Latest / Dits & Dahs / everyday first moments
Transcript
- Sue: When I made the decision, almost two years, to journal my life, the mundane details of it on a daily basis with initially two blog posts and sometimes an occasional video like the one that you're watching now. And it was my modern version of a personal diary. I mean, obviously I'm aware that everything is online. If anybody wants to click on it, I'm going to be viewed as whatever that person sees. So best to... curate that aspect of the journal. And I thought, what better way to start than to just make an audio recording of me walking out in the woods with my dog as I'm doing now. And if this is the first content of mine that you're viewing, listening to, I am a widow, 64 years old, I've been in Southeast New York State, in the U.S. I am a musician and have at various times in my life been a Tertorganist, jazz pianist, oboist, composer, arranger, music engraver, music publisher, record label, all the things that a creative person, I feel, should participate in to support their output of their creative energy. Don't have to, I'm just, that works for me. And I make my living partially from running my own company, which is this creative enterprise, as well as Confirmation by the Woodpecker, as well as Time Job. as a licensing manager. And along the course of my life, I was the director of music services at the NET group in New York City, which is a public media broadcaster. And that job was culmination, if you will, of an internship I did 32 years before, and filled the gap in between there with various music publishing opportunities and working self-employed with my LLC. At this confirmation by the Woodpecker, I had the Opportunity in the last year and a half to focus on things that during the course of a day-to-day routine, whatever the baseline that is, those events that I blog about are out of that, above or below that baseline. So to me that's notable and I make comment on it. And in creating the content I decided to memorialize the day with a picture of my dog. And if there's wind changes in the visuals, fluttering leaves, etc. I video it. I keep track of the runoff stream that feeds the aquifer, because I live on a well. And I'm also doing my best to live as frugally as I'm able with as rich confirmation, a life as I'm able given constricted finances. And in the personal side of my life, I am a widow for four years. And at the time of my husband's death, He was preceded in death by our family dog by 12 days. And at the time of both of their deaths, we were destitute because my job at the NET group had been eliminated at the end of the COVID pandemic. So I felt the last couple of 18 months or so that blogging every day, at that point I'd been about two years into my being a widow and realized that given my financial constriction, I'm going to be spending a lot of time at home, if not all of my time, except for occasional local trips to pick up the mail and such. Well, that means that you really do have to focus on the mundane because your environment, basically day in and day out for a couple of years, doesn't really substantially change. But it does. And that's the detail that I'm speaking about that makes everyday journaling or simply taking a picture of your environment every day worth doing. Like when I take pictures of my dog, I know that should it be necessary, someone can go to my personal website, see a picture of my dog, and if she gets away from me, has one of the most up-to-date pictures to go by. When I shoot video of wind, it's just following the weather. I enjoy the visuals of it. I find them pleasing. I usually like to shoot about 30 seconds longer if it's a sustained wind or rain or snow. Sometimes I've got some interesting visuals from pointing the camera lens up at the rain or snow. And I like to use, as you'll see in this video, kaleidoscope effect, a filter on my smartphone app, camera app, that is. And then I shoot photos of the subtle light changes, whatever. It's just the idea here that the mundane has a lot of diversity, but it's... nuanced in my view. She said tripping over a stick, so that's confirmation. And that that has helped me understand who I am. And I believe that there are a lot of very subtle signs. And if you're not really changing your environment every day, your ability to see and be aware of what a sign is becomes finely tuned. That's how I resonate with that function. Because when you recognize to you what is significant to me, then you have a better sight of what your life path is at that moment. And that you then are in a place where you're more comfortable making the yes-no decisions to that life path. It's become aware through this mundane view of my life that I can now look back, not only because I've got the content online, which is another reason why I do it as a point of reference personally, that I can tell myself at the time that you made that yes decision, It was the best choice for you. Now? No, I wouldn't make that decision the same way. And that's made easier by me being able to directly go back to the content I made as a point of reference. And why is that important? Because I think each and every day, as mundane as our routine may seem, we still nonetheless are presented with first moments of some sort. And it might require us to make an informed decision. And if you have the opportunity to refer back to previous times, it might be helpful. And of course, the other aspect of it is the reason why I value being able to just post this content online, whether or not you choose to read it or interact with it is not my concern, other than I like the fact that you can communicate with an audience of people that you'll probably never ever meet. But this one moment kind of brings you together. You're sharing a resonance by listening to my energy and feeling that's. a pretty amazing thing. And as I accumulate all of this content, I'm also making use of the fact that it's an opportunity to record my music, to express myself creatively in a variety of ways. And that process of making the content fills my life in a very productive way that would otherwise allow my thinking to be distracted into things that aren't serving me well. The other aspect about making content like this in a mundane way is that, well, I understand there are filmmakers out there with an audio producers with whom I've worked that are very professional in how they carry the vision of the company that they're working for. I'm just doing it on a daily basis with some level of continuity and please just punch if you all interact with it. If not, that's okay too. It's a very enjoyable process because it engages your mind with the stuff that you are passionate about. And you develop a routine, a pattern of how things get done, and it's filling your brain with the fun stuff, with the good stuff. And I think that's really important because when we go through our lives and get caught up with negative feelings and then find ourselves surrounded by people who are operating within some negative energies, you don't need to be involved with that. It drains the energy, the positive energy out of you without realizing it. So the way to protect against that to defend yourself is to just keep pumping out positive vibes and that goes back to the journaling. You're finding something to do that engages you every day, given the time that you have available and you've got to make time for it because after all, you love yourself, you value yourself, you're going to give yourself that commitment. And if you keep doing it on a day-to-day basis, depending on what you want to produce content, share it with the world, it's like one of the most open and authentic positive things that you can do. to win-win because A, you're feeling good about yourself for doing it and B, people may reflect on it as a positive thing, whether they do in my case or not, I'm not fussed, but the idea being that once you get that confirmation for others that you're resonating with them, that's just gonna egg you on to do more. As a musician, I know that. We don't live for the applause, but when we receive it, it's a great vibe. It's all about feeling better about yourself on a day-to-day basis. The other aspect, the time that you spend making the content, you are in control. Once you get the vibe of that, you're gonna be more aware of situations in your life where you aren't in control. And then you're making that decision. Is that then a situation that serves me for my highest, bestest self? Because if not, that's gotta go. Because whatever you have going on in your life, if you're allowing others to suck that energy and steal that time from you, well, that's not right. Stop that. You control you. And that's why when you lock into some sort of content creation, however you choose to do it, you just might want to keep a photo album that you don't share with the world. But the idea is that when you commit to doing something like that daily, it keeps you on the path of positivity. That's been my experience. If you find that that resonates with you, feel free. Thanks for listening, though. I appreciate you.