Day: March 16, 2024

Chill Music for Springtime Mornings

pink flower field
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

As we depart from the nonsense that is Winter and dive headlong into pollen-filled, sinus-breaking, gloriously sunny early days of Spring, you too may get the urge to sit outside on your back deck on a Saturday morning and just chill.

Back deck sitting is one of my favorite pastimes and often when I do some of my best reading and thinking.

Sitting and chilling in my world means there will be music in the background, preferably something with a chill vibe and mostly instrumental.

I’ve been jamming on Hermanos Gutiérrez for a bit now and just loving these brothers more and more each time I listen.

Here’s their NPR Tiny Desk concert from early 2013 to give you a good intro to their music.

After reading a comment on that particular video, I found another band with similar vibes called Khruangbin.

This trio from Houston, Texas, is heavily inspired by 1960s and ’70s funk and soul from, of all places, Thailand. That musical passion has taken them on a journey that, these days, incorporates music from Spain, Ethiopia, and the Middle East.

Yes, they exude cool.

Add these two groups to your early weekend morning chill vibe. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!

Creativity is Humanity

"But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other." (Paulo Freire, Donaldo Macedo (Introduction), Myra Bergman Ramos (Translator), Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

By our nature, humans were designed to create. It is the high cognitive portion of our mind, that 1% that stirs imagination and inquiry, that distinguishes us from our biological cousins on this planet.

When we don’t participate in the creative process, or, as happens so often in our schools, when we are prevented from participating in the creative process to conform to a preconceived notion of what we should do and how we should do it, we lose our humanity and become mere machines.

Do not waste the creative process. Do not float through your days and add nothing to the world around you.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

“But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!