The 2-Month Music Sabbatical Plan

Upon posting my last post about my plan to take a break from music, my friend, Somansh, immediately responded with: "Damn mans become a monk".

He's not far off - at least, not really.

I have no desire to become a monk; frankly I think I'd feel too bored of pure stoicism. Plus, I still like my books and video games; and the occasional Youtube binge (which, much like music, is something I do want to address at some point in the future). But there is arguably something intriguing about the idea of a quiet life. There's a reason why many people often romanticize the idea of returning to nature and having a cabin in the woods; or digital nomads traveling to some country as their next destination for freelance work.

I'm as basic as a person can be. I like the hectic busy city life; but I also like the more serene and relaxed environment that nature provides. My dream life would be able to live in New York and Switzerland and travel between both, as I can combine the aspects of city life and my want for nature. But I'm still a long time aways from that life.

Amsterdam, where I currently reside, has this strange mixture of the hit n' run nature that many internationals and even some locals bring (especially if you're close to Amsterdam South's financial district) and a rather relaxed group of people whose outlook on life seems to lax for even the most chillest of internationals. Yet, much like New York, the busyness of the city and the constant movement which is provides can be a bit overwhelming. Many friends of mine choose to stay in their quiet neighborhoods, only coming up to the city when there's some occasion or when their family is coming.

So, with the busyness of the city and in my own life, I need to be able to take control of certain aspects of my life. Thus why I'm choosing to give up one very integral part of my life: music.

As I mentioned last time, I stated I was going to develop more of a plan.

The Plan

Having some time to think about it, the simple set of rules I've developed in my previous article was going to be simple and sufficient enough for me to keep up.

These rules are:

1. Delete all music apps
2. Ban yourself from playing music or sounds through Youtube or other similar sites
3. Download Soundscape sounds and put them on your various devices

With the additional rules of:

• This extends to music (if i can change the music slider) in video games but NOT in movies and TV shows
  • N.B. this is what would make GTA IV's soundscape much more interesting
• If I accidentally hear or stumble upon other people's music (usually when I'm in the city or from my roommates), this would not break the experiment.

My only exception being that I will be attending the Ezra Collective concert on the 23rd of October; but other than that, the hard part now is to actually... do it.

I also stated that the only digital media I'm only really allowed to consume during this is going to be video games and the very occasional bouts of podcasts. The justification being that video games tend to be interacted with quite actively as opposed to passively, which I believe should be allowed. Podcasts, on the other hand, will be rather occasional in use, as I usually use podcasts as a way to get away from the audio-visual and ad-laden space that is Google and Youtube. There are a bit of podcasts that I like which I might explore with sharing with you guys at a later time.

Timeline

I'm usually an improviser of a lot of my goals and motivations in life. These tend not to go well as any lack of planning or foresight and dedication leads to a lot of things failing. I will be providing biweekly updates on how the sabbatical is going, with the plan being to go until December or until the end of this calendar year. Therefore, the beginning of the sabbatical will start on:

• October 14th (Start of the sabbatical) - December 14th (End of the sabbatical)

In today age, where the endless stream of other people's thoughts and opinions often dictate and overpower our very own, podcasts, Youtube, Floatplane, Spotify, it's easy to be consumed by the constant state of white noise that we're so often unaware of. I'm not anti-music or anti-media; like Lmjulie said, music is a rather important part of our lives and society. But the constant access to this music means that we're in a constant state of consumption and it's frustrating.

In the future, I would love get a music player. I love the idea of foregoing the use of my phone as an everything device. Before moving onto streaming fully, I used to attain my music in downloaded MP3 forms and have them on my Samsung S7 Edge (really showing me age here).

I'm striving for those simpler times. When I was listening to the music that I wanted to listen to and the artists that I love. But, for now, in lieu of buying an iPod or a music player, this music sabbatical will have to do for now.

Shit. Maybe Somansh is right.