Gear for those dealing with cognitive overload/burnout?

The Lounge Other Gear
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Off topic, but this is basically unionization.

A class action uses a single lawyer paid by a percentage of winnings from the lawsuit or from everybody pooling their money together to represent a class of employees who are all in a similar situation and want better bargaining leverage with their employer.

A union uses a single lawyer on retainer paid for by a percentage taken out of employees’ wages to represent a class of employees who are all in a similar situation and want better bargaining leverage with their employer.

Just anecdotally, both my parents were in unions and I think they were better off than me in their work life because of it. I have a master’s in accounting and am not as well off as my parents, neither of whom have a masters and one of whom has only their high school diploma. Both are retired and set for life now. I have no such guarantees of my future and work as hard as either of them did.

It’s a very broad subject with a long history, a lot of room for corruption/mismanagement, a lot of real challenges that make it difficult for unions to hold the same sway today as they did in the mid 1900s (outside of a select few mostly that have political connections). And sometimes they make bad deals for themselves or for the companies they work with that hurt the workers in the long run. But I can’t look at my parents’ experience and say that the cons outweigh the pros for them.

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84

I live in sweden so have been unionized my whole life, also enjoy my current employer. They are great and treat me well.

I want to sue OpenAI and Anthropic for their blatant disregard for the mental health of every white collar worker ever. So class action lawsuit seems more correct to me

They are clearly not going to achieve their goals this side of the century, yet they prance around like they will. I want them to sweat and be as anxious as others have been forced to be.

But different topic indeed, apologies to all affected

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85

going to come at this at a different angle – but when I am feeling uninspired/unmotivated to create I will turn my attention to learning. I find some youtube videos and follow along step for step without too much pressure to dredge up any big ideas of my own. i typically find that if I learn something new, the old spark comes back on its own.

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86

I agree that learning something new helps a lot but it has to be structured and not just watching YouTube

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that was really just an example the source of the material doesn’t matter as long as it’s new information that is being presented. sometimes it’s easier to channel brain power toward learning than it is creative output. both qualify as a good use of time.

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I wholeheartedly agree with this. You could learn a new language, for instance. Or take up knitting. I have recently done both.

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Right, I agree that the salient detail is learning something (which you do in a structured way by approaching the learning systematically and applying it yourself as you go to make it stick). This is extremely healthy in general for breaking out of mental spirals, if you’re able to get the motivation together to actually do so.

My preference is for textual information over follow-along videos simply because there is a reduced chance of distraction/skipping to the next thing and I can move it to my kindle and avoid the computer while still consuming the knowledge and trying to practice it.

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I respectfully disagree, and echo @jeffroman take on the subject. Just watching random videos like a fire-hose straight to the mouth only worsens and increases the cognitive overload. Does not matter if its new information. The fact that it can be of varying quality, and worse, a variety of subjects its a focus killer. In the end like water, instead of quenching your thirst, it drowns you.

I had an enlightening experience these past years, In my 40s I decided to back to school. Literally. First a year long low hours class in art history. 75h in total, on-line. Then I went for a degree, and took 3 years of a degree in history, art and heritage. Distance learning mostly on-line. Finally Im at the moment doing a masters in music, night classes in person. In terms of time spent, i would say it averaged around 2h per night in the degree and 4h per night in the masters. You can spend an equal time watching random videos every night as well.

But… The advantages of a consistent, quality curriculum are night and day. You have clear goals of readings and media to watch during the semester, sometimes organized on a week per week basis. All the subjects tend to relate to each other, and you can apply things you learn in one subject in the in the same semester or one of the next, and by the end you do get a real overview of the field. The fact that you are graded also helps keeping focus on what matters and not diverge too much, as amazing as the related topics could be,

This is in stark contrast with what I would do in the years preceding, where I watched a bunch of youtubers all night, yes, I knew a bunch of random interesting facts about a lot of subjects, but nothing substantial about something in particular.

I’m not saying everyone should take a degree* but I will say that the idea that watching interesting youtube videos in a random fashion is not a good idea, and for many it will be worse than doing nothing.

*but yes, if you can, go back to school on a field unrelated to work. Its just such a wonderful experience when your future and your job don’t depend on your education. Also you might meet a bunch of interesting people you would never otherwise. And the tribes and social pressure and all nastiness that tends to happen in college in your 20s, seems to be absolutely absent in your 40s

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Sidebar: I would dearly love to do what you did. The idea of going back into education sounds incredible but I don’t think I could afford it. Essentially I’d like to retrain and possibly move careers but it may not be practical on a single salary. Anyway, I digress…

Speaking of the learning, and bringing it back to gear: I once was chatting to a YouTuber about their way of learning synths. His answer was that basically he would open ableton and find a device he doesn’t use much. Then open the “?” panel (+1 for in built manuals) and read and tweak away. His point was that 9/10 unless you’re going for something ultra complex, it’ll be about 3-4 settings you need to tweak anyway. So he’d spend an evening just tinkering there and that’s how he can now rustle up a new sound in next to no time. I also like taking presets and reverse engineering them to see what’s in the recipe.

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I was more afraid about time really, with the day job and a regular musical project…
The cost, I fortunately live in one of those countries that values affordable education, and the yearly tuition at a public university is around 800€. I don’t know where you live, but I can kind of guess.

In any case, I would not recommend going from not studying to a full degree in one go. The new responsibility, workload and all can be overwhelming, and make you quit in the first semester. Try an on-line course with a real live teacher, and set hours in the week, on a subject you like. a couple of hours a week, for about 3 months, or something similar. Then you can see if you have the discipline or life gets in the way and you miss more classes than the ones you show up to. This allows you to gauge if the full degree will be a waste or not.

Best of luck!

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Good advice

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I did my degree in my 40s while working full time and DJing most weekends. Plus a young family. Was over 6 years and almost broke me at times but learning in adulthood is just so much more enjoyable. On my third post grad now but think this will be the last one for a while. It’s exhausting

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If you can’t be bothered to use gear, I can’t be bothered to read your thread.

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just picked up a used and fairly inexpensive (compared to elektron) roland sh4d and its a lot of fun and very immediate so get one and see what you think

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The only things in my studio that I can literally pick up and immediately make music on with least time-to-music are all analogue.

Stringed instruments (guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, autoharp), percussion (djembe, hand drums, tambourine, kokiriko, bongos), “other” (kalimba), piano.

Pick up the instrument, play it. Doesn’t get any easier than that. Also doesn’t get any harder because you have to be able to play the (bloody) thing.

Next up are things that consume electricity so need to be switched on.

From least to most menu-divy

ARP 2500, TD-3-MO, Lyra 8
SH-01A
Hydrasynth, Elmyra 2
ST, DT, OT, AR, Essence FM, Blofeld
Oxi One

and then modular is somewhere between the lot depending on which modules I’m using, how I want to use them, and whether or not I’ve already got it patched in a configuration I currently find pleasing/useful.

Just thinking about the synths though … just because something’s menu-divey doesn’t necessarily mean it’s got lower time-to-music.

I’d say the Hydra & Kodamo will get me to a start point much faster than the ARP, even though everything the ARP does is on the front panel.

Couple of reasons for that: They’re both polyphonic, and they both have recallable presets.

Sure, programming either Hydra or Kodamo might be hard because programming decent patches can be hard, but they are as easy to program as you’re likely to get unless you want to go completely knob-per-function.

TBH if you do want to program them they’re still easier to program than the SH-01A. Sure it has the synth controls on the front panel but the menu system’s a dog’s breakfast so you’ll be forever referring to the manual (or at least that’s my experience of it).

The ST is only “difficult” because the sequencer has a bunch of options. Take the sequencer away and you have a bunch of fairly simple synth engines oriented to specific tasks. And you have presets for miles.

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I love how easy it is to get cool new sounds out of my Waldorf M, Perkons, and OP XY with little effort. I either get a weird crazy industrial sound or ambient Tangerine Dream vibe.

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Koala is great and easy to pick up but it does involve looking at a screen. Yamaha Seqtrak has no screen but you’ll have to watch the two hour tutorial and it’s not for everybody. Another option is a looper pedal. No screens, no MIDI

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I like Koala even though I am still learning it. I sent the Yamaha Seqtrak back after having issues with mine.

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guitar lessons really helped me a lot to deepen my music theory and knowledge. Plus I love learning new heavy metal classic riffs from my childhood. Guitar is such a cool and awesome instrument!

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I’ve had this annoying thing where the more features koala gets, the less interested i am in using it. Its a personal thing and not a criticism at all, it says more about how I engage with music tools than it does about koala itself. And it also feels related to my disinterest in the Custom Firmware Revolution, too, all of which is related (in my head at least) to the topic of this thread. It feels like the tradeoff is often between features and elegance, and I’ll pick something I understand and want to look at and touch over all this stuff keeps asymptotically approaching dawhood…?

I dunno, like in koala I know you can just ignore the stuff you dont want to use, but even knowing it’s there makes me feel less interested.

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