for whom the baja blasts

As part of my daily reading, I have a grounding morning of quotes and introspections I go through. This recently leapt out at me: "Whenever someone has done wrong by you, immediately consider what notion of good or evil they had in doing it. For when you see that, you'll feel compassion, instead of astonishment or rage. For you may yourself have the same notions of good and evil, or similar ones, in which case you'll make an allowance for what they've done. But if you no longer hold the same notions, you'll be more readily gracious for their error." - Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONS

Time will never cease bringing on even more somber occasions for memorializing loved ones. When I last wrote about the loss of someone, I had never considered I would have to retread that ground so soon. That was naive. It's been a really weird place to sit with emotions, having recently wanted to firmly bar myself from living too closely with nostalgia, but then being met with devastating news about someone who made those good old days so good. My buddy Marvin has left the world too soon.

Years ago, in the early days of our work on the Monolith, I had begun extensively researching ARGs, having only vaguely heard the term when I was younger. I've talked about it before, but there was a sort of chicken and the egg situation when we really started to get the project rolling. I knew "what" an ARG was, but never had the words. Growing up, I participated in I Love Bees and thought the concept was incredible, but didn't have the terminology for it. Obviously, the allure of making media that felt "real" was always there from the beginning of the project, but a few deep-dives around 2010 brought everything into a new perspective.  Especially when I realized that the godfather of all alternate reality games was set in our own New Jersey.

Something really amusing and heartwarming happened to me recently. 

In some of my writing, especially recently, I've remarked that it feels as if I have gone to too many funerals for peers and have read far too many obituaries about old classmates. Terribly, this has not stopped, and I have sadly had to pay my respects to a former employee of mine who was only a few years my junior.  

You know I am a fan of synchronicities and yet another struck me recently. I had it in mind to write down something similar this morning, and when I opened my daily reading, this was the quote that I was met with: "That's why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should." -  Epictetus, DISCOURSES

In the spirit of posting more "bloggy" things, I thought about my lists of favorite or important songs that I've accumulated over the years. Will do more of these in the future and try to cover different topics of thought as they arrive. For now, here's a grab-bag of picks.