I'm Heartbroken Because No One Is Living

Tonight, I found myself having an actual conversation with ChatGPT. I can't say it understood me that well, but when it came to core issues, it nailed the gist expertly. That didn't bother me though, because LLMs are a fun experiment and grudgingly admit that they have some pragmatic uses as well. The debate about AI can start here but I'll halt it because the rant belongs somewhere else.

What hit me is that society has become so disconnected that I sought refuge in something that uncannily passed the Turing test. Rather than have these discussions with my family, close friends or even my psychologist, my pupils were dilated by some glorified autocorrect. It is a dystopian reality that both Huxley and Orwell missed out on. Yes, the corporate overlords vie to turn our identities into sellable data, and curate exactly what we consume but I'm not convinced it's that simple.

The world has grown massively thanks to breakthroughs in medicine and hygiene, ballooning to an unfathomable eight billion when my days in high school that number was printed as whopping one billion less. What Segan hopefully called our species as a single organism ended up being like a dead brain. One with many cells, but no connection in between them. The solitude is nice, but it gets painful when it turns into loneliness.

And we thought that the trying pandemic a few years ago was bad, General Murthy gave us a much harder to swallow pill. A growing loneliness epidemic that does us more harm than a daily pack of cigarettes.

Look, I know there's an elephant in the room, and a big one, and that's how stressed we've become. Especially when it comes to finances, we are being choked. And of course, when the discussion of actually having a face-to-face event starts, the busy excuses start flooding in. Apparently, everyone has three full-time jobs, studying for two degrees, has a family of six children; essentially a life with no gaps. And my goodness are people good at making sob stories out of it.

I don't really have to dig deeper to find what this seemingly true, at least to me, reality is. I go out all the time, I host my own social club, attend book clubs and volunteered for the local cat rescue, and the people who join me are oddly so much older, not that I'm that young at 34. And keep in mind, these events are incredibly sparse. Ask anyone who organizes an event on Meetup, they will recite the same tale. "I had over a hundred people RSVP to my event, and only seven attended".

The kinds of people that are joining seem to come from this elusive time where people cared about being human with other humans. Trying to connect via conversation rather than trading Snapchat accounts. Don't get me wrong, these people are lovely, and their wisdom brings a sense of maturity to my life that I haven't achieved yet. Among are some really intelligent people and they've learned hard lessons so we don't have to.

Turns out, it was an ad hoc conversation with my younger sister, the kind of person who can see through the bullshit. I voiced my complaint to her casually, asking "where are my folks at these book clubs?". "Well, what do you think they're doing?". I knew the answer, but I really wanted to be wrong, "I guess they're at home binging on Netflix and scrolling on TikTok". The succinctness of "exactly" was something I just didn't want to accept.

The new atheists like Dawkins, who sees religion as the root of all evil, and Krauss, who calls teaching religion to children "child abuse", were hoping that these fairy tales would be replaced for scientific discourse and humanism. However, their scientism always put them into this tunnel vision that the rest of the world were mirrors of their academic circles. The reality is, people need to worship something. Our brains are literally wired for it.

People will say that this idolatry is a goal post or carrot stick, it was television, then the Internet, social media, on and on… But the reality, there's one god that has become so accessible today — dopamine. Watts described this reality as a push-button world, but he only made it to the seventies. I doubt he could imagine that his metaphor would become literal.

Today, we can push a button or tap a screen, and have something shipped to our door in less than twenty-four hours. Bored, well, a quick pull on TikTok will give you short-form video that will hit your brain in just the right ways. It seems that every other app has found a way to master this quirk of ours. We are in such a rush for another flood of the sacred hormone that even a minute is too long. And for reading two sentences, ain't nobody got time fo' that.

It creeps me out how good smartphone apps have become at keeping me hooked. Yes, I know I sound a bit pretentious, but I'm not immune to it either. I've had my YouTube rabbit-holes too. But, how, it seems that these designers are as apt as manufacturers of casino machines to keep us playing. Maybe pull-down to refresh being analogous to pulling a lever on a slot machine isn't a coincidence after all.

I'm no neuroscientist, so my understanding of dopamine's functions is going to be very elementary. A neurotransmitter responsible for making us predict and feel reward in the form of pleasure. However, the dangerous quirk of this hormone is that not only does it make us anticipate reward, it can try to predict it. Since being right feels so good, when your waiting for your next hit, and that funny meme shows on your screen, you get a tiny, but addicting sense of pleasure.

Doesn't it seem like that mechanism is nailed to a T? Well, it's an open secret that app designers hire behavioural psychologists, euphemistically called engagement engineers, that enable them to nail those feedback loops. Facebook, TikTok and Duolingo are probably the biggest examples in the wild. And Meta in particular was exposed to having done internal studies revealing essentially how effective this is.

Huxley's "soma" was a happy pill that neutralized the subordinated population to ineffectiveness. The apps are much more magical, they do this all through something indistinguishable from telepathy.

Part of me wants to put my tin-foil hat on, this is a conspiracy that the globalists are doing to control and subjugate us. Reduce the population of the world and squeeze us dry from our wealth. Yes, some conspiracy theories end up being uncovered as true, but this isn't one of them.

The truth is much more gut-wrenching. We wanted it. Isn't it so enticing that we can have heaven on Earth, right now? Happiness is a push button away. Right? We should be in total euphoria and absolute felicity. Yet, the WHO is having a panic about the crisis of rising depression. Anti-depressants are becoming some of the most prescribed medications.

Things have become so disposable. Yes, the cheap goods we buy from Amazon and Temu aren't going to last more than a few months, but they don't need to, with fashion turning from a long-term statement to a microtrend. The whole world is turning to a trash bin, we already made third-world countries into that but we can't keep that forever. But even the immaterial has become so throwaway.

Social life especially for the younger is slowly dissipating. It's not just that they don't talk to each other even when they are five feet away from each other, but I feel like the humanity isn't there anymore. Your friends are the numbers of your Instagram followers. Anyone you happen to be texting with is not even an acquaintance, they're an app. That match you made on Tinder, he wasn't a comedian within the first five messages? Just block him. It's so easy now. My parents often had neighbours that they didn't like, but they didn't have the luxury of being able to delete them.

All of this is making me miserable, it's tugging away at my heart strings. Yes, the people I see on the street are going through all of this paralysis. But I'm watching myself and the people I love, my family and friends, going through these, honestly, unnecessary, hardships. Really, has the world become so unbearable that we need to neuter our minds? Or are we so scared at answering the big questions that anything that will keep us away from that is somehow better?

I'm heartbroken, because no one is living. I look into people's eyes and there's no soul in there anymore. We're as invisible as NPCs and extras. And it's all our fault. Because we weren't insightful enough that getting what we wanted so bad would mark our demise. At one point or another, we're going to have to face a harsh reality. What we are doing isn't working.

Try this exercise. Sit down for a second and you don't even need to close your eyes for this. We are Sagan's pale blue dot, a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. That tiny dot is part of our solar system, but the sun is just a star.

The Milky Way, where our sun is tucked away in a team of another 100 billion stars. The universe, the only existence we can measure, has 2 trillion of them, galaxies like ours. And keep in mind, that's only what we can see, the observable universe. We have no clue how big is the actual universe is compared to the observable one. Trillions of stars are so far away, that even if we lived for eternity, their light would never reach us.

Don't our needs, our lifetime of 70 years, compared to 13.8 billion years seem so feeble and elementary? Spinoza inspires us to see the world in the same way that God, sees it: Sub Specie Aeternitatis - under the aspect of eternity. Just keep in mind these massive numbers, doesn't the count of Instagram likes seem so daft?

This isn't a call to action, because I'm not the right one to make it. But please, for God's sake, wake up.

My biggest failure, the FreeBASE console...

It’s been almost 10 years since the FreeBASE idea was initiated. However, it was a massive failure due to realizing that we were competing in the wrong field and honestly being afraid of our shadow.

The biggest problem that I didn’t understand back in my university days is that good ideas don’t make good products. I mean, how great of a proposition is it? A game and media console that would play free content with thousands of freeware and open-source games and popular online series that were viewable at no cost.

We had a great team each with their own speciality me being software, someone else doing research for the free content, a web developer, a DevOps (before the term was even coined) expert but still looking for more. Several times, we even had amateur investors meeting with us because they were interested in taking the idea even further though all of them, at the end of the day, were skeptical of the idea and threw us out of the window.

At the time, the landscape was shaping up to be a quite competitive one and I was slightly scared of them. I mean, the giants Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo had a foothold on the market and we realized that we could never compete with them. But we had a bit of hope because other players tried to enter the market such as Boxer8’s OUYA and Valve’s Steam Machine made us feel like we can squeeze into the market too.

However, in retrospect several years later, after the project was canned, we saw Boxer8 and Valve fall flat on their faces with disastrous results. We were naïve at the time and couldn’t see the faults in our ‘competitors’. But, just like us, they were short-sighted, and failed to understand the market. Julie Uhrman, the founder of the OUYA project, had no idea what she was doing. For example, she claimed that the OUYA controller was the first to have a touchpad while she was oblivious to the fact that Sony’s Dual Shock controller beat them to it. What an embarrassment!

Valve’s idea fell on it’s face after selling so few Steam Machines that many people ended up buying them because they were cheap computers installing Windows on them to get rid of the subpar SteamOS. OUYA was even more embarrassing. The best selling game was TowerFall, but the developers revealed that only 7000 copies were sold. It was ported to PC and become a massive hit there.

At this point, I have to give up on insulting the other projects because ours was a much bigger failure. I was so confident that we would get somewhere but I began to feel fear and the whole team got disillusioned and split apart shortly after. The only evidence left is an idiotic YouTube video that looked like a teaser, for a teaser.

Our proposition brought challenges that our much larger competitors didn’t have to face.

First, we couldn’t build or design our own hardware, we decided to use off-the-shelf components but building such a machine was very expensive. We tried to make tiers to create multiple markets but it was as confusing as Windows Vista’s swath of editions. Our projections showed that our systems would be at least twice as expensive of current consoles with much less horsepower.

Second, we had to make money on hardware, we couldn’t sell it at a loss like the others. Since the games were free, we couldn’t make the creators pay licensing fees to have their game featured on the console. We saw Microsoft try this business model with making money on the console but they had to take so much shortcuts that the rings of death became a meme. In other words, these companies had such deep pockets that they could recuperate their losses with licensing fees, and that made their products make millions and billions of dollars.

Third, we made no market analysis at all. We didn’t know if anyone was actually interested in playing shoddy indie games made by someone in their free time. The quality of the games didn’t even touch the ones made by AAA publishers.

My main partner, who was helping me with building the software, put it so elegantly that we hit emotional walls and still haven’t learned our lessons from the failed project. It became really obvious that we didn’t have our shit together.

To this day, I still ruminate about the project because I wish it would be alive and successful. I did consider turning the hardware idea into just a Linux distro. There are already some poorly polished ideas such as Lutris which handles pretty much everything up to even installing patched versions of Wine for better compatibility.

The project still left a legend or legacy behind it, so here’s some images that invoked what we thought the FreeBASE interface would be like.

Leave some notes in the comments sections on your opinions and ideas on this failed project, or similar ideas you had, or even if you want to bring it back again.

Song of the Day 004 - Electric Youth - Marnie

Helen Marnie is a somewhat obscure artist known for her dark and sombre music with the iconic track The Hunter among others like Hearts On Fire, Wolves and Lost Maps with a slightly macabre held melody in addition to lyrics that cause a downturn in the morale of the listener. However, this kind of music reveals a kind of depression that exposes a more realistic outlook on life rather than the fake happiness found in the majority of pop songs.

[Verse 2]
A girl and a boy, just fun
No conversation, no complications here
Dark corners were made for dirty secrets
Work your way into my psyche
And hurt me
I'm my own worst enemy

[Pre-Chorus]
Hey now, hey now, boy
I am your water now
Hey now, hey now, boy
I am your water now

[Chorus]
When the nights are calling
Animal instinct always
Young blood cursing, violent flames
When the nights are calling
Signals pulse like we're electric youth
When the nights are calling you

[Post-Chorus]
When the nights are calling
When the nights are calling
When the nights are calling you

[Verse 1]
A story of us unfolds
I stand arrested, my education strewn
A girl and a boy, a guilty pleasure
Plain to see that you're taking over me
So, hurt me
I can't even help myself

[Pre-Chorus]
Hey now, hey now, boy
I am your water now
Hey now, hey now, boy
I am your water now

[Chorus]
When the nights are calling
Animal instinct always
Young blood cursing, violent flames
When the nights are calling
Signals pulse like we're electric youth
When the nights are calling you

Electric Youth changes the tone a little to something much more upbeat giving the impression to the uncareful listener that what’s being presented is something happy. However, it’s nothing but a façade and even charade of a dark meaning hidden behind excitement. It seemed that Helen wanted to make something lively but couldn’t help herself with morbid lyrics that are unintelligible until they are actually read.

A scene starts with an abandoned building full of graffiti and quite unkempt. Teenagers enter what seems to be a disguised dance room though completely unfurnished except with the shine of a disco ball. Curiosity shows up on their faces as they look around but they quickly get used to their entourage. The camera is pointed to demonstrate the group's impressive dancing talents but what lied behind them is the band.

The song immediately begins reciting the first verse right away revealing Helen’s existential disorientation. Dark lyrics of confusion become obvious but with no recourse to stave the chaos. She begins telling her story.

But that’s not the strongest part of the song, but rather the two climaxes in the chorus. It’s more important to begin with it as it unravels the loop that the song finds itself in. Essentially, it sets the tone for what it is to come and what came before it.

When the nights are calling
Animal instinct always
Young blood cursing, violent flames
When the nights are calling
Signals pulse like we're electric youth
When the nights are calling you

Lyrics start with a response to the call of night, a darkness and predator filled one and then followed by a plea to animal instincts which would help cope with the dim night-time. However, the day doesn’t come soon enough seeking refuge in violent flames, i.e. a camp fire. The reference to young blood is a sign of naivety, unprepared for the challenges that the night brings. As a result, she harks to the past, as a pulse of energy from an ‘electric youth’ where responsibilities were non-existent, wishing for it dearly. The verse ends again with another call to the night, because the first one hasn’t been answered.

Oddly, this is the most energetic part of the song, and the intensely dynamic choreography (performed by Urbaniks Street Skool of Dance) feeds into that energy. As soon as the chorus starts, the intensity of the dance fires up, turning the desolate abandoned building into a fire-filled dance. Perhaps this is how Marnie is trying to seek protection from the night, maybe projected through nightmares. However, that darkness is never seen in the music video. The enthusiasm presented is probably a retreat from the negativity.

We can see Marnie making an effort in order to suit her song to a wider audience, in addition to enliven her song a bit more to a mainstream listener, she picked the generally similar key and tempo found in other popular music. The main key is C# and she doesn’t really deviate much from it and a tempo of about 130 which is essentially the average key and rhythm of what plays in most popular radio channels.

Looking at the score, it is easy to find how strongly influenced is the song by pop music tendencies. The notes in both the accompaniment and bass note reside within the C# key seldom escaping from it. While the melody is quite novel, the percussion sticks to the modern tendencies of pop music with a very simplistic beat.

Chorus (First Half)

Interestingly, it seems that Marnie is trying to give the song an eighties vibe, something comfortable on a record player. While the dance is modern hip-hop style, the synth supporting it all is clearly less progressive. Like many songs of that era, leaving the instrumentation alone reveals that it’s not what builds the melody. Rather, the singing is the base of the melody. This is very common in music from that era as seen here by this example from Michael Jackson’s Beat It.

Hey now, hey now, boy
I am your water now
Hey now, hey now, boy
I am your water now

The pre-chorus is really simple but the intention is actually quite complex. It shows a submissive side where the performer is allowing themselves into water. We would imagine that humans would melt into quavering jelly, but the liquid has lost so much essence that it has become something drinkable. The previous line invoking a ‘boy’ could be a reference to a love story, the secret but obvious undertone of the video.

Several scenes of the teenagers in a landfill dumpster seem to be running and playing around. This represents some kind of innocence that Marnie wants to bring back into her life but all is thrown out when a girl drops a tire down a hill. This is an attempt to cancel out the choruses which it succeeds but subconsciously showing falling action as a narrative.

There is an expression that is commonly used just before being ‘hey now, hey now’. According to some urban dictionary definitions, the expression is made when someone is approaching to make their presence known. It can be worded in such as way to signal something positive is coming. However, there’s an odd contradiction, these lyrics, being an introduction to the intense dancing also introduces the dark chorus we analyzed earlier. In other songs, this expression is often used in a positive sense only like in Hilary Duff’s What Dreams Are Made Of.

In addition, while the pre-choruses are repeated twice, there is some subtle difference between the two. In the first one, the percussive instruments are almost completely cut-off, leaving only the leading synth instrument with Helen’s voice going down a few notes. In fact, while the music preserves the original key, the notes are so far down that it gives the illusion of a key change, nearly an octave. The melody almost becomes the bass. Now, the second iteration of the pre-chorus has the same attenuation in terms of instruments, clapping is added which gives the impression of humanizing the section a little more. This brings the hope needed to get into the second chorus, which is also what the second climax brings into view again. However, the tension never truly goes away as seen by the lazier dancing done by the group.

The Pre-Chorus

The clapping is a common technique used by video game music when describing more lively levels with a so-called fun aspect or gameplay. An excellent example is Carnival Night Zone Act 1 from the November 1993 prototype of Sonic 3. In this section, you can definitely hear the clapping before this music also goes into its bells-sounding climax.

Now exploring the verses, two of them, shows a slightly more dangerous aspect to Marnie’s idea. They’re essentially a sign of hopelessness, confusion and disorientation. When they play, the dancing scenes are put away revealing mundane scenarios instead. (such as throwing rocks at an empty wine bottle)

The first one, the teenagers haven’t even entered the building yet, laying instead on the wall. At this point, this is where the first verse is reciting, immediately before the instrumentation even starts a few seconds later.

A story of us unfolds
I stand arrested, my education strewn
A girl and a boy, a guilty pleasure
Plain to see that you're taking over me
So, hurt me
I can't even help myself

As Marnie puts it’s clearly, describing a story that unfolds, essentially a narrative for her enema. Arrested with a strewn education, in other words, uncertain knowledge implied by the use of the word education. She ends with a request to be hurt, unable to even help herself. This gives the section a very depressive feel, one where is so pained, they want more.

A girl and a boy, just fun
No conversation, no complications here
Dark corners were made for dirty secrets
Work your way into my psyche
And hurt me
I'm my own worst enemy

The second verse hints at the same meaning but with a slightly clearer undertone. Lost in dark corners where she hides her secrets of depression, work their way into her psyche as she states. This time however, the pain isn’t a request, but rather a result of her secrets. The fear gets to the point where she sees herself as her own enemy, presumably from some kind of trauma or longing for the past.

Both verses reveal a secret love story that Marnie never elaborates on. In both cases referring them to ‘a girl and a boy’. The girl being her, and the boy, presumable the one she mentions in the pre-chorus. There is a sense of innocence, amplified by her line ‘a guilty pleasure’ that isn’t sung anywhere else. However, the music video does show a couple being obviously attracted to each other with the subtle smiles between them and the kiss at the end. One of them inscribes a heart with the letters EYT (probably meaning Electric Youth) on their arm.

There are several scenes of some of the dancers riding old-school bicycles with the footage slowed down. I’m not entirely sure what meaning it serves, but it seems like the slowness represents a sense of hesitation, as if the singer is not really sure what direction to take the song into. However, I’m not certain if that was intentional as the music is very consistent despite going through two climaxes.

One more interesting aspect is how Helen presents herself in the music video, though only three times. Her hair is coloured grey, a sign of age and weakness. While she is desiring to relive her more lively-filled past-self, she can’t escape all the time that passed until she found herself participating in the band.

Finally, the song ends with a post-chorus which just repeats “When the nights are calling you” several times while the song slowly fades out and as the dancing slows down with the entire group on screen. It seems that the line accumulates positivity as the dark night becomes a lively party. I’d say that Helen has managed after several failed attempts of negativity, she finally manages to bring the song out of its hole.

Disappointingly, I don’t think the title of the song, Electric Youth, has much of a deeper sense to it. It just seems that it was put there just because the expression was in the lyrics.

There’s an interesting coincidence that the song title, Electric Youth, is also the name of a Canadian duo that just happens to sing electro-pop songs too. This is very likely to be accidental, in fact, I’m almost sure of it. While the other group does have some darker music at times, there is more positivity in what they compose and produce.

This endeavour of music analysis was probably the most difficult part because I attempted to go deeper than just the general feel of a piece of art. There’s always more ways to imagine a production because it gives a glimpse into the consciousness of the artist. Though this is certainly not a comprehensive analysis as I’ve missed quite a few parts. Feel free to comment with your own views!

You can’t afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected.

Us denizens of the Internet have become familiar with concepts that were foreign more than a decade ago, one of the most that causes the most influence is going viral. There’s so much variety on the web with content providing the impression that anything could essentially make you rich. However, hidden behind the curtains of survivorship bias is a massive community of people that practice art and express their creativity in a way that’s absolutely thankless.

Due to the accidental underground nature of an artist’s work, it’s unlikely that they will make any dough out of their production. Seems like in order to practise their art, they need a reliable but remedial job to pay the bills. Unfortunately, the nature of that kind of work is energy depleting zapping any creative juices needed for the concentration and initiative to produce content. Let alone something of high-quality that doesn’t exude fatigue.

Turns out, for most of us, we can’t afford to be artists, authors and creatives. Having full control over your processes comes at a cost of uncertainty and instability of money supply.

I was a deluded believer at one point that what made things so popular was the quality of a project. Eventually, I realized that it’s not the best work and most original that makes it to top, but rather the mediocre. Luck plays a big part in climbing the ladder in addition to slick marketing. The creatives with eccentric personalities often fail. Why?

My walks across the web has exposed me to obscure concepts that I found serendipitously. It was exciting to find a new favourite music track only to discover that the video accompanying it to have only several hundred of views. In fact, seeking refuge in Spotify divulges no result for which to add to my library. Going back to our question, what makes things fail? I have the impression, as some others have taught me, rather than through my own intuition, that what ‘makes it’ is something that fits the most common denominator.

These include things like food where tasters spend weeks finding the bliss point, or a pop artist using the same chord progressions over and over again; with lyrics they probably didn’t even write. Or perhaps another sitcom with yet another ironic love triangle with predictable outcomes and endings so obvious that spoilers are not even warranted.

I grew respect for many of these artists and people who radiate originality. Writing another exciting book or a low-budget movie with a more esoteric story. Rather than feeding themselves, they are feeding us, unintentionally, or even unwillingly. They bestowed us with gifts that fit our niches so we can distance ourselves for yet another mediocre work.

Some of these types have divulged the differences between being unknown and popular. Many have revealed to me that if they get big enough, their fans’ expectations of a constant stream of content puts them on a production treadmill. As a result, turning their passion into yet, another job.

Many creative types, and arrogantly putting myself into that bucket, hope for some kind of impossible miracle of some type of passive income that will keep us alive with much initial effort but eventually getting big enough to put it aside but give us a positive cashflow.

I can see my projects present hints of tiredness of the obligatory 8 hours and I see it everywhere too. The inertia of the energy is no longer there anymore. What they had time for before moving out have become an insufferable chase for free time that simply cannot be filled with anything else of lifelessness.

Although I can throw the idea of donating to someone you like, it results in absolutely nothing. Even very popular, say bloggers, don’t get much money from donations. Ads and sponsorships work, but my inclinations whisper to me that it’s not kosher. Going back to my first blog post, I alluded that the nature of our jobs no longer matches its own output when it comes to money. I can’t think of a solution because abuse will be rampant. Say we introduced a pension for artists, it will be used by the same people who defraud for disability pay or early retirement.

The only thing I have right now is thankfulness and gratitude to the many obscure artists who keep me entertained and for free. I don’t want to sound cheesy and say that you’ll end up somewhere and to work even harder.

However, you have been so late and never attempted to defend yourself. Think of the world’s unions protecting workers in order to keep their job a bit more sane. Lobbyists have the power to push governments to submit to them. Too bad nothing like that can exist for my most loved makers.

There’s no judgement for the popular ones, but I implore that those who work white-collar jobs to have a bit more respect for something they take for granted. Endlessly rich CEOs, don’t look down at someone who is trying to make their voices and guitar solos heard on stage. If you don’t want to help, and I bet most of you wouldn’t even help yourselves, at least, give their content a chance. Take a break and admire, there’s much love in there. They are the true evangelists.

I believe it would be a very interesting topic to gather up ideas on potential ideas that would allow people to express themselves without having to suffer too much from the universal grind. Leave comments below.

Much discussion flourished on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32487190

Slowing Down Your Time Through Chaos…

Life brings you to meet many people and you start to arbitrarily and judgementally to make distinctions about what they do in life. It’s even more obvious when you consider yourself a productive person.

To give one anecdotal example, someone would work at the same time doing the same thing everyday churning out tickets. After work, they might have supper with their family and then run to their television or phone for the rest of the night. Then go to bed. Those who have a bit more pizzazz in their life might have gone to the gym as an item in their life before or after work. Assuming the matrimonial life hasn’t destroyed platonic relationships, you see your friends at the same day of the week in the same bar. Being drunk means, you talk about the same things over and over again.

My elementary, high school and university life went by very quickly. Every week, it was the same thing. Every night, it was homework and assignments. Every weekend, it was the same activities with your friends.

It gets trite really quickly and your birthdays get closer and closer. I realized that I didn’t want to live in a fleeting life that just flashed before my eyes with vague memories.

I had to kill routine.

The trickiest part was work, because that really forces yourself to follow the same schedule every week. Suddenly, my preferences made my job selection really small as flexibility wasn’t a luxury everywhere. Becoming a freelancer helped quite a bit because I held contracts with different clients doing different things every week. I attended the meetings and pulled on the due dates, but that was it. My hours were put all over of the place in both time and setting.

Other things such as hobbies can be spread out through the week in any way you want. Friends and family time become a choice based on convenience. Volunteering was outside of work hours and there various events were spread out well. I read whenever I felt like it and wrote at whatever time. Learning was no longer a forced setting, but rather according to my own pace and interests. On and on…

My organizational skills used to be based on a strict calendar. While it decided when and what I’ll do, I couldn’t account for any originality or even worse sudden interruptions. Instead, I started to decide the night before what activities I’d like to do. Then, I’d eliminate any temporal concept. Instead, anything could be done at any time as long as it was finished on time.

Things suddenly looked more colourful as they were based on whims and interests at a given moment.

I fell in love with the chaos that I lived in, and realized that I wouldn’t want to live my life in any other way. It was difficult at first because the discipline it needed. Every day was different and every day you had to adjust to your tasks.

Going back to the anecdotes, I realized that many people were only comfortable with the routine but it seemed so vapid to me. I respect people’s choices but I still feel a sense of arrogance because of my living arrangements.

My advice at this point, stop doing the same thing all the time. Explore your life a bit and enjoy discovering yourself. Sitting in front of Netflix every night isn’t going to get you anywhere. As I mentioned in previous blog posts, take that new-found time to learn and express yourself in ways that you never imagined.

Leaving routine is very difficult and sometimes soul-crushing to the point of bringing down morale. However, the journey will start slowly and eventually you will enjoy it.