Music has always been something of an intense experience for me. Putting on a pair of headphones and turning on nearly any song can instantly summon forth a sometimes overpowering set of emotions that seems to take total control of my 'mood'. I instantly remember all these details about the song- when did it first find it, and why it is significant for me. What did this song mean to me, and why?
I can never seem to forget it. I remember the first time I heard most songs in my library, and exactly how it made me feel. Turning on songs from high school or early years of college is like downloading an entire set of emotions and memories from another time- like restoring a backup into my memory. It's overwhelming, and even today I found myself nearly out of breath when taken off-guard by a particularly poignant song.
Be it a loud dance-oriented beat or something quiet and calm, any sort of song can take its place in my catalog. It's amazing how easy I can sometimes manipulate my emotions and mood into feeling pumped up or sad, just by turning on a particular set of songs. I remember these things so specifically that like ghosts of the past, I can summon them all back without much difficulty.
It feels stupid, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's just something that hits me very hard from time to time- be it a song from the radio when I was little, or a particularly reminiscent from a significant scene in a favorite video game, there are just a lot of songs that bury themselves so deeply beneath my skin that I could never itch nor shake them loose.
Lately, to combat the heavy and unending thoughts of work, I lie down and listen to old music, letting the memories roll over me and carry me like soft tidal waves into slumber. Nostalgia my captain and memory my ship, I sail gently to tomorrow on the current of all my lives wrapped into a single, blue ocean that stretches in all directions.
It may be cheesy and it may be trite, but it's hard to sleep without the song lately.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Separation Anxiety
I've always prided myself on being a hard worker and being very thorough with any sort of project I'm working on. I believe that I commit well to my tasks at hand and have a very strong organizational intelligence that allows me to balance a wide variety of projects/tasks at a time, properly triaging the most urgent and handling everything in a time-sensitive manner.
I'm typically able to accomplish this be expending an enormous amount of psychic energy, completely devoting myself to the task list. It's a great if tiring practice at work where all of the mentioned skills, and more, are required to do my job well. Today, I walked into work and was bombarded by one thing after another that all required my immediate attention, needed to be finished ASAP, and no one else could address it.
I got through the day successfully, meeting my goals and (ideally) pleasing both clients and company. I've reached a point where many of my coworkers have grown comfortable trusting and depending on me to do a very high-quality work, and that makes me extraordinarily proud.
But lying down in bed at 3:30 am, I discover the cost of committing so strongly to my job: I can't leave it behind.
This is an issue that has slowly been creeping up on me lately and I keep brushing it under the rug, but as I laid in bed and listened to some old music from years and years ago, I found my nostalgia interrupted time and time again with visions of work. Last night, I fell asleep on the couch after a long shift and dreamt I was right back at work, back in the trenches, never having left.
It's driving me crazy. I can't seem to leave it behind me. I've memorized account numbers and names of all sorts of people; I could probably do half of my work blind-folded since I seem to have memorized it all so thoroughly. I just want to separate from it, but I can't.
When I was younger and I'd obsess over video games, I'd memorize all sorts of little things from them, to the point that I can comfortably play through same entire games in my head (I've done it, too, on long flights or something). Now that same freaky-weird memory is biting me in the ass because I can't seem to shut down the part of my brain that is 'work'.
How do you do that? How can I 'just say no' to thinking about work when I leave? All I want to do is sleep without worrying and worrying and worrying... I don't even work tomorrow.
How can I cure myself of this daily dose of separation anxiety?
I'm typically able to accomplish this be expending an enormous amount of psychic energy, completely devoting myself to the task list. It's a great if tiring practice at work where all of the mentioned skills, and more, are required to do my job well. Today, I walked into work and was bombarded by one thing after another that all required my immediate attention, needed to be finished ASAP, and no one else could address it.
I got through the day successfully, meeting my goals and (ideally) pleasing both clients and company. I've reached a point where many of my coworkers have grown comfortable trusting and depending on me to do a very high-quality work, and that makes me extraordinarily proud.
But lying down in bed at 3:30 am, I discover the cost of committing so strongly to my job: I can't leave it behind.
This is an issue that has slowly been creeping up on me lately and I keep brushing it under the rug, but as I laid in bed and listened to some old music from years and years ago, I found my nostalgia interrupted time and time again with visions of work. Last night, I fell asleep on the couch after a long shift and dreamt I was right back at work, back in the trenches, never having left.
It's driving me crazy. I can't seem to leave it behind me. I've memorized account numbers and names of all sorts of people; I could probably do half of my work blind-folded since I seem to have memorized it all so thoroughly. I just want to separate from it, but I can't.
When I was younger and I'd obsess over video games, I'd memorize all sorts of little things from them, to the point that I can comfortably play through same entire games in my head (I've done it, too, on long flights or something). Now that same freaky-weird memory is biting me in the ass because I can't seem to shut down the part of my brain that is 'work'.
How do you do that? How can I 'just say no' to thinking about work when I leave? All I want to do is sleep without worrying and worrying and worrying... I don't even work tomorrow.
How can I cure myself of this daily dose of separation anxiety?
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Sharing isn't always Caring
In 2009, I traveled to South Korea for the first time as a part of a really cool trip run by an NGO in DC. I spent a month traveling through the country and meeting some really amazing people, including ambassadors and generals- big, decision-making sorts of people. I made friends who were radically different from me and learned about the world as well as myself; it was a wonderful trip.
Naturally, pictures were an important part of the experience. We all took hundreds and hundreds of pictures, the course of the month filling up harddrives with thousands of photos from our group of just-under-fifty people. Responsible for organizing a publication to memorialize the month, I got to sort through quite a few of those photos, reliving nearly every place we went and every thing we did. It was that beautiful, bittersweet nostalgia that we always so cautiously crave.
There was something that bothered me about it all, though. We spent time at ancient palaces, remnants of cultures and kingdoms that no longer existed, and from a similar period, we traveled to several old and beautiful Buddhist temples. But whereas the palaces were political and tourist traps, the temples remained alive and breathing, and we had the pleasure of witnessing live Buddhist ceremonies. Out of respect, I chose not to take pictures of any part of the temples, but I was alone in the sentiment and even mocked for such silliness. Why not take pictures? Why not use flash?
Now, in 2013, with smart phones everywhere and instagram/twitter/tumblr/facebook/etcetcetc being used by everyone and their mom, the idea of intentionally not taking pictures while doing something interesting or seeing something beautiful seems almost foreign. We all continue moving towards creating a live, never-ending personal news feed and technology does nothing but enable my generation's desire for every person to star in their own personal movie.
Don't get me wrong- I love what technology has to offer. I love that I can take a picture of something silly and send it to a friend that I share an inside joke with, or that I can communicate in real-time with my old pals who live across the world. That's amazing and we should all take advantage of what our technology has to offer.
But sometimes I don't want to share. I don't want every moment of my life to be plastered on the internet.
I remember my time at the temples fondly, and the quiet peace of a ceremony that I know nothing about. I don't regret not taking pictures; I don't feel shorthanded at all. I'm happy that I have that memory to myself, that the images and the smells and the sounds are mine and mine alone, stored away somewhere in the archives of my mind to be taken out and enjoyed when I want it.
Over the past few years, I've grown more and more desirous of these 'selfish' memories. While so many people around move closer to sharing every waking thought and every meal and every sunrise, I find my own memory becoming more and more precious. While I'm amenable to taking pictures for some moments, more often than not, I seem to think "I just want this one for me", and I leave my nice, 8 megapixel cell in my pocket.
And the memories I'm holding in my heart seem sharper than ever. I still take the occasional photos for my records, or for shits and giggles, or to share something particularly poignant, but I like that everyone on my facebook feed doesn't always know what I'm doing or have done. I don't need them to know; I don't want them to know. I know, and I can tell them later, if I want.
Maybe it's just the story-teller nature of my personality, but there's something just aggravating about trying to share an experience with someone and hearing them say "oh yeah, I saw that on your wall" or "I know, I follow you on Twitter." I love the satisfaction of sharing my life with someone directly, of feeling them react and knowing that they know because I like them enough to share my stories with them. It's warm and it's personal, and maybe it's a bit outdated to some people, that's what I like and that's what I choose.
It might be silly; maybe it's even selfish. It's hard for me to say exactly, but there's something very sweet and comforting knowing that my memories can remain precious and rare. I may live my life as if I'm staring in my own personal movie, but I don't really feel the need to share the script with everyone- only the people that matter most.
Naturally, pictures were an important part of the experience. We all took hundreds and hundreds of pictures, the course of the month filling up harddrives with thousands of photos from our group of just-under-fifty people. Responsible for organizing a publication to memorialize the month, I got to sort through quite a few of those photos, reliving nearly every place we went and every thing we did. It was that beautiful, bittersweet nostalgia that we always so cautiously crave.
There was something that bothered me about it all, though. We spent time at ancient palaces, remnants of cultures and kingdoms that no longer existed, and from a similar period, we traveled to several old and beautiful Buddhist temples. But whereas the palaces were political and tourist traps, the temples remained alive and breathing, and we had the pleasure of witnessing live Buddhist ceremonies. Out of respect, I chose not to take pictures of any part of the temples, but I was alone in the sentiment and even mocked for such silliness. Why not take pictures? Why not use flash?
Now, in 2013, with smart phones everywhere and instagram/twitter/tumblr/facebook/etcetcetc being used by everyone and their mom, the idea of intentionally not taking pictures while doing something interesting or seeing something beautiful seems almost foreign. We all continue moving towards creating a live, never-ending personal news feed and technology does nothing but enable my generation's desire for every person to star in their own personal movie.
Don't get me wrong- I love what technology has to offer. I love that I can take a picture of something silly and send it to a friend that I share an inside joke with, or that I can communicate in real-time with my old pals who live across the world. That's amazing and we should all take advantage of what our technology has to offer.
But sometimes I don't want to share. I don't want every moment of my life to be plastered on the internet.
I remember my time at the temples fondly, and the quiet peace of a ceremony that I know nothing about. I don't regret not taking pictures; I don't feel shorthanded at all. I'm happy that I have that memory to myself, that the images and the smells and the sounds are mine and mine alone, stored away somewhere in the archives of my mind to be taken out and enjoyed when I want it.
Over the past few years, I've grown more and more desirous of these 'selfish' memories. While so many people around move closer to sharing every waking thought and every meal and every sunrise, I find my own memory becoming more and more precious. While I'm amenable to taking pictures for some moments, more often than not, I seem to think "I just want this one for me", and I leave my nice, 8 megapixel cell in my pocket.
And the memories I'm holding in my heart seem sharper than ever. I still take the occasional photos for my records, or for shits and giggles, or to share something particularly poignant, but I like that everyone on my facebook feed doesn't always know what I'm doing or have done. I don't need them to know; I don't want them to know. I know, and I can tell them later, if I want.
Maybe it's just the story-teller nature of my personality, but there's something just aggravating about trying to share an experience with someone and hearing them say "oh yeah, I saw that on your wall" or "I know, I follow you on Twitter." I love the satisfaction of sharing my life with someone directly, of feeling them react and knowing that they know because I like them enough to share my stories with them. It's warm and it's personal, and maybe it's a bit outdated to some people, that's what I like and that's what I choose.
It might be silly; maybe it's even selfish. It's hard for me to say exactly, but there's something very sweet and comforting knowing that my memories can remain precious and rare. I may live my life as if I'm staring in my own personal movie, but I don't really feel the need to share the script with everyone- only the people that matter most.
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