want to be at a specific state of mind, do what will get you there now, even a little. Do it for yourself. You want others to be a part of it? Good. Its natural. What is more important, being it or making others being it? How much peace you can miss if you spend your time on converting others to do what you don’t?

Get you Monk Mind perfect as you need, for yourself and only for yourself. If you want to convert others its not peace you seek but fame and recognition. If you want others to join, do it good, spend a life doing it, if someone would like to become like and asks for it, teach them how, let them try but warn them not to brag or share.

This is the easy part. This is just a rule and a very direct action, stopping our self from doing something very direct and intentional is easy.

how about the unintentional?

Someone is speaking their mind about life philosophy and you disagree. Can you refrain from commenting? Discussing perception of an event, can you stop yourself from answering in the key of your Monk Mind?

The very first building block of Monk Mind is not to brag or convert. But how is reality you keep yourself from doing that?

In an action. Something happens to you and you react to it. React in your best conscience. Do the moral thing but do not discuss the philosophy behind it.
If you don't need to act, you don't need to discuss it either.

Very hard to do. Impossible.

Fortunately, reality gives us feedback every time we do it. You try to explain something and you make someone angry at you. They resist the idea. They resist to understand, why?

Does not matter. The discussion now is in the realm of "who is right". Does it make you happy to participate in such discussion? 
If not, why are you in it?

And looking at those interactions, time after time, you get reminded - do not convert others into your own belief system. We are mostly judged for what we say and not what we do. This should be the opposite but it isn't.

Empirically, you observe that this is how things are. And this is good.
A trend allows you to validate once more that there was no need in sharing.

At the end of it, philosophy is either voluntary adopted or imposed by force. No discussion will change anyones mind. And this is good too.

Good music for calm thoughts

Mediation - of sleep

There are many reasons why religion appeals to people during the history. I believe they range from practical to fictional and each has its own use.

But one thing is true for all of them is – they are systematical.

(If you have little children, this text might not apply in its practicality)

 

No religion lets you roam free between your thought or physical actions. All of them have rituals and structure.

To me, structure is not a bad thing. This is the exact thing that we are missing in our lives.

I observe the deeply religious and I see a lot of benefits to their being. The disadvantages are obvious but they do not come from structure on its own but from the original intent of those who settle it.

The deeply religious show the following advantages:

1.       They are sure about their day

2.       They perform well in areas of family and reaction to day to day things

3.       They are usually calmer than the secular counterparts

4.       They lack chaotic search for truth and self determination

There are of course many other benefits but digging dip is not the idea of this text

the idea is to get the structure applied to the secular western culture person.

The lack of ritual structure makes our lives harder.

We feel tired because we sleep less. Our calculation of sleep hours comes from cross benefit analysis of our tiredness, this is why sacrificing some sleep hours here and there are optional.

This is also a reason for using the snooze button, we cross benefit the 5 minute sleep with our sense of urgency or will to sacrifice a bit of work or family time and, sometimes breakfast.

Imagine yourself  how the monks approach the sleep. Do they feel tired every morning, do they need to convince themselves to get up? This would contradict the whole idea of spiritual life.

Internal monk in us must follow the same logic. Not for worshipping but for a better use of our daytime.

Take out the decision making out of your sleep. Make a goal to wake up in a specific hour, estimate your optimal sleep time and set the alarm clock for going to bed.

Plan your day around it.

Achieve piece in your rest time, that’s already something.

I wish you calm thoughts

A.