The sound of 2020: tunes that helped me get through the year

What’s the sound of 2020? I recently discovered a fantastic online time capsule of music. It’s called “2020 IS A SONG“, and it has a simple objective: sharing with the world the one song that got you through this crazy year.

While it’s hard to choose only one song, for this time capsule I decided that mine had to be Sleeptalking by Friendly Fires.

I’ve written about the importance of noticing the world around. In an attempt to explain to myself why certain songs helped me more than others, I’m sharing a list of the tunes that brought me solace, peace or joy and why. Here’s the sound of 2020 for me.

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Life lessons from the mysterious Orange Book

What else can we say about 2020?

It’s going to be an unforgettable year. It’s hard to visualize what 2021 has in store for humanity, but all we have is the present. This moment.

There’s still a lot to do to reshape our mindsets and move forward and navigate turbulent waters.

One of the sources that kept me grounded was the Orange Book on Twitter. The person who owns this account is brilliant and mysterious at the same time. No one knows who he or she is, but every thought that he/she posts is deep and meaningful.

I want to share how these posts helped me know myself better.

Continue reading “Life lessons from the mysterious Orange Book”

Learning mode: a constant process of discovery

We all need to be on learning mode at any stage of our lives.

It doesn’t matter how experienced we are in our professions. It doesn’t matter if we aren’t going to school anymore.

As snow falls outside and confinement remains the same, I’ve been thinking about my days as a university student. I look back and see myself sitting near the lecturer’s desk to avoid any distractions. I see my notebook ready for notes along with a black pen and a red pen to scribble as much as possible.

I was receptive to learning.

For the real world, I believe that same formula is worth implementing. Our lives and professions nowadays are demanding us to adapt to new forms of operating. The transition turns difficult when there’s resistance; however, in learning mode, it is possible to approach challenges with new eyes.

At the same time, learning means being willing to accept that there’s a whole world inside of ourselves that we know little about. We need to stay curious to unblock our own minds.

Learning is discovery, the discovery of the cause of our ignorance. However, the best way of learning is not the computation of information. Learning is discovering, uncovering what is there in us. When we discover, we are uncovering our own ability, our own eyes, in order to find our potential, to see what is going on, to discover how we can enlarge our lives, to find means at our disposal that will let us cope with a difficult situation.

(…)

Learning is definitely not mere imitation or the ability to accumulate and conform to fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery and never a concluding one.

bruce lee

Quotes taken from brainpickings.org

What are you learning about yourself nowadays?

Special Needs

Sometimes, I don’t want to talk.
I don’t want to share
what you won’t understand.
We shouldn’t waste our time.

Playing devil’s advocate
doesn’t cheer me up
on a day I want to give up.
You don’t know, but I suffocate.

I just want to be okay again.
Life should be simpler than this.
So listen to my truth and believe me.
Pain does exist.

Do you know what that means?