Re Human Day 23
Re-inventing ourselves is the most important skill nowadays. I’m reinventing myself by improving in 15 areas at a time. This post is part of my Re Human project.
Daily Habits
Books: Today I finished Creative Selection. I thought it was good but if you haven’t read a Steve Jobs biography I’d recommend that over this. Some quick notes from today below, a little more notes here.
Demos were the foundation of the product selection / creation at Apple.
For demos, a fully working product is not important. Cut corners to create an illusion of something working, and get feedback.
Then I started The Courage to Be Disliked. The format is cool because it’s a conversation between a young adult and a philosopher. Almost finished it! Some notes (bold claims):
People fabricate emotions, like anger, to satisfy goals, like shouting.
People don’t have static personalities, they have dynamic views of the world.
All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.
Freedom is being fine with being disliked by other people.
Writing: This post, code, and a daily thought.
Piano: Today in Flowkey I learned about Chord accompaniment (chords with the right hand).
Fitness: Today I also did one-hand pull ups and practiced holding handstands and human flag. Getting close to both. I also usually finish my workouts with 20 consecutive push-up-burpees-with-knees-up-to-chest-jumps; people usually hate burpees because they’re super hard and tiring — I like them for the same reason.
Re Human Extended Activity: Tuesdays is Music Production.
I have a theory for a hack to create popular music. Some time ago, I read an article about how really good chefs now how to transport you back in time. A perfect example is in Ratatouille (the Disney Movie): the ratatouille (the dish) transported the judge back to his childhood, and that made him experience the dish as delicious. I think the same applies to songs. If you can create a song that transports people back in time, people will like it. This is because people like familiar things. One example is Sofi Tukker’s Drinkee — the main guitar beat sounds just like a super common, classic guitar beat (the one everyone learns when they’re learning guitar). Sofi Tukker wasn’t a known band but because it struck chord with people’s feelings, the song was a wild success. Obviously it’s also a great song. But that’s my theory: using old, familiar beats is advantageous for creating popular music.
Today I spent some time thinking of old, familiar beats and trying to play them in my MIDI keyboard, with not a lot of success. Then spent some time looking at my previous Logic Pro projects, then in Splice finding sounds.
Meditation: 20mins in morning.
Soccer trick juggling: Some observations: muscle memory/integration is magic, because I usually feel I’m better than the day before, right as I’m starting. I’ve also noticed that in some moments, I’m doing great — I call this being “on fire”.
Connections, takeaways and Ideas for tomorrow
I’ll put the food-music trick to test by making music with familiar beats.
I think it’ll be pretty fun, nice, and rewarding to be able to look back to any day and see what kinds of things I was thinking about. Seems like I have three ways of doing this now: my personal journals (which I’ve been doing for a while before these posts), my daily thoughts, and these posts. Is it worth it to spend time doing all three? Maybe. We’ll see. I like to experiment. I’m open to change, which is the foundation for all improvement.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
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