sowhatsgood

[sowhatsgood]

#6 Music as Memory

I love how music can be as much of a memory stimulator as a scent. Sometimes your mind is reeling and busy and then a song comes on the radio, or the store music system, or your media player and just for a second you are instantly transported to a point in your life. It is so tangible you can almost feel, taste, and smell it. Music as history.

#goodthing #music #memories

[sowhatsgood]

#5 Sunny Spring Day Car Rides

The weather is turning nice now, and I love having 60-70 degree weather to drive home in. Windows down for fresh air, some nice rocking tunes playing, all the light green spring leaves bursting out of the trees. It is enough to make you feel happy and hopeful. It feels like very little can go wrong that cannot be mended when you get those first few moments of rebirth of life mingled with great music and the passing scenery.

#goodthing #music #weather #seasons

[sowhatsgood]

#4 Sushi Feasts

I know that sushi can be divisive, but for me there are few more glorious things than really good sushi. I have found that sushi is one of those things in life that you get what you pay for so while we pay more and go less often we feel more rewarded by the experience when we do. I am luckily enough to be on a coast and live in a place with many great sushi options. When we walk in to our local (Zushi Sushi) the waitress asks us if we want our usual, just feels good. The fact that we go there often enough that the chefs will sometimes swap out higher quality fish for the same price or give us larger slices makes us feel like treasured customers. The way they treat our children is fantastic. Then there is the sushi. They have rolls I have never seen before which are amazing, their sashimi is top notch (especially the scallops which are a near religious experience). I can never be in a bad mood after a great sushi meal.

#goodthing #food

[sowhatsgood]

#3 Simple hands-on projects with kids

My own kids that is. I’m no saint by any stretch. You go build with your own kids.

Getting to do a simple building project with my kids at home or at their school is a great mood lifter. They are incredibly excited (probably because they are 6 and there is very little that doesn’t excite them) and eager to learn. They love even the most simple projects where they get to cut or hammer things together. Also they are at the age where my rudimentary skill and Flinstonian eye for design exceeds their own. 

Plus, getting to bash on things with a hammer is always cathartic, and I get to help them let out that aggression. You don’t have to be a cabinet maker or anything, just something that is clunky that they get to make and decorate themselves is often the most fun.

But I keep it simple, otherwise there can be tears or injuries or frustration and they don’t like to see me like that.

#goodthing #craft #DIY #kids

[sowhatsgood]

#2 Dee-Lite’s Groove is in the Heart

This song never fails to make me dance. The amazing Bootsy Collins on a super funky bass line, the catchy chorus, the sunny vocals. A SLIDE WHISTLE! This is an instant mood lifter. It’s ear-prozac. It’s musical puppies playing in a field. 

Even though my usual musical tastes are dark and brooding and often angry, I unashamedly love this song and will gladly belt it out in the car.

#goodthing #music #video

[sowhatsgood]

#1 Puzzles

I love puzzles. In whatever form they take: word, game, mental, what have you. 

However, my special love is for jigsaw puzzles. After having a lot of issues trying to work through OCD compulsions, I found an unlikely source of comfort: a jigsaw puzzle is an amazing way to clear your mind. When you are working on one, you literally can’t be focusing on anything else. Your whole world is consumed by brightly colored pieces of cardboard. 

I find that 500 pieces are ok, but 1000 are best. Get yourself a space that is safe from people (or pets) knocking it about. I use two 3x3 folding tables next to each other. One for the puzzle, one for the pieces. You can then zone out while searching for the patterns, or colors, or small differences. Next thing you know you have passed 5 or 10 or 30 minutes and haven’t thought of your troubles or stresses at all. 

A few years back, I started making my puzzles available at work for everyone in my group. People will often gather and commune. Finding pieces, chatting lightly and joking with each other, but no one was discussing their troubles or work, everyone was just in the moment and releasing stress without negative impacts. 

Try it, you may find it surprisingly cheaper and more fun than therapy.

#goodthing #puzzles #games #stress reduction

[sowhatsgood]

Very Good Bad Thing

One of my most noticeable personality traits is that I am a little bit outspoken. Just a tad. I am not shy about stating my opinions, usually in the form of an indisputable fact. I can be a bit of an opinionated jerk is what I am getting at.

I have read many interesting articles lately that all boil down to “It’s easy to be angry online.” I agree. Sometimes it’s also a lot of fun! You can immediately broadcast your thoughts out to the world, or a small subset of it anyway, and bellow out your decrees. Tell people emphatically that your taste is better. You read better books, watch better movies, listen to better music, eat better food. 

The thing is, these burning pillars of truth always seem to have a bit of an agenda to them. Oftentimes it’s declaring not that something is simply good, but that it is better. “Fargo is better than Big Bang Theory!”, “The Struts are vastly superior to the ramblings of Nickleback!”, “stop eating your terrible packaged ramen and instead worship my blood turnip souffle!” 

Lately I have started to feel that everything seems to be a competition. The internet is awash with people screaming at brick walls. We want to share our opinions, but we do so with the plan of receiving invisible pats on the back or digital fist bumps. We are seeking to get affirmation for our choices while summarily denigrating other people’s simply because it’s easier to feel superior if you can point at something inferior.

So what am I getting at here? In a nutshell, I wanted to try an experiment. I wanted to start documenting good things. Free of comparisons, a complete absence of schadenfreude, just things that I find to be good. These could be experiences, media, conversations, moments, the only strict guideline is that it be something that brings me joy and that it has to do without being compared to something else.

So there you have it, one curmudgeon’s plan to try to be better.

So what’s good?

#intro #TheBeginning #ramblepost