Tag: built to spill

Nothing For Good – 16th August 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

A genius level of stupid
I always knew you would be good
At something no one needed
And remain misunderstood

A stupid level of genius
Makes for far too few friends
And alliterating the point
Is unlikely to make amends

Today I’m feeling:

It’s late afternoon and it feels like I haven’t thought about how I’ve been feeling today. That’s kinda good. Some emotional stability maybe?

It’s been a good day with little stress and if I do stop to think about it, I feel happy.

Today I’m grateful for:

Fon sending me more sourdough bread again. I had to stop myself from eating it all immediately so that I can enjoy it tomorrow too.

The best thing about today was:

Today was one of those smooth pleasant days without any real highs or lows. I was happy that I was inspired to write a couple of poems in my break though.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

Yesterday evening passed so quickly, with two hours being taken up with taking Tig to the vet, that I dropped my streaks in my language apps. I didn’t even realise or remember until this evening when I saw a notification about it.

Something I learned today?

I learned that it is August’s (the dancer) birthday on Friday. I only know because I just happened to see it in LINE when I was clicking around. It also may not actually be her birthday.

Anyway, will I remember it on Friday? Even if I ran into her I think I would still forget. I’ll set myself a notification but even then I may not see it. 

Knowing so many kids it seems like there’s a birthday every week. 

What is a compliment I’ll never forget?

As I’m trying to remember a compliment, I’m reminded of a time when I was in my early twenties and there was a cute new girl hanging out with one of my groups of friends (though I forget who). Anyway, thinking she was cute and interesting I was quite taken when I came by our mutual friends one day and she said ‘Here he is, the enigmatic Shaun.’ 

I thought of this as a compliment, thinking, hoping that she liked me though as I’ve gotten older I think enigma has a little bit of a negative connotation, like a little difficult or standoffish. I guess between young adults though it would still usually have positive connotations.

In the end, I think I only met this girl three or four times before our lives span off in other directions.

Otherwise, I believe I have forgotten all the compliments I’ve received, though knowing that I have received them. 

I’m not a fisher for compliments and as alluded to above, perhaps I can be perceived as standoffish. I’m happy to accept a compliment but soon dismiss its importance. 

If I receive compliments I just assume it was for something that was just the right or good thing to do.

Quote: Devote the rest of your life to making progress – Epictetus

I can feel my rate of progress slowing down these days, which is quite natural but also slightly disheartening. I’m not so much in wonder of things going on in the world or my life, having done my small share of exploring it already.

I do still go off on tangents of discovery but notice that processes are much the same from one subject to another. Maybe I’ve been looking at too many philosophy texts and have boiled down life to its essence. 

This reminds me again of the lyric, which I’ve probably quoted before, by Built To Spill, ‘Life goes on long after the thrill of it has gone.’

Having said that I do never want to stop reading, learning, and progressing even if it appears I may be just spinning my wheels. I can fool myself easily.

I took this picture because Tigger was at the door waiting to be let in and padded around the table and looked up expectantly, ‘Lie down so I can sit on….quickly!’ So I did and so he did.
Fatman report

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #53 – 29th August 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

NO MORE BABIES!

This week there’s music from Built To Spill, Doo-Dooettes, Tangled Hair, Records, Man Man, Institute, Bob Drake, The Playn Jayn, Sea Monkey See, Godzilla Black, Human Cabbages, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Billy Childish and the Black Hands, Seam, Funkadelic, The Who and The Wipers.

Intro and background music by Utotem.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for this beautiful sunny Saturday morning filling me with happiness.

Take a swipe at it with a single feather – 2nd April 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that we will go out today to take our cats to the vet.

Krishna descends to this planet every 8.6 billion years and this purpose is stated in Bhagarad-gita and we have to accept it as is; otherwise there is no point in trying to understand it!

Swami

To-do list

  • Finish one more lesson
  • Start that course – now is a good opportunity ½

I taught Bruce today though actually, I didn’t really teach him anything. We ended up talking about Chinese history and how things repeat themselves. I should try and talk to more people – though I don’t really need a high quota to be happy, I have to be aware that I don’t cut everyone off.

I talked with Hayden for a little while today too. He seems to be doing okay under the conditions of the lockdown in Australia.

I watched some of Joe Rogan’s interview with Andrew Yang about Universal Basic Income and I’m starting to consider Hayden’s attitude to work may serve him well in the future, maybe at least not wasting his time and energy on a career that leads nowhere or is made redundant by technology and automation. He still needs to master himself in self-motivation and hard work for himself though.

I’m still confused about my own direction in continuing teaching at the moment. If we move to online teaching it will remove one of the things that I enjoy about teaching and that is the connection I have with the students.

And why waste time working hard when this virus could just stop me dead at any time? If we have only a year left, do I want to spend it in the frustrations of this teaching system? But I guess I shouldn’t be thinking like that (and I am still, very slowly, preparing lessons).

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #01 – 2nd September 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Music from Lifter Puller, Thinking Plague, Ozric Tentacles, Built To Spill, Unknown, Shellac, Parliament, Naked City, The Fall, fordamage, Boredoms, Pink Floyd and Dexys Midnight Runners.

14th Feb 2021 – Around this time things were getting very difficult for me with the school I was working at, which led to me leaving at the end of the semester – I forget exactly when perhaps late September or early October. I’ll write more about that at some point.

Anyway, with the stressful situation, I decided to adjust my focus to making a music podcast. I would often sit and marvel as my music library would be set to shuffle and so much great music just kept popping up, so I started keeping track and then making recordings of those songs. I eventually settled into a rhythm of doing one episode per week, often working 3 or 4 weeks in advance.

It was a really enjoyable habit, to focus 3 or 4 hours per weekend to put an episode together. It kept me sane until, of course, it drove me insane. As usual, I developed more ideas as I went along and refined and improved things (I think).

As with this blog, I only made the shows for my own pleasure and didn’t really care whether anyone listened or not and was happy when one or two listeners became comrades. Only after seeing that a million others were doing the same thing and not many people were listening to them either, I decided to bow out and not add any further to the noise of the internet for a while.

When I was in my mid-teens I would blast crazy music out of my bedroom window in the weird hope that people might be intrigued enough to come in and discover more about this mad world of music that I existed in. But living in rural Dorset with only the odd farmer and stray cow or dog passing by, no one ever came to enquire – or even to complain.

Now I can sit in rural Thailand and do the same.