i spend a lot of time thinking other people's thoughts. people talk about how the internet killed boredom and why that's a bad thing pretty often, but i never really noticed the effect until recently.

i put a schedule on my phone last week to lock me out of social media during the daytime, and i'm immediately noticing the difference. every time i had a spare moment before, i would go straight to twitter and look at other people's thoughts. now, i'm forced to entertain myself. i'm back to daydreaming like i did when i was a kid, and its honestly really refreshing.

i do think its important to hear other people's thoughts and stay in touch, but for me it was getting to a point where i hardly spent any time thinking anything on my own. i think keeping up with this website is good for that too.

i watched a youtube video yesterday called something like "i stopped listening to music for 30 days" and it was really interesting. the person in the video said they were suffering from "music addiction". i'd never heard of music addiction before then, but it was an interesting idea and i decided to try not listening to music myself.

i'm noticing things more. there's this weird looking sculpture i walk past almost every day that i never really paid much attention to. my shoelace came untied right next to it today, and for the first time i actually decided read the plaque on it with the description, and what the artist thought of it. now i'll see that statue in a new light whenever i walk past it.

i even feel like food tastes better. usually when i eat, i either watch something or go on twitter. lately i've been watching assassination classroom on my phone after transferring the (perfectly legally acquired) files from my computer, but i forgot to transfer the next episode, so i was anime-less for lunch today. i honestly enjoyed the flavor of the food a lot more when it was the main thing occupying my senses. i don't know if i just made that up or something but i feel like it doesn't really matter if i did.

a lot of this is probably just my mindset changing. i'm not noticing things and feeling more present because of not using my phone or not listening to music, i'm not using my phone and not listening to music because i want to feel more present.

i'm probably not going to keep this up for 30 days like the person in the video, but i do think my relationship with music is going to change. i'm going to make a conscious effort to listen to it less, and when i do listen to it, i want to try harder to really pay attention and understand it. only having music when i'm doing something else kind of robs me of the intended experience.

still not sure how to conclude these things lol. maybe i should make abrupt endings my thing.