Laidback Life Log #1
On most work days I keep a log of my activity to protect myself and to track what I’ve done. Microsoft One Note is a great place to keep both my log, useful notes, ideas, or anything else I might want to reference in the future. Anything outside of work I call the laidback life, it’s more than a personal brand that I want to build. Like the greats of Nike, Apple, and Redbull my end goal is more than just a brand, it’s an image. I have high aspirations in my job, but even loftier dreams outside of it.
Two years ago I read an article called “Learn in Public”, it’s amazing what your brain can hold onto. It only made sense to both log and share what I do in an effort to make fetch a thing. While I won’t share everything I do. . . I don’t think the internet needs to know when I shit. I’ll try to be as transparent as I can.
Dinner
I’m lucky to be in a situation where I can eat two meals a day at my fancy international school’s cafeteria (I work there). Today’s dinner was especially good as it was Steak. While my broke black from the 253 ass loves the meals, my school is getting a new caterer in a couple of months. I’m grateful to have warm healthy food going down my stomach every day. The time this saves me from prepping, cooking, eating, and cleaning is priceless. It’s something that I’ve definitely taken for granted in the last three months or so. It’s not that I can’t cook, but the laidback life recognizes the difference between cooking to survive and cooking because you want to. I’ve come a long way from surviving off Mcdonald’s and Convenience Store food. (I was working in a factory at the time)
I would recommend anyone trying to live a laidback life to find a way to eat without preparing the food yourself. Whether that is through a meal-prepping company, uber eats, living with your mom, or exchanging some form of labor you find more enjoyable with a roommate or friend. Better yet find a significant other who enjoys cooking. Live within your means of course also try to take care of the machine your consciousness is trapped in for the time being, but this is a big step towards winning your time back.
Spontanous Class Observation
Most days I just go home straight after dinner, but today I stopped by some classrooms and had conversations with some of the volunteers assisting with our school’s winter camp program. It was fun to see what skills they were handing down to our young kids. I did my best to make small talk, but most importantly thank them for their hard work. As I made my rounds I stopped at the art class. Our intern was holding an activity where students would paint unique trees with acrylic paints. I learned a little bit about mixing paints and working with acrylics, but two profound points came from our conversation.
- Trees are great symbols for the seasons of life and the unique qualities of every individual
- The kids were so free, just painting to express themselves (I wondered if I could relearn that quality)
Letting it Lose on Laidback Life Commute
My car is terribly suited for my environment in Tohoku Japan. I’d love nothing more than to repair, fully respray, and Bedliner the Laidback 180sx. Then I’d vault the car for the winter and buy a cheap MT turbo Legacy Spec B or Impreza WRX. I could just repair my Evo IV. . .but my pockets ain’t like that so the 180sx will be my winter warrior. As terrible as rear-wheel drive cars with no LSDs are in the snow, you can still have a lot of fun with them. On my way home I practiced weight transfer, clutch control, throttle control, and handling oversteer. The laidback life is about having fun, while not putting anyone else in danger of course.
Laidback Life Wearing White
I made a commitment to self-improvement when I started reading Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio. Part of that plan involves being okay with being a beginner. Despite being someone who wants to make music as part of their life. I knew almost next to nothing about music. While my ability to use FL Studio was getting pretty adept, the music part of the process was anemic. My effort to learn one song started a deep dive into some material I’m not entirely confident I can master.
This is when I realized I could use my blog Laidback Lifestyle to learn in public. These studies will be available to anyone who is interested.
Laidback Doesn’t Mean Lazy
When I got to a good point to stop typing I looked around my room. The full laundry container in the corner grabbed my attention. I’m not the neatest person on planet earth, but I enjoy a room with some sense of order. Part of the laidback life is trying to find little efficiencies and shortcuts involving things you don’t like doing. This leaves you more time to do things that make your soul sing. It only took ten minutes to make life a little more orderly. I firmly believe that your belongings and surroundings are a representation of who you are and your mental state.
The cleanliness inertia continued, I listened to a YouTube podcast while bringing order to the things I could. There is something amusing about me willing to watch videos on the basics of game mechanics like laning in Lol or Angles in FPS games. Yet, I had never watched a tutorial on how to stay organized and neat. Maybe it was time to start watching basic life tutorials instead of competitive game tips. The one game I was catching constant Ls on was the game of life. Two positive results came out of cleaning. The mood in the room lifted and I also gave my brain some downtime to process things and reset.
Analysis Only Gets You So Far
I could study about playing anime rock music all I wanted, but playing that song wasn’t possible. There comes a point when learning how to do anything where you just have to jump into the deep end and do it. I picked up my guitar and noodled around for around fourty minutes. Noodling is what good guitar players like to call “musical masterbation” because while it feels good in the short term. Playing around aimlessly will limit your progression, but it’s also important to be able to have that free time. I strummed through riffs I knew from Angel Beat’s crow song, Do I wanna Know, and some note combinations that always caught my attention.
After letting myself go for almost an hour, I needed to catch myself and reel in the focus. Wanting to learn the crow song I found a tab online and played the first 8 or so bars. Once my mind slipped focus I decided to study the scale the song is in. It’s only been a day and I can tell you all the flat notes in E-Flat Major. Eb, Ab, and Bb where they are on the fretboard is another thing. It was painful and required a lot of focus, but I stuck to trying to play through the scale in different ways. I cringed as I heard wrong notes . . .and was even confused when I played right notes.
Starting on a note other than the root note made playing through scales sound odd. When you started on the root note or the I (One) that was called the Ionian scale. It was weird that I had learned so much in such a short time span. I also needed to find a way to learn where all the notes were on the fretboard.
Laidback Life: Laidback Writes
People have told me that I’m a skilled writer. No one has ever told me I am a great music producer, guitarist, good looking, or great at youtube.
When you’re good looking, everybody will tell you that,
Dave Chapelle
but when you’re ugly, you’ve got to figure that shit out by yourself
Perhaps I wasn’t good on video or in the studio. Maybe my awkwardness or speed of thoughts would just fly to fast in a conversation. . . I often go on highly detailed rants that I don’t even realize I am making. But in writing having a solid flow of highly detailed information, input, and opinions is a good thing. When reading peaple can travel at a pace they enjoy.
I pay stupid amounts of money every 2 years to let this blog just sit here and collect dust. After I had mentally drained myself of the concentration I had for guitar I wrote this blog. I’ll be continuing to write blogs because this is a way I can be honest with myself. Learning in public also benefits those who happen to read this. I’m writing this so that the laidback lifestyle isn’t something that I live alone.
Much Love ,Laidbackmarco ♥
