moRffiq

NO music in the Shower Please!

Do you have music system in Bathroom/Shower? I have seen ads of showers with built-in speakers. It can be paired with Bluetooth and have LED rhythmic equalizer lights to go with music and to elevate your bathroom singing game! There are lots of “Shower Music” playlists available on YouTube mostly with Uplifting Pop Songs. Surely this will make your shower experience more fun but at what cost?

You will be spending more time in shower and using more water than you require usually. If you play only 3 songs that would be roughly 13-15 mins of water running through your body to the water waste lines. However this post is not about saving water so let’s just ignore water scarcity part of this discussion for a moment to focus on its Psychological disadvantages. When you take shower you tend to be in the most calm and relaxed mental zone possible. Music is one of the greatest things to get relaxed with No doubts on that, but the problem is…
you’re likely to link a certain mood, feeling or memory with each song in your playlist. You won’t be mindful of bathing if you’re ‘vibing’ on music while taking shower. If it’s sound like enjoying Self-Touching to you, think of it as being mindful of Self-Cleaning. Music will block new ideas to come because memories and feelings associated with the song playing in background is taking all your attention and telling you to re-visit and remember that same good-bad / positive-negative feeling which you have linked with the song. You would not get those weird random ‘shower-thought‘ if the brain is caught up on same old memories. By changing of every song you are shifting your mood in new direction. One song makes you feel like being the most lovable caring partner in a relationship, then skip to next song and you feel like straight up gangster hoping to get some cocaine deals done. Press NEXT and you want to pack your bag and spend rest of the days in the Himalayan Mountains and it goes on song by song. You are side lining your rational and creative thoughts for enjoying music.

The speaker or music is not the problem here, what you play on that speaker will make the difference. If you happen to have one of these speakers, try listening to Low Frequency meditative music or just stick to a single genre. Good music is better than no music any day anywhere.

Screen Time and Kids

Television plays a significant role in up-bringing of a child. It’s a peephole to outer world & helps forming perspective for places/people/cultures that the child don’t have direct contact with. It educates and provides entertainment to them. Kids are always in front of screen these days, not necessary only TV, but it can be an iPad or a smartphone. In their early days of consuming this technology parents guide their kids to watch a bunch of things that they feel are suitable for their child which commonly are: nursery poems, informative animations videos, Disney songs and cartoons. You won’t notice from when they start to care more about their favorite fictional cartoon characters than real people around them. Why this kind of content is so appealing to kids? As if they are addicted to these content. In just few weeks they become inseparable with the piece of tech. When kids are watching their thing they become calm and quiet but you know how noisy & whiny they can be when you try to take away that iPad. I can’t get it, why they are not ready to watch something else for a change! Why not a NEWS Channel!! Okay a news channel is bit much to start with but how about a documentary on wild Africa, an episode of Cosmos, or an interesting YouTube video of how a computer works or a documentary on an inspirational figure! A kid might argue the opposite way and I completely agree, I can be a good sport and watch whatever the heck kids are loving these days and play video games with them with full attention and interest. In return I expect from kids to be ready watching something your folks are saying.

When I was growing-up during the late 90s we had a TV in the living room that was for seven of us. Not to mention there were no iPads, smartphones or any streaming services available during the period, so the giant TV with local cable service was the only chance. I was the youngest in family, so the power over the program choice I had was the least among all the members in the house. I used to have a chance of my own to watch my favourite shows during morning time while everyone used to be busy in their routine & finishing chores. I was no different I loved watching cartoons as a kid, I was obsessed with Spider-Man: The Animated Series back in the early 2000s. I remember that feeling – that emotional connect with cartoon characters I had. Watching my heroes go out on adventures, fighting, epic dialogues, superpowers, cross-overs, theme songs and the thrilling battles scenes, that meant the world for me. I used to wish for a TV set of my own in my bedroom so I could watch cartoons and play video games on my NES console all the time without anyone to bother, but sadly I never had one till high school.

Of course, it could have been good times if I had a personal TV but not having it wasn’t that bad either. What I’m watching on TV depended completely upon the person whom I’m sharing the room with. Watching what people of different age groups and likings would prefer to watch on TV exposed me to things like Sports, NEWS, Comedy Shows, Cinema and Music at very early age. Watching news at those times made me curios about how politics and social structure works. What is economy! And I would have endless questions for my parents about things I notice on screen. Advancement of Internet and services are ruining the experience of TV. Endless show and videos are available on YouTube, Amazon Prime & Netflix. These corporations wants your kids to get hooked with their service and just don’t stop watching the content they are mass producing. Their Artificial Intelligent software is observing every clicks you make on the platform. They know your choice better than you and manipulate you want to stick with same kind of shows and videos and stops you exploring your palate.

The Beard Game!

Your beard is an accessory. It projects a vibe, a profound personality. Most of the Teens who are in their high school day’s looks at the idea of beard is as a symbol of Manhood. These kids desires to grow a perfect beard on their soft cheeks. They have been cute for too long now they want to be called Sexy, Macho, Hot. If a boy can see early signs of beard and mustache on his smooth face, he seeks pride in it. It makes him a ‘Man’ (maybe he is in a delusion that it will make him stud and girls will go crazy). 10 years back while I was in that same age, keeping a beard was associated with Bad practices. Villains, a bandit, thief were shown in TV shows & Movies with messy beards, as if all the bad people don’t like the idea of personal hygiene and keeping untrimmed beard looks bad-ass to them.

Every time when I had put forwarded my choice of keeping beard my mom used to yell at me and say that I would look like a goon if I grow beard. Back then a regular working class person in any profession would wake-up and clean shaves his whatever little stubble beard have grown in a day or two. It was an ideal grooming habit for so called ‘white collar Jobs‘ which every parent thrive for their child (pushing hard on studies was not enough so… let’s pressurize for the looks as well!). However a man was always allowed to have a Mustache, no one could ask to remove it.

Truly! It feels like the beard have managed to survive a bad phase. In its all glory beard is dominating men styling trends in today’s time. Beard grooming products like beard oils and shampoos were almost none exciting before 2015. Our heroes have well-trimmed beard in movies. CEOs and entrepreneurs are pulling off vigorous beard look. Major celebrities from entertainment business, Sports, Artists are hardly been seen in clean shave look. All of these have passively shaped the mentality of an average Indian person. I can’t pin point an accurate time which change the perception of keeping beard but a phenomena called “No Shave November” have contributed major part in it. No Shave November origin goes back to 2009 but it was Instagram which influenced the idea to the masses. Bread is so mainstream that a clean shaven person easily stands out in crowd of 100 men.