My mind, for you.

Greetings.

Still no news about the election results... waiting...

Besides the internet being down a short time ago, I haven't posted very much lately. This is because I haven't felt like it. This seems to me because of two issues, the details of which I will attempt to outline here for you, dear reader.

The first relates to my previously-mentioned head-fullness due to which I could feel myself overloading - pretty much 4 months straight of intense learning every day is hard. To put it in the context of my usual life, I've done more studying and 'work' here than I would for a semester of Uni. Way more. Maybe two semesters. As such, my brain just started getting fuzzy. In addition to this problem, something else was happening.

My brain being fuzzy was one thing -- it made it more difficult to understand and remember things quickly (as I had previously somehow been able to do) -- but was compounded by an overall lack of motivation to learn. As well as not picking things up quickly, I was letting the material that I hadn't learned properly and needed to review build up. This was because I wasn't interested in doing it.

As nice an idea discipline is and as much as I have been exercising an amount surprising even to myself, forcing myself against my interest to 'sit down and work' at things that I am trying to learn and internalise, on a level beyond having to just regurgitate for an exam, is not effective. Of course, a lack of motivation frequently occurs while I'm at Uni, but there I have essays to write, exams to cram for and marks to obtain. In my current situation, there is no 'final test' for the things I am learning here and no examining body exists to regulate and assess me - the only reason I am here studying is for my interest and 'personal development'. As such, when my interest wanes, so does my motivation and reason for studying (as a side note, ideally, I think all education should be like this. But it's not and that's for another time). I needed to reboot my motivation.

Join me as I walk through how.

So far, my situation was like this: I was having trouble taking in information straight away which meant that I needed to further review my material. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like doing said further reviewing. As such, I was in a wussy little pickle.

While this may seem simply and reasonably just to be a typical enough example of causality and laziness, as I am a special boy, I knew that the above issues were merely symptoms for another underlying problem - it couldn't be that I am just lazy!

In short, my problem was that I was constantly thinking about how I would utilise and apply what I was learning when I got back home. This arises from my considering it a good idea to try and keep what I'm learning in some kind of perspective so as to not go too far down any rabbit holes and to maximise the efficiency of my time here (HA!). However, this has left me with a (fuzzy) head full of ideas, inspiration and stifled-motivation all aimed towards and dependent on my being back home, having access to my gear, getting more gear, setting things up, unfolding cunning plans, etc. - I was feeling like I'd done enough here and needed to get back home and use it before it all slipped away. Consquently, while the fuzzy-headedness was most likely a separately-caused phenomenon, my lack of motivation seems to have stemmed from my wanting to consolidate and mutate all the stuff I've learned - the possibility of said learned things falling out of my withering mind most likely raised the apparent emergency of my situation as well - rather than learning more stuff.

So, herein lies the problem: I think I've got enough and am ready to go home and win the world.

Of course, some of you may have noticed a flaw in my plan.

By my self-deprecating estimate, I probably have about two months' worth of musical activity, writing, inspiration and general farting around in me, ready to go. As I see it written like that, it still looks a bit tempting - two months is about the time I have left before I start uni and work again. Hmmm...

However, I have specifically structured my Uni course next semester so as to enable myself the maximum amount of time and headspace outside of Uni to puruse whatever I'm 'inspired' to pursue as a result of my stay here (in Ghana. Where I am). While this doesn't make the two months I would have available were I to leave now less emotionally tempting, it does lessen their impact in my reasoned, rational considerations (HA! again). As such, I know that staying here is far more useful, powerful and worthwhile than running home to play with toys for a while.

So, back to the beginning. I need to reboot my motivation.

My first step involved clearing my head. This meant no drumming and few Ghanaians for a few days. As mentioned previously, I had 'malaria'. It was very serious.

An interesting side-effect of my treatment (hiding) was that I started learning how to use Ableton Live. This was good. I found that, while adding slightly to my wanting to get home and play with gear, it gave me something to focus on so I didn't get bored out of my brain, directly assisted my 'personal development' and was interesting. So there. Win.

It also meant that I barely spent any money for a few days (I barely ate anything) which helped my head clear. Part of my head-fuzziness is definitely related to my ongoing concern about the contrast between my expected and actual capacities for giving - a few days' saving made me able to relax a bit.

As such, after 4 or 5 days of hibernation (in 30+ degree heat. Silly idea) I was slightly less fuzzy and sort of wanted to start again, in my mind. When it got down to it though, my body couldn't really be arsed (we'll talk about dualism later) - I tried doing some private practice a few times and just got over it really quickly and was tired. Not win.

So, since my mind was willing, I decided to let my mind do the work - I started looking at my backlog; writing out better versions of my transcriptions, transcribing stuff from recordings, etc.. Luckily, this had a positive effect - I could feel my desire to continue getting stronger. I also watched The Dark Knight which was quite enjoyable.

From there, I listed all the things I wanted to learn and harnessed my revived motivation to begin organising lessons again. Over the last couple of days, I've had a few lessons and noticed that my head's clearer. A couple of times I surprised myself at how well I picked things up. Today I had a lesson with Theofo at 7.30 (back to that whole routine...) and organised for Richmond to come and have a practice/play. He hasn't come, but I figure it gave me time to write this, so that's ok. Maybe tomorrow.

In conclusion, I'm still a bit lazy and reluctant to chase guys, but I am a lot more motivated and interested than I was. All is ok and building slowly.

Realistically, I also know that I'm never going to have learned 'enough'. That's just ridiculous. It's just the desire to go and make some new stuff that really is tempting.

Off I go, into the sunset.

The end


Phewf. I know that was long, but thank you for reading it (or skimming through it because you don't care). I hope you found it mildy interesting. Feel free to comment.

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Bye.