y23b6

[y23b6]

Listen: Sick Daze by y23b6

I was sick with a cold a couple of weeks ago and put together these two tracks to pass time from bits of unused material from other projects and literal bedroom recordings.

Intentionally or not, I think they ended up quite reflective of how I felt physically at the time.

[y23b6]

Week 3 Without Youtube or Instagram

The 'no Youtube' part was a success. I've kicked the habit and now have more time and motivation to explore/rediscover other, more varied and enriching leisure activities.

The 'no Instagram' part is a bit trickier. I still habitually reach for my phone in idle moments. It seems innocent: I'll just check something real quick. And there you are scrolling again.

So far, the best way I've found to break that cycle was to put away my smart devices and sit down with my journal. It gave me something to hold on to and look at while I thought about what I wanted to do next.

However, this is where I realised my current main issue. Once you've eliminated a certain habit, you have to consciously choose how you will fill that time. You don't automatically go and do the 'good things' like reading or playing an instrument.

Also, you're not always in that ideal mood of playful curiosity. Sometimes you just want to forget the world exists, not engage with it.

Going forward, I'd (once again) like to limit my news and social media checks to two per day. Perhaps around lunch and dinner? It's partly this loose definition that makes it tricky, but I haven't got a better one at the moment.

Still, I think the key observation this week was that eradicating poor habits is only the beginning. What follows is a long process of establishing better ones – starting with understanding what a 'good' habit even is, for you. Will this require consciously curating every moment of my life? And if so, is it even a good idea? Tune in next week.

[y23b6]

Week 2 Without Youtube or Instagram

On Monday, I woke up with a sore throat, which soon developed into a pretty strong cold. I spent most of the rest of the week in bed. I was too sick to do things that required effort but also extremely bored. In the end, I did fall back into doomscrolling. But I (mostly) upheld the no Youtube rule. Here's what I did instead.

One day, for whatever reason, I started thinking about colur grading and film emulation in digital media. Normally, I would have watched a few tutorials and that would have scratched the itch until next time. But I had to find an alternative, so I asked AI to recommend me some old media to watch and study.

I ended up watching The Parallax View, The French Connection, Three Days of the Condor, and Klute, plus a few episodes of Columbo. Out of these, I'd say Klute stood out because of its story, while The French Connection was perhaps the most visually interesting with its (mis)use of white balance and overall grimy aesthetic. The Parallax View gets an honourable mention for the liminal atmosphere in the final act. Turns out, Severance wasn't the first to have a scene where a deafening marching band makes its way through the interior of a modernist office building...

In a similar vein, I ordered some components and started mocking up a DIY distortion pedal. I've tried this once before, years ago. It was fun but very fiddly. The pedal I made eventually stopped working. But back then, I was just blindly following instructions. Now I have at least a vague understanding of what each part of the schematic does. Once I have the rest of the parts delivered, I'm hoping to build something that I can tweak and modify to get the sounds I want, or at least the sounds I didn't know I wanted.

Finally, when I started feeling a little better, I also spent some time making music, but that made me feel sicker again the next day. Overall, it's been quite difficult and I've almost given up. I'm considering going through the few good Youtube videos that appear to have accrued over these two weeks and restarting the challenge once I'm (mostly) at full health. Which will hopefully be tomorrow. Despite all the shortfalls though, the challenge is helping me follow my curiosity in a more substantial way, engaging with things that require a little more effort but offer more payoff. Hopefully, I can find the motivation to keep it going and evolving.

[y23b6]

Week 1 Without Youtube or Instagram

Day 4 was the first difficult one. I hadn't had a great night's sleep, and I was due to receive a tick shot that morning, which made me even more tired and sluggish. Luckily, I had no jobs that day so I though I could just coast through it. I spent most of the energy I had working on some music down at our studio space. The tricky part came late in the afternoon, as I was settling in on the couch back at home. I got an email asking me very nicely to take on a rush translation. For a number of reasons, I didn't want to say no. And suddenly, when I thought my day was over, there I was, parsing through the decidedly curatorial language of an exhibition statement.

So far, this was when the urge to distract myself with some sort of media was the strongest. At first, I gave in a little: I checked a couple of news websites and wandered onto Facebook twice. But I managed to catch myself before getting sucked in. What I've noticed, however, is that the stress of a rush job tends to skew your perception. By some distorted logic, sitting idly for a minute and resting your mind feels like more of a waste of time than watching a 20-minute video on 2x speed. In the end, I worked for about 2 hours and I knew I’d have to get back to it early next morning because I was in no state to deliver a polished translation.

After that day, I had a few more nights of poor sleep, which further dulled the awareness that I was doing a challenge. The novelty was wearing off, too. I think I began checking news sites more often. Which technically isn't against the rules. I listened to a few podcasts when I wasn't able to sleep. I was opening Instagram a few times a day to look at the top stories and whatever reels my wife had sent me. For some reason, this didn't feel like a major violation, even though technically, it is against the rules, and at least a couple times, I slipped up and started scrolling. I should make a note to keep it at once a day.

Basically, I'm still keeping the challenge going, but it started fading into the background. Has it been worth it so far, though? I'd say, yes. Perhaps not in a huge way: I haven't been magically transported back to my childhood or whatever. But I have a little more headspace for:

Creative projects. If not actively working on them, then thinking about goals and ideas. They're starting to feel less like chores and more like fun hobbies again

Researching an interesting topic instead of watching a video on it (which would inevitably lead to another video, and another, until they're no longer related to what I wanted to learn about)

Reading

Listening to music

But:

I don't think it's made it much easier to focus on dull tasks

I'm finding different (arguably more rewarding?) ways to waste time

If I'm really tired, the alternative to watching a video might just be doing nothing. Which is probably still better for me?

I'll make another update after week 2.

[y23b6]

April Photo Walk

I've only recently found out that photo walks are called photo walks. We don’t have a specific term for them in Lithuanian. When you don’t have a specific term for something, you don't tend to think of it as a distinct thing. To me, they were just regular walks where you have a camera on you to have something to do along the way. I started going on them when me and my childhood friends began to drift apart, developing different interests, getting girlfriends etc. Honestly, it was something I did primarily out of boredom and loneliness.

Nowadays, it's a nostalgic and, in a way, much more pleasant activity. What I like most about it is that the pictures are always already there. You just need to find and collect them. There's art in how you do it but you’re never starting with a completely blank canvas.

I wish there was a similar method for music. Jamming almost comes close. You can record yourself and pick out the best bits later. But they still have to come from you, and build on what you’ve listened to before, which makes all music created this way very self-referential. Sure, you can take inspiration from birdsong or traffic noise, or whatever. But when was the last time you heard a good tune written that way?

Here's some pictures from a photo walk I did in April 2025 after having recently become a proud owner of a second-hand FujiFilm X-T1 paired with a TTArtisan 27mm f2.8 lens.

[y23b6]

Day 1 Without Youtube or Instagram

Honestly, it hasn't been that difficult so far. The biggest challenge was to make the decision to go through with the experiment, including talking to my wife about it and starting this blog. For my reasoning and motivations, refer to previous post.

The only thing that slightly surprised me was the sheer number of opportunities throughout the day to pick up my phone, or watch a youtube video, or have something playing in the background, such as:

In the morning, just before getting out of bed.

Immediately after getting out of bed, i.e. when I have my coffee.

On the toilet.

During breaks at work.

Waiting for a doctor's appointment.

Preparing food.

Eating said food.

Commuting.

Entering any room that has a couch in it.

At the end of the day, when I'm too tired to do anything else. Here's the substitutes I tried:

Journalling.

The power of reflection and sheer will.

Having a book to read on my phone.

Having this blog open as a tab in my browser.

Having a poetry pamphlet in my bag (pretentious, but the novelty helped).

Listening to actual music!

Briefly checking the news and putting the phone back down.

Carrying a camera with me, both to shoot, and to have nice pictures to occasionally look through.

Going outside to watch my wife learning to skate. We should get a second skateboard.

Counterintuitively, some of the substitute activities proved more challenging than just sitting quietly and thinking or daydreaming. For instance, I was often too distracted to read in public places like waiting rooms and buses, especially when there were people watching reels on loudspeaker around me.

Meanwhile, in the evening back at home, it seemed like curling up with a book would be the obvious play but I just felt too tired. I could've still watched something but reading was just that tiny bit beyond the effort I was willing to put out.

In fact, I was soon overwhelmed by a mysterious and insurmountable drowsiness that put me to sleep at least one and a half hours earlier than usual. Was this the result of the severe reduction in screen time or just a fluke? Who knows. But day 1 was done.

More updates to come, though probably not daily.

[y23b6]

Day 0 Without Youtube or Instagram

In a quest to ween myself off of my internet addiction, or perhaps, less virtuously, in a bout of midlife nostalgia, I have circled back to my old tumblr.

Replacing one social media with another, I know. But could this be the ticket? A way to track progress? A substitute for endless scrolling? Or just another futile attempt like many before it?

Logging out of youtube, deleting instagram, setting my phone to greyscale, building a personal html website, listening exclusively to cassette tapes and vinyl records, doing morning pages every day in physical notebooks.

In the end, we can't go back. A new technology introduces itself, promising novelty and convenience. We accept it into our lives with curiosity and excitement. Eventually, the hype wears off, enshitification takes over, yet we're no longer able to function without it.

Perhaps my issue is not with the internet itself, nor social media. What I truly hope to reclaim is an approach to boredom I once had but have since lost. With less content to consume, I used to rely more on my creativity to pass time.

Nowadays, it goes more like this: work –> hobby that's become more of a jobby –> whatever the algorithm serves up to put me to sleep -> apathy and burnout.

The critic in me says there's someone out there reading this, thinking I just have it too good. Nitpicking. Complaining too much. Maybe. There's a point to be made about gratitude and acceptance. But also, fuck you. You're not in my shoes. Don't bring someone down for trying to improve their life.

I'll see you again with a progress report in a day or two. Or never.