Jacob Ruiz's Thoughts
Mahler 3 Bimm Bamm
The wandering and mysterious grey wolf that music once was has been domesticated into a yipping chihuahua.
More thoughts. So little is asked of the audience these days. Musicians have become so eager to please. We have come to believe it is the music’s job to please you within 2-3 minutes, and if it fails it will be discarded forever. The result is that songs latch on to one very simple melody sung in simple lyrics, and repeated as much as possible so you’ll remember it. But what if we got it all wrong? What if it’s not music’s job to shape itself to you? After all we would never grow as listeners. We’d all be listening to baby shark from birth until death. But what if it’s our job to shape ourselves to the music? To become better and better listeners? To show the music an emotional depth that it can work with within us. To allow the music to take risks, to go on tangents, to make demands of us.
Thoughts on music: for years I had grown tired of music. I had no interest in it. At best it was something I played in background to make work a little less boring. Music to me just felt predictable, formulaic, and cheap. It had all become so synthetic, you could hear the computers in every note. Every popular song for decades has had lyrics. What a shame. Our species invented the language of music to express what words can’t express, and then we gave up on that depth and subjectivity and paved it over with lyrics: THIS is what the song is about! What a sign of the scientific (Apollonian) age. We are so deeply uncomfortable with the task of inventing meaning for ourselves, that the only music we’ll listen to is music where the meaning has been prescribed in a laboratory. So I had fallen completely out of love with music. Until I discovered Wagner’s Tannhauser Overture. Why did I listen to this? I had been reading Nietzsche, and Wagner was an important figure in his life and philosophy, so I wanted to see what Wagner sounded like. I put in my AirPods, closed my eyes, and played the 17 minute track on Spotify. It brought me to tears. It was so vivid and so emotional. I could feel the music’s textures. The “streaky” violins streaming down repeatedly over the bigger swelling sounds of the orchestra felt so visceral. The piece ranged from sad to triumphant. It reached inside of me in a way no music with lyrics had ever done. Not a word was spoken, but I felt so much. This opened a door for me. I understood what music was capable of. And I saw that classical music is uniquely positioned to deliver that pure musical communication. There is more subtlety, even from a composer as bombastic as Wagner. It is less predictable - I think the trick that helped me appreciate this music so much was this: I tried to guess the next note the whole time I was listening. Of course this is impossible for a song you’ve never heard, especially one that doesn’t follow the typical verse, chorus, verse format we’re used to. But what it did was put my awareness right at the tip of time, revealing the song with such precision and awareness that each note revealing itself feels like watching a flower bloom, millisecond by millisecond. And while I can’t actually guess the next note, it made me appreciate that someone did - the composer. It shines a light on the incredible feat that is composing an orchestral work. There are so many sounds, so many possibilities, and the composer stands in front of infinity and takes a point of view! It is so daring, such a confident act, that one simply has to sit in awe.
Today’s Greek lesson
It has only recently occurred to me that no matter how long I live in Australia, and how much I invest in making this my home, I will always be seen as a Yank because of my accent. The Australian cultural identity is so firmly rooted in the accent, that even if you're granted citizenship, even if you spend decades here, if you don't sound Australian, you are not truly Australian. While the government may choose to grant me citizenship, the people have developed a nearly impossible to forge proof of authenticity: a particular way of pronouncing English words.
Today’s Greek lesson
Today’s Greek lesson. Chapter 5 exercise 1
Today’s Greek lesson
Today’s Greek lesson. Starting chapter 5: middle “oh my” verbs and a new negative
Cool custom-made sofa bed https://youtu.be/GJGE63z-uS0?si=RyXoS1IIJjE-eQwN&t=574
Today’s Greek Lesson. End of Chapter 4 🎉
Vercel has a Book component. I should use this for /books.
Today’s Greek lesson
With AI people struggle to know what’s real or fake - could this be a good thing? For most of human history we lived a more mystic life. Even without the use of drugs, we seemed to blur the lines between reality and imagination, dreams and waking life. Could this be a much needed respite from the tyranny of rationality? Could Dionysus be gaining an upper hand on Apollo after centuries of defeat?
Today’s Greek Lesson. Pronouns plural accusative.
Today’s Ancient Greek lesson: plural pronouns accusative (us, and you plural)
To do: - only show most recent updates in recent activity feed - add an “Omni-create” button to top of feed
Today’s Ancient Greek lesson. More exercises for accusative pronouns singular.
This video on "mini-essays" has so much that reminds me of what I'm building here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi8meiPUt84
Early sketch for OpenSelf. I like the tiles at the top. Gives overall shape without pushing recent activity below the fold.
One reason I built this site: I want to write more as I read. I feel like I’m a passive observer just spectating other thinkers. I want to interact with the books I read through writing. Current split is about 99% reading, 1% writing. Target is 80/20, eventually maybe 50/50.
Today’s Ancient Greek lesson: More accusatives: pronoun singular (Chapter 4)
Monday morning work session. Sunny day, a bit windy. Strong espresso.
Writing topics so far for the Iliad: Bravery Fate vs free will
Nice bike ride this morning. Spring is here.
Write as if no one is reading - what I love about having no likes or comments or followers here. It’s public, but I have no idea if what I’m writing is being read. That changes how I write. There’s no stage fright. No expectations from the audience to stay in a particular character.
I could write a love letter to these stubby little divider lines. Do they have a name? They can do so much. A colorful accent. An anchor for the eye - I swear it invites you to look at it directly and read both title and subtitle simultaneously. It helps competing text coexist in a space that would either look too cluttered or too boring. Just a line.
Watched Autumn Sonata last night. Great movie. My takeaway: as with life generally, nobody makes it out of childhood unscathed. The only path out is forgiveness.
Today’s Ancient Greek Lesson: More exercises for contract verbs.
“The human task is not to be happy. It is to become someone who can bear reality without needing illusion.”
It’s funny how random memories float to the surface during meditation. Today: I went on a tour of Hollywood as a kid, and the tour guide told us they used Corn Flakes as fake snow.
I should add day separators to the Thoughts feed. Large or xl text, semibold, secondary color. Will look sweet.
I’d like to add a GitHub-style calendar heat map here to show frequency of workouts. It needs some visual interest.
Home view should show an AI generated summary of my day. “Today Jacob went to the gym, thought about the paradox of capitalism, and brainstormed feature ideas”. How do you feel about your day when it’s read back to you?
I should add "Deep Work" sessions within Work. Like tracking a workout but for work sessions.
Beautiful song
Bookmarking Novel for a Notion-style WYSIWYG text editor https://novel.sh/docs/introduction
"Live beautifully" Possible slogan for Open Self? "Live beautifully in public"?
The medium is the message - this project is an operating system for the soul. The shape of the software, over time, will shape the person who uses it. This is as much a philosophy project as it is a software project. This is my Nicomachean Ethics.
I love the non sequitur quality of the Thoughts feed. It feels like looking back on the day’s thoughts under a strobe light.
Is profit an inefficiency?
Testing linking Thoughts to Books! This post should show up under The Iliad in my book collection.
Today’s Ancient Greek Lesson. Chapter 4: More contractions
The paradox of capitalism - it gives power-hungry people a game to play that is defanged compared to politics. A game bound by markets rather than armies. But as the players gain power, society grows fearful and turns to the state to contain them. But the extent to which the state contains them is the extent to which they see a new path to power. The ambitious spirits no longer seek the boardroom. They seek the throne.
The ability to link Thoughts together would be helpful too: - Replying - Paste a link to "quote" it (Let's see if these line breaks hold)
Also need to add links. Would love to be able to share songs. Let's see how this looks: https://music.apple.com/us/album/symphony-no-5-in-e-minor-op-64-iii-valse-allegro-moderato/1830501402?i=1830501988
I need to add drag & drop for images in the Thought composer.
More UI inspiration for the Book detail page. Nice fat header with buttons, search, and a tidy list.
Finished my Ancient Greek lesson for today. Typed up my Chapter 3 notes in Notion. Hoping to move that over to this site soon.
The book detail page should look like this. Book image at the top with title and description. Then below is a list of "notes" files, maybe with nesting to allow for flexible book notes. For example The Iliad > Summary > Book 1 or The Iliad > Writing > What does Homer say about free will?
Will this image make it? Let's find out.
Let's see if images work.
Oh shit this works.
My first thought.