Latest / Dits & Dahs / mundane journaling is personal legacy
Transcript
- Sue: To me, living a mundane life is a privilege. I view it as an accomplishment that I've managed to get myself to the place where day to day things are seemingly not changing for the most part. And that I further chose to express those events, not events, as I'm doing now. Because I figure, one, aside from the fact that it gives me my legacy to refer back to should I need to, for whatever reason, and I figured I'd it public for the sake that if others are resonating with a similar type of life or find some humor in what I share. I'm good with that. So I've decided to convert these videos into a podcast. And other than my experience in working in a public media broadcaster that was getting into podcasts, I don't have any direct experience. Same as just hopefully gaining an audience that isn't organically finding this content as you do on YouTube. My personal viewing YouTube algorithm brought up a video by a Swedish photographer who, for the last year, has been focused on taking photographs of his immediate surroundings, the mundane. And of course, that resonated with me, given what I'm speaking about. So it's all becoming much more involved distribution, but that's okay. You know, there's no guarantee that anyone's gonna listen to this, and if you are listening to it, thank you. And if you've gotten this far, thank you. as well for your attention. You know, I speak from the standpoint of being a 64-year-old American widow working in the music business and living solo with my dog in a geographical area about 45 miles northwest of New York City and living out in the woods as my dog and I are now walking, enjoying a beautifully bright mid-March day because it's about eight weeks before we get leaves on the trees so the... Sunlight is direct and creates beautiful contrasts, therefore highlighting the fact that this is as mundane as you can possibly get. Because I think if we recognize what it is to walk out in an area every day, you see the light a little differently because that's what Mother Nature has given us. And then I've come to a place in my life where taking note of the light always inspires a thought about spirituality. And then when I talk about spirituality, we are all created equal as humans. and that we all know right from wrong. And some of us know that we want to treat other people as we wish to be treated, and that when we fail to do that, there's karma for that. And that along the way in life, being aware that others will try to make you feel off, balanced in your mind, in your body, in your spirit. And our simple best defense is to do our best to be happy and express joy every day, being positive. I think those are just very human traits of shared values, respecting one another. And it takes no involvement with a religion or a cultural belief system or traditions or whatever to attach to that. You can, but simply, all of us are created equal. We all want to be treated in a certain way, so we're going to treat others that way first. And we know that within that, we recognize what is right and what is wrong. I don't know that that's spirituality, but I think that's just humanity. But I put this blog in the podcast category of music and spirituality, because I think that's how sometimes beliefs like this get categorized. And I'm sharing my mundane life, knowing that someone else out there might resonate with it. I'm not saying you've gone through exactly what my life path has brought me to right now, but there is a shared respect and value. I mean, ultimately, we're just trying to do the best for ourselves. and being aware of what the challenges are. And when we're presented with situations that aren't to our best benefit, to have our own trust in ourself, our faith and love in ourself, to trust our intuition and our discernment to guide us through that situation and to forgive ourselves when we get to a place in our life looking back on that particular decision and recognizing that it wasn't the best for us. give ourselves grace and patience and forgiveness. Again, I think those are just human traits. And I go so far that once you get into the experience of forgiving yourself, you recognize forgiveness of others is also going to be part of that. And in this case, the other reason for sharing it is just shining a little light. And if you think that this has been illuminating to you, I appreciate you for recognizing the value in that. I also know that once you learn to love yourself and have faith in that, trusting your intuition, that you are in control of you in your mind, body, and spirit realm. When you're in control of you, you can have a pretty happy, joyous life. It's not easy, but it is essential. know, anecdotally, I won't quote science, but I should imagine that keeping yourself in a positive, balanced, calm, happy vibe is going to probably make you live longer, or at least help you live longer. And I also recognize that it doesn't need to include relationships that are sucking the energy out of you. It's okay to be alone. And if you decide that you are alone and you feel bored or lonely, I suggest that there may be an opportunity there to find something that occupies your time. And in my case, I make this mundane content because goodness knows when the, you know, the half hour of whatever it is that it takes me to record this in the first place and then to edit and to put it up online. Well, that's a good three or four hours of my day every day and have been doing so for over a year. to do two blog posts a day. I'm not making any money from it. That's not the point of it. I'm just doing it to put joy in my life. In addition to these mundane posts on YouTube, I keep two musical playlists of my own improvisations that I've recorded. And as I find some of my older digital content from years ago, I'm posting it in a playlist on its own based on the camera that was used when I shot it. I work in music licensing and have a more than healthy understanding of copyright law and intellectual property usage in the United States. And I come at this honestly. Not a legal expert, I'm just using it. But that said, I don't have any heirs. And I figured that I might as well post this content, make it available publicly. If anybody listens to it and enjoys it, that's great. But at least given my association with other people who are much more celebrated in the lives professionally that I've worked alongside, they might have their fans and such. come on over here because in some small way I've had an integral role at certain times with composers' lives that might be of historical interest. At least from my perspective as a young music student learning about my musical heroes, it was a pre-internet day, information and curious historical detail was not often available unless you happened to know somebody who told you an oral testimony of what happened when they were there. So I figured I'd share it within. those sort of discretionary lines.