Old Habits, New Bliss

When we search for ways to make our current lives better, we often look to the latest new trend. The Internet is constantly bombarding us with the hottest new thing, as of this very second. Whether this is a new fitness regime, the latest and greatest development in fun technology, or maybe even just a friend suggestion on Facebook, the Internet tends to try and push us into new things.

Most of the time, this is perfectly fine. Without discovering new hobbies or music or social circles, we don’t grow or challenge ourselves. The past few days, however, I have greatly enjoyed doing the complete opposite. I’ve been sinking into hobbies and music that I loved at high school and university, but just haven’t engaged with in Korea or even in South Africa just before I left. In the last few years, my life has changed so drastically that I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if I still found joy in the things that I delighted in only a few years ago.

Image from Pinterest

My first foray into past revelry was music. As the school year has wound down, I’ve had more time to play Overwatch and Dota. I usually don’t play music other than the in-game music, as it distracts me, but I was playing more casually than normal and felt like a change. So, I put on a YouTube playlist of Linkin Park, one of my absolute favourite bands of my teens and early university years. The first song I played was my personal favourite song, Numb. From there, I let YouTube’s algorithm take me where it wanted. Right from the first note, I had a smile on my face. Each passing song brought with it memories of high school study sessions or hanging out with friends in WARP (the geek club of my alma mater). Flashes of faces I hadn’t seen in years (to my shame) ran across my mind faster than the changes in the games. I had less success with System of a Down, a band I was particularly fond of in my mid-late teen years, but I was surprised by how connected my experience of life was to Linkin Park.

I am a firm advocate in the power of music to influence your day-to-day existence.Perhaps it is the raw emotional nature of Linkin Park’s music that causes such a strong reaction. Maybe I just stopped listening to them out of snobbery. Maybe they released a bad album or two and I lost faith. In any case, time-travelling through music is something I look forward to doing again soon. I am definitely going to see if the Linkin Park effect can be repeated by other past musical obsessions like Muse.

Beyond music, I have also been engaging in two hobbies that I have lost touch with in recent times – reading and model painting.

Image from Amazon

While I regularly read comics, I have only read two actual novels this entire year. A few weeks ago, I picked up a small collection of books from a fellow teacher. This past Saturday, I decided to crack open the treasure trove of stories for the first time. I elected to start Andy Weir’s The Martian, and I have been devouring it ever since. I have almost finished the story, and I cannot wait to see how it ends.

One catalyst to my high reading time has been an unintended plus of my LASEK surgery. In years past, I have been incredibly prone to motion sickness while in a car. I could not read or use a cellphone for more than fifteen minutes before I would feel queasy. Since my surgery, this time has grown exponentially, to the point where I found that I could read for the entire 90 minute bus trip to Seoul without feeling sick in the slightest. Combine this with trips to Seoul and Daejeon between Saturday and Monday, and I relished more than seven hours of reading time that I used to plow through Mark Watney’s exploits on the Red Planet.

Image from Pinterest

The other hobby that I found pathos in recently is model painting. At the wonderful Seoul Board Games Flea Market, I picked up a copy of the masterpiece that is Shadows Over Camelot. In the game, there are small plastic models for many different aspects in the game, including Arthurian knights, catapults, and even Excalibur and the Holy Grail. At university, I was a devout player of Warhammer 40 000 (Orks and Tyranids 4 lyf). I had spent dozens of hours bringing my Warbosses, Trukks, and other boiz to life. In the Shadows models, I saw an opportunity to test my skills and see if I could even paint. So, after my LASEK checkup yesterday (my eyes are still improving, yay!), I went to a popular hobby shop to kit myself out for bringing the Arthurian universe into full colour.

The dream! Image from Pinterest

I decided to start with the simpler models to warm my painting skills up. Once those were complete, I would move to the intricate Knights of the Round Table. I spent almost two hours walking between two shelves of paint, planning out my colour schemes. Which shade of green did I want for my Pict battle garments? (Lime Green) Did I really need Dried Blood and Fresh Blood? (Yes). I was in a zone that I hadn’t been in in years, and I left the store 90 000 won (R900ish for my South African audience, $85ish for Americans) poorer but with a deep sense of inner peace. I have already hit most of the models with a coat of white primer, and I will probably start painting the catapults today. We’ll see if they turn out like brown blobby triangles or beautiful examples of medieval siege weaponry.

So, if you’re tired of trying to look for the newest thing to add to your life, try looking back. For many hobbies or musical styles, you might have left them in the past for a reason. But you might just stumble upon something that you find moments of true joy or peace in, and you’ll be left wondering why you left it behind. Even if that heightened emotion is only temporary, it will be worth your time.

On Cellphones at Music Concerts

Any person who has been to a concert recently knows the scourge. All one wants to do is sink your soul into the heavenly (or demonic, for some music tastes) visions and sounds emanating from the stage. An artist that you’ve paid to see and hear and experience with all of your being is giving their all. You’re loving it. All the while, the person next to you is holding up their smartphone, recording the entire show. Or taking their umpteenth photograph, the false shutter sound clacking needlessly. You try to ignore them. Then you take a look around the audience, and realize that one in ten people in the crowd is doing the same.

Before our concert experience on this past Sunday, my girlfriend Kristen and I had not been to a music concert since we arrived in Korea. For people for whom music is an almost constant presence and fuel, this is an exorbitantly long time to have gone without live music. We were excited beyond belief to be enjoying a gig once again. The band in question was Bon Iver – one of Kristen’s favourite bands. I am not nearly as familiar with them, but I was keen to see how their music held up in live.

I needn’t have worried. Bon Iver was phenomenal. They engaged the crowd, performed through technical hitches without sacrificing their sound, and gave a show to rival some of the best I’ve seen so far. I was expecting them to be good. Kristen was expecting them to blow her mind. Both of our expectations were exceeded.

The thing that I had not been expecting was the prevalence of mobile phone usage during the show. I thought that people would take their selfies before the show, maybe one or two pictures to trigger visual memory in the future (“this is where he looked at me! OMG!”), and then put their phone away to become one with the music once more. How wrong I was.

The crowds at two addresses by the Pope, 8 years apart from each other

 

The woman standing next to me had her phone held aloft about 70 percent of the show. Despite a ban on the taking of video at the performance, she insisted on recording the first minute of every song. In between these brief snatches of motion, she captured the band in at least 200 photographs. She spent more time looking at her phone screen than she did looking directly at the stage. And she was not alone – a staggering amount of people in the crowd were doing similar things. Why not just watch a video of the gig on YouTube?

For me, a concert is not simply being present in a place where music happens to listen to it with your ears and see it with your eyes. It is a sacred place, where one comes to slowly be engulfed in the experience gifted to you by a band that you adore. You are there to feel the pulse of the drums against your clothes. You are there to feel the heartbeat of the crowd as the songs flow from the stage. You are not there to stand and stare at a screen for 90 minutes in the hope of getting a picture that could get 120 likes on Facebook, or would look great with an Instagram filter.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I believe that taking digital records of life, be they pictures or video or any other method of preservation, has its place. In the most moving of moments, not even the greatest picture will top simply living completely in that moment. Remember why you are there. If you’re there to take dozens of photos and look as though you’re having the greatest time, snap away. Just be considerate of those around you, and turn your screen brightness down and shutter sound off.

If, on the other hand, you are at the concert to come closer to a band that you have longed to experience on a new level, put the phone away. Close your eyes. Feel the music around you, within you. Smile. Relish the small moments where you can be in the same room as the band that creates the songs that drive your everyday life.

All in Time

I have a good ear for timing in music. This arose largely because I hardly ever practiced the tuba, my main instrument, outside of official rehearsals. This meant I had to be able to precisely time when I came in. If I messed up my timing, the entire song would be ruined by a single loud FWARP. I used to adopt a similar approach in life, waiting for the precisely correct moment to complete a particular task. This usually meant doing things at the last minute.

I procrastinate. It used to be one of the defining characteristics of who I was. At university, I would leave assignments until the point at which no normal human should be able to churn out whatever word count was necessary. Teaching and managing my activities outside of teaching has helped me reign in the desire to just do it tomorrow. Now, most of the time, I’m just doing it.

Insert obligatory meme here

I am teaching for 9 hours of my day. Last week, we had open class to prepare for and deliver, two major tests to administer, and submission deadlines for material for next month’s classes. When I get home, I often make dinner. Most days, I write a freelance writing piece and/or a piece for GosuGamers. This past week was particularly intense in terms of this. I submitted one large piece of freelance writing (2000 words is large, okay), stayed up until at least 3am on Friday and Saturday to cover the past Dota Major for Gosu and spend 3 hours casting my first competitive Dota series in a long while.

After I managed to get all of these things done, not missing a single deadline, I spent the majority of Sunday…procrastinating. I had one last deadline for Sunday, and I spent it watching Downton Abbey, playing Dota, and Skyping an old friend. You know what they say about old habits. I still didn’t miss the deadline, though.

While some of these projects yield more immediate rewards, like being paid money to write as a freelancer, others are more long-term investments. Writing for GosuGamers builds up my network within the Dota community. I hope to one day use some of these connections to fast-track my casting career. Either that, or be offered a paid job for the site. To be honest, I could think of little better than sitting and writing about the game that I love and actually getting paid for it.

All of these endeavours make me realize that I have become far less lackadaisical about what I want to do with life. I want to write. I want to have the game that is my passion, Dota, involved. I don’t want to be wrangling small children for 9 hours a day. It’s not bad work, don’t get me wrong. I just know it’s not really for me. Maybe next year I will work with older children, and I will find that far more stimulating.

For now, I will continue to fill my after-work hours with a fine balance between work, Dota-related endeavours, and procrastination. And I could think of nothing better. I hope that you all find your time signature. I can’t say I’ve found mine yet. All I’ve done is started to listen to my own song a little closer.