Month: January 2018

Song Mixes

I love listening to song mixes on youtube. (particularly Chillstep Selections) There is something beautiful about all the different songs and how they are all blended together. By being put in the 1-2 hour mix, all these songs are now apart of something larger then themselves. And the whole mix is significantly greater than the sum of their parts. This mixture effect is found in so many things.

When a company is trying to save money, they introduce a variety of different cost-saving ideas, and usually implement a mixture. Movies / books are often sold as a collection, and some of the most famous books are just a collection of short stories. It is no wonder that TV series are such big hits, as they are built from season to season, episode from episode. This gives the directors a chance to really develop the personalities / traits of the main characters. In Broadway shows, a combination of dance moves and songs makes up a routine / performance.

These are all the building blocks of life, stacked one on top of the other. A nice thing about most of these things, is that if you particularly like a certain section, a song, a chapter, an episode, you can go back and rewatch, rewind. But for life, there’s no rewind button.

Broken Clocks and Blind Squirrels

A broken clock is right twice a day

The sun shines on a dog’s ass every now and then

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while

These are all true. Once in a blue moon we get lucky, the stars align, the timing is perfect, and everything connects when we don’t deserve it. But besides those few and far between chances, it is up to us to put in the work.

And sometimes it is going to feel like we are just throwing darts at a target we can’t see, swinging our bat blindfolded at a ball. But the more often that we throw darts, the more likely we will hit our targets.

Errors in Calculations

It seems like human estimates, calculations, and interpretations are always wrong.

We are constantly making wrong assumptions, misreading people, situations, and various encounters.

Students all across the world can definitely relate to this. There are many times we feel like we aced a test, only to find out a week later that was not the case. My Dad has a famous saying for this: “If you feel like you got an A, then you got a B. If you think you got a B, that means you got a C.” These errors in our calculations are found in all aspects of life. You might think that a guy or girl likes you, until you find out that they don’t even know your name. You may feel like you knocked that job interview out of the park, until you never hear from the company again. A product that seems like a best seller ends up in the clearance aisle. Decisions that feel good can yield terrible, sometimes disastrous results. If we can figure out a way to make more accurate predictions and determine the results before they happen, then we can learn to prepare properly, avoid confusion, and escape unfavorable situations for ourselves and those around us.

 

Tuning by Ear

Its a lot harder to tune a guitar by ear than to use an app.

With the guitar tuner apps, there is direction. You know whether to tune it higher or lower. This guidance that the app provides instills a confidence in ourselves and makes sure that our guitar will sound the best it can. Now obviously veteran or more professional guitarists do not need help tuning, but for all the amateurs and non guitarists, it is essential that we use the apps in order to make sure we get it right.

There are many things all around us like these guitar tuner apps that can be critical in measuring, estimating, and evaluating life. We need to take advantage of these opportunities and not always try to do life on our own.