These Foolish Things I Love And Hate
People ask what kind of music I make. Far less often however - what kind of life I enjoy living. The older I get, the more I realize that the two are strongly interconnected. My tastes haven't appeared randomly of course. Whether it's music, books, technology, or the way I spend an afternoon, evening or night, they all seem to point toward the same values. So, in no particular order, here are a few things I genuinely enjoy and a few that I have gradually learned to avoid.
Looking over this list, I notice a pattern - almost everything I enjoy asks me to slow down. Almost everything I dislike encourages me to speed up, accelerate. Perhaps that's what has changed most as I've grown older. I'm no longer interested in fitting more into my life. But I’m definitely interested in noticing more of what is already there.
Things I Love
Matcha
Not because it's fashionable (started drinking it in 2018), but because preparing it forces me to slow down. It's one of the few moments that feels more like a ritual than a product. Something that I gradually started seeking in recent days. I’d like my music to be like matcha - acquired slowly, appreciated fully, and never done absentmindedly.Pure silence
Silence (whether it is, ironically, noisy or not) is no longer something I try to escape. I’ve run away from it for way too long. Now it's where I do my best thinking, where ideas settle, and where the world feels the least demanding.Walking
Walking has solved more problems than sitting at a desk ever has. Some of my best ideas arrive when I have nowhere particular to be.Minimalism
Not as an aesthetic per se, but as a way of making decisions and to conduct your life. Owning fewer things means maintaining fewer things, thinking about fewer things, and appreciating the things that remain.The piano
Even if I’m not the best at it. But every time I think I've exhausted what a piano can express, it proves me wrong. It's an instrument that rewards patience, openness, transparency rather than virtuosity.Field recordings (or just outside noises)
Listen to it. Rain on a window. Birds before sunrise. A distant train. Wind through trees. The world is already composing music. So maybe we should pay attention to it?Philosophy
Especially Emil Cioran, Albert Camus, and a number of stoics. They approached life's biggest questions without pretending to have comforting answers. There's an honesty in that which I find refreshing.Nature
Not because it's peaceful all the time, but because it exists without trying to impress anyone. Forests don't advertise themselves. Birds don't perform for an audience. It feels wider than that.Film noir
There is something deeply appealing about its restraint. Shadows reveal more than bright lights ever could, and the unanswered questions are often more interesting than the solutions.Old technology
Older cameras. Cassette recorders. Radios with physical dials. Old and reliable. Buy it for life-type stuff. Things built to be understood rather than replaced, and I admire that philosophy very much.Notebooks
Writing by hand forces ideas to develop at the speed of thought instead of the speed of typing. A notebook asks for attention in a way that a screen rarely does.Ornithology
The more time I spend watching birds, the more I realize how much of the natural world we overlook. Learning to identify them has made even familiar walks feel new again.
Things I Can't Stand
Consumerism
The constant suggestion that happiness is always one purchase away strikes me as one of the least convincing stories modern society continues to tell itself.Clutter
Physical clutter has a way of becoming mental clutter. Every unnecessary object quietly competes for attention.Constant notifications
Very little is genuinely urgent. Most notifications exist to interrupt rather than inform. No more news, no more circles within circles.Social media algorithms
Optimized for engagement, not understanding. That alone tells you almost everything you need to know.Money
I appreciate what money allows us to do, but I've never found it particularly interesting. I value financial stability precisely because it lets me think about money less.Multitasking
Doing several things badly has never seemed more productive than doing one thing well.Empty productivity advice
Wake up at 5 a.m. Drink this. Use that app to track every single statistic. Buy this course. Do the course. Read a book that tells you the same things the other book did. Most productivity advice seems far more interested in looking productive than accomplishing meaningful work.Minimalism influencers
There is something amusing about turning simplicity into another lifestyle brand. Minimalism doesn't need expensive furniture, perfect lighting, or a carefully curated social media feed. And especially it doesn’t need people that constantly say the same things over and over again.Unnecessary complexity
Whether it's software, bureaucracy, or everyday life, complexity is too often mistaken for satisfying form of sophistication.FOMO
The fear of missing out assumes that every opportunity deserves to be taken. It doesn't. Every "yes" quietly becomes a hundred "no’s”. Embrace the "no’s”.Ambient music
This one always surprises people. I composed music that many would call ambient, yet I rarely listen to the genre itself nowadays. Too much of it mistakes slowness for substance and floating atmosphere for composition. The label has become so broad that it often tells me very little about what the music actually is. My over-reliance on it was also something that killed my love for the genre in terms of being its listener.Convenience as a default
Convenience is a wonderful servant and an abusive master. The easier everything becomes, the fewer opportunities we have to practice patience, attention, or craftsmanship. Sometimes the slower way isn't inefficient - it simply allows us to be more present.