circles

Because Blogspot doesn't have email notifications, unfortunately. https://v4913.substack.com/  :)

Not only is it energetic and catchy enough to vibe/dance to when focusing is not a necessity, but it carries a strong rhythm that can keep your mind going when you do  need to focus, and it's simply beautiful; the notes and lyrics carry so much more meaning than (most) popular music nowadays. It's optimistic, empowering, uplifting -- some of the most popular classic NCS albums are even called "Infinity", "Uplifting", "Elevating", "Colors". Song that I'm listening to right now:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK2aIUmmdP4 Ignore the words (because they basically don't exist) and just focus on the beat... it runs so smoothly, like a river, like a continuous function, not discrete... you can predict what's coming next. Your brain isn't caught by surprise by sudden changes -- well there are beat drops, but they softly melt back into the song. There aren't really good  parts and really bad parts to the song; all of it is go...

I've always been an unusually smiley person. In elementary school, my classmates would compete with each other to get me to stop smiling (specifically, to frown), and I would see this as a challenge to smile for as long as possible. I'm often smiling for no reason, while walking down the street or in class or talking to people. Why? Well, I'd definitely attribute a large portion of it to my parents being really optimistic people. They'd never get discouraged (or at least not show it), smile through the pain (metaphorically) -- they saw pessimism and the defeatist mindset as the one true enemy. From a young age, I was taught not to complain -- to be thankful for what I have rather than distraught by what I didn't. In my household, sadness was the one thing that didn't belong. It does materialize in suboptimal ways sometimes though -- when an actually serious matter is being discussed, and the last thing I should be doing is smiling, I sometimes have the subconsci...