13.06.2021

Hello, little life and art update.

Currently listening to: Ethan Gruska’s album En Garde. Favourite tracks include Enough for Now, Teenage Drug and Attacker.

Currently working on: Hurricane EP, which I have been working on for years now. Started in late 2018 when I met up with the initial producer/engineer I was working with, and have since changed songs, changed producers, changed workflow, and really started to bring the project together over COVID. Instead of just one linear path with one producer and one recording site, the songs have become a sort of patchwork of sounds from places across oceans and time. Samples from trains in London, and mandolins and rain from America. Guitar stolen from demos, new stems from friends I haven’t met in person yet. The first track is about to be sent away for mastering, which is a surreal feeling, considering I’ve been working on it for so long, and it feels like these songs have had so many lives already before even hitting other people’s ears.

Something else interesting I have decided to do is stop going on social media until I’m in the promotional phase of this project. Which I know Facebook/Instagram will probably punish me for by hiding my posts in the algorithm (they reward constant use of the app). I don’t really care at this point — I’ve seen how much I use the app and how often it takes me away from what I really should be doing. I can lose large chunks of time in one go. I’m hoping that this change will actually guide me towards more meaningful ways of connecting with people, working, and finding inspiration.

Things I have been doing instead of going on social media:

• writing in this blog

• sitting and just staring at nothing

• researching jobs and training opportunities

• listening to podcasts

• listening over mixes and working on my EP

That’s still not quite everything I would like to be doing in a life sans social media. What I’d also like to be doing is:

• practising music more

• exercising & moving my body more

• reading more (I am kind of doing this at the moment but am not enjoying the book I’m reading)

• writing and drawing more

Maybe these things will come with a bit more time off the apps. I’m still settling in to checking my phone less — I keep picking it up out of habit and scrolling through to find Instagram, which isn’t there anymore.

Reclaiming My Time

I think a lot of us have seen the video I’m linking here. It’s US Congresswoman Maxine Waters fiercely reclaiming her time during her a questioning of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. This guy Mnuchin is giving some long-winded answer to her question, probably in order to avoid answering the question at all. And hammering him back to the question is Maxine Waters, as she reclaims her time on the House floor.

If only we could do that with other parts of our lives — like an illness which has held us up in bed for a month. Imagine just announcing “I’m reclaiming my time!” and the weeks you lost fall back into your hands.

Or maybe you’ve ended a relationship which took your life utterly off course. A quick “reclaiming my time!” spins you back to the bar where it all began, and you spend the evening dancing with your friends instead.

A lot of conversation about getting back lost time on the internet centres around social media. I like this article by Christopher Butler which suggests one remedy to that is picking up a notebook instead.

Yes, social media takes chunks out of our days, and fixing that addiction is possible. But what about those other things I mentioned — how do we reclaim time from moments or seasons of life which felt totally out of our control?