Time Dilation
Can we expand our time?
I watched a short clip from a recent Tim Ferris podcast and have been thinking about it for the last couple of weeks.
It was about time dilation and our overall attitude to time.
We know that time is relative (thanks to Einstein's time-space theory), meaning time is not the same in the universe and we as people are on Earth-time. So, for example, if we were on the Moon, we would be on the Moon time, which would be different from Earth time.
But!
Time can also be relative individually. For example, when we are bored, time passes slowly - when the times are good - it goes quickly.
And when we do a plank pose - it's infinite.
Back to Tim’s video.
The short of it was - when he was out hiking in nature, he experienced time dilation - what took him days felt like weeks.
He then argued that we are looking at our life span in the wrong way. Rather than extending our years (being busy and miserable), we could be looking at doing more activities that dilate the time we already have.
So for the last two weeks, I have been thinking about the activities and experiences that do that for me, and I got it down to two, maybe three.
Being in nature - obvious!
Music
Reading (sometimes!)
Being in nature - it's fair to say that most of us feel comfortable in a natural environment. In the space of our evolution, big concrete cities are quite a recent development, hence why we feel natural in nature. Going for a walk, having a picnic, or looking over at a lake slows down time considerably, at least for me.
Music - when I was young, I found that music affected my perception of time. It didn't necessarily slow it down, but it completely threw it out of the window. I would lose myself practising, writing and listening to music. It warped my perception of time, so I decided to pursue a career in that industry. The experience just felt weird (and still does).
Reading - reading can affect my relative time; however, as opposed to playing music, reading depends on the material. If it's a good book, then yes, a lovely time warp happens, but if it's a trash book - time slows down but not in a nice way.
Other activities make the time pass more pleasurable. Still, these three are the main ones I selected after some thought. And I'm not saying that I have to sit in the woods with an acoustic guitar to have a great life.
However, I can go on small adventures that expand my time - walks with my dog, seeing a good musical or selecting a good book.
PODCAST PRODUCER LATEST
I started uploading shorts and TikToks (yes, I know) with quick audio advice.
Have a look.
https://www.tiktok.com/@mike_migas
I've been using Pro Tools for the past 12+ years.
Pro Tools is still the best DAW for quick editing and mixing, and it was okay for my music writing for Casefile as I didn't do anything too complicated.
This changed when I dived deeper into orchestral writing and developed my new scoring template with over 300 tracks. Suddenly I found myself swearing a lot more at PT bugs and rigid MIDI functions. So I decided to try out a new solution - for scoring only. I'd still use PT for mixing and editing, but music composition would happen elsewhere.
The two programs of my choice were Logic and Cubase - I used both in the past, so I was familiar with the UI.
I started with Logic, and from the get-go, a few things annoyed me: limited track nesting options and a need for more quick search. I like Logic's simple and intuitive designs, but I didn't want to start workarounds.
Next, I downloaded Cubase - and yes, it's quite ugly, even compared to PT (subjective!). Still, I saw that writing with MIDI would be much easier in Cubase. I've tested one of my pieces by creating a quick template, and it sounded fine and had no bugs!
There are a few caveats, like the M1 native version and problems with VST3 - which means if I choose the Cubase route, I will have to run it under Rosetta.
Updates coming soon!
YOUTUBE
Mental Health is vital to me, so we published a video review of my last 12 months in personal therapy this week!
We've also published an update on 12 months of my piano lessons.
I've also started uploading shorts and TikToks (yes, I know) with quick audio advice.
Have a look.
https://www.tiktok.com/@mike_migas
LEARNING
I've submitted my second formative assessment, and now it's time for the summative task - meaning that it will count towards the grade this time!
I don't care about the grades but rather about the challenge and the feedback, but obviously, I want to do a good job.
BOOKS
The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku. I had a busy week, so my reading was slower than usual. I am enjoying the book, though.
FUN
We had another meetup with the Rebel Book Club about Breath by James Nestor. It's a great book I read a year ago and since then started taping my mouth when I go to sleep. I understand that sounds outrageous, but it changed my sleeping life as I always had problems with insomnia and waking up throughout the night.
Big Mouth. Season 6 is out! It's one of the best animations on Netflix, and there hasn't been a bad season yet.
Cabinet of Curiosities. A Guillermo del Toro production. We watched a couple of episodes, and they are good—a spooky vibe for Halloween.
Andor. Cassian is in an Empire's jail, and I want to know how he will get out of it.
School for Good and Evil. We watched the movie over the weekend. It's a young adult fantasy based on a book, and I wanted to switch it off after 10 minutes. Paulina said to give it a chance, so I did and…it was okay. Yes, I still found the main characters annoying and cringy, but the general concept was fun, and the effects were sound. I can give it 6.5/10, I even laughed out loud a few times (don't hold it against me),
That's it for now. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you (hopefully!) next week!
Mike
https://mikemigas.com/
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