"The Network" and a beautiful Irish day

Have you seen "The Network"? If not, please, for the love of God, see it. There is a reason why this movie won 4 Oscars, one of them being for Best Writing. I was absolutely blown away.

Not often do I watch movies that were made in the 70's for the first time. The movie is older than I am. I have seen parts of the scene pictured above over the years but never the entire scene nor any other parts of the movie. I was intrigued because I've heard many critics talk about the movie yet it was always a mystery to me. The movie started off kind of slow even though the set up of the movie basically happens in the first 5 minutes. The movie did progress slowly but the longer it went on, the more captivating and riveting it got. I was actually expecting a different movie, with the scene above being the pinnacle of the movie. I was completely wrong!

If you haven't seen the movie, don't read this paragraph. The story starts off with the news anchor being fired after many years of the job simply because of declining ratings. Starting with his last two weeks on the job, he goes on air and announces he will "blow his brains out" live on TV next week. Hilariously most people working behind the scenes don't even notice his rant (excellent premonition). Finally a few people alert the main producer or whatever he is and they try to get him off the air. He is promptly fired but asks for and gets one more show. The next day he goes off on a another rant but this time he's allowed to go on because his boss is pissed at the company who recently purchased the TV network. Instead of ruining the show, the ratings go up and this is basically where the story starts. Ironically, the news anchor is ranting about the fact that everything he and the TV network do is bullshit and all they are doing is dumbing down and lying to people. Yet the ratings go UP and the network takes advantage of this. And it just gets better from here. There is marriage infidelity, (fake) political movements, corporate greed, emotionless corporate woman, sensationalism (does any of this sounds familiar)?

The reason why the movie is so great is because it pinpoints exactly what is wrong with the society ... TODAY. It's as if the writers could predict the future and reach deep inside of people's psyche. In essence, the movie predicts a rise of today's "mainstream" media. However, there are so many different angles to the story, each of them intrinsically connected and beautifully portrayed in the movie, tying back to the point of the movie. The acting was impeccable even though in the beginning it seems amateur. I have no idea how the director pulled that off but the character development and acting flows so well with the story line.

Watching the movie should alert the viewer to the perils of modern media. If you didn't see through their bullshit up to this point, after watching this movie you should.

"The best way to discover new places is not knowing where you going and just let yourself get lost."

On the lighter note, I watched this movie after a perfect Sunday afternoon. I wanted to go cycling up to the hills of south Dublin and the day could not cooperate any better. The sun was shining, clouds were interspersed like sprinkles on a cake, there was little wind and the air was remarkably fresh. I didn't know exactly which way I will go but I did map out a route to get back to the spot where Klara and I went hiking last week. The area was called Rathmichael and it was on the way to Powerscourt in Enniskerry.

The route I picked went pass an area I worked so I was kind of familiar with the surroundings. As soon as I went pass the Dundrum Shopping Center which is the furthest south I cycled so far, I was immediately but pleasantly surprised. I took the wrong turn at a roundabout so instead of going back to the round about, I stopped at the end of an overpass and spotted what looked like a cycling trail. I cycled down and took this mini trail through the woods towards the road I was supposed to be on. Oh, wow, what a beautiful little trail that I didn't even know existed. It went between a neighborhood on one side and a little forest and a park on the other. There were some teenagers relaxing on the grass, a lady was walking her dog, some more teenager lovers. I ended up at the road I needed to take.

I took Sandyford Road up the hill. The further up I got the more envious I got of the people who lived there. Everything was on the hill: pubs, shops, apartments, houses, parks. It was so beautiful and peaceful. It's such a different part of Dublin that I would have never discovered if I didn't jump on my bike and went on a mini-suicide ride. Oh, it was so nice cycling up there. Looking at the Dublin mountains from Phoenix Park seems as if there are no people living there or at least there is a lack of big buildings and streets. On the contrary, there is a whole other country up there, seemingly disconnected from rest of the world. The big buildings and streets don't take away from nature either. It is so well integrated with green areas everywhere and so much attention was paid to leave the old trees and parks.

As I made a wrong left turn and whizzed down one of the tree covered roads, I ended up at a roundabout where there was a big apartment complex built. Yet, the complex seemed like it belonged there. It is so difficult for me to describe this. Maybe it's the architecture or maybe it was the day itself but it seemed so well integrated into the surroundings. Anyway, I had to cycle WAAAY back up to get back to the main road. Then I cycled some more up the hill and finally made the correct left turn. I literally broke the speed limit going down. I hit 62 km/h!!!! In a 50 km/h zone! I cycled right pass the area where Klara and I had to jump over the fence to get away from the horrors of the highway.

I didn't know where the road was going to take me. It went all round the quiet neighborhood, the road was covered with old trees. I ended up at a major road, the E1 I think. I stumbled upon another little park but I got out of it and started looking for a place to take a break. As I cycled down E1 for kilometer, I wanted to get away from the main road so I went through a little passageway which took me to a road parallel to the highway. This road eventually took me to a major road (read, main going through a town but only two lanes) on which I discovered what is now one of my favorite parks, Cabinteely Park. The park was like something from a fairy tale. The perfect grass, the rolling hills, a pond, people relaxing, kids playing, sun shining, old trees, a brook passing under a bridge. Simply magical.

I took some photos of the park. You can see them below. I rested for a little while and ate my banana. I took off after 30 minutes or so then headed home. It took me another 18.5 km to get back and by the time I got to my apartment, I was exhausted. In total, 48.5 km of cycling and not a single regret. Ireland in the summer is beautiful.

A church I saw on top of the hill while cycling on Sandyford Rd

This is where I rested. Heaven exists here

Sleeping

I love to sleep. That picture above could easily be me. I'm happy in my sleep.

Many people, mostly college students and adults will use the phrase, "sleeping is overrated". I completely and utterly disagree. Not only is there no merit to that statement but there is overwhelming evidence that lack of sleep is unhealthy. I'm not going to make this post a scientific discussion and start linking all kinds of sites describing various sleep studies, scientific explanations, etc. I'll just use my own experience and experience of others as my proof.

First off, let's talk what is an adequate amount of sleep. Scientists say 8 hours, or simply one third of the day. That is just the right amount of time needed for the body to refresh. If you've ever taken naps after being tired from either not sleeping enough or after strenuous physical activity, you would notice that for every unit of time you sleep, you will be fresh and awake for about 2 units of time. So 15 minutes of sleep should give you at least 30 minutes of quality awake time. Sometimes you can trick your body to be awake for longer than 2 units of time but eventually you'll crash and you'll need an extended amount of sleep time to recover.

So how do you feel after 8 hours of sleeping and after a normal, average day? Most likely great or at least with no complaints. If I sleep 8 hours after a normal day, when I wake up I am more focused, have more energy, I am more driven to get things done, think clearly, happier, cheerful, you name it. I have absolutely no negative effects of sleeping the "adequate" amount of time.

If I sleep less than 8 hours after a normal, average day, I do not feel so good. My overall feeling varies depending on the actual amount of sleep I got the night before. If I slept slightly less than 8 hours, let's say 7 hours, I will still have a good day but only after the initial 30 minutes of lousy wake up. Most likely I will need some coffee to get me through the day and I will possibly be able to go to bed at the normal time. If I slept 5 or 6 hours then I will have a very slow morning, eventually recover but still be ok for the first half of the day. Second half will be a race to survive until I get home from work and I can only recover from that by drinking two cups of coffee (or two double shots of espresso). I might be able to get to normal bed time but most likely I will either have a nap during the day or I will go to sleep early.

If I sleep less than 5 hours of sleep, forget about that day. I can hardly get out of bed, I have little energy, can't focus at work, will need to nap (losing more time out of my day), will generally be lazy throughout the day. Simply, getting less than 5 hours of sleep is not even worth going through rest of the day.

But if I sleep MORE than 8 hours and I had a normal, average day ... then I ALSO feel like crap. If I sleep 9 or 10 hours, I am just as exhausted and not focused like I would be if I slept 6 or 7 hours. The only time I can sleep for longer than 8 hours and still feel good is when I've had a very tiring day due to sports or some other physical activity or if I didn't sleep enough several days in a row.

My sleeping pattern has changed throughout my life, as I'm sure yours has too. When I was a baby (so I'm told) I used to sleep for 10-12 hours a day and feel great (I honestly can't remember). When I got to college, my sleep times started getting shorter but I could "handle" it because I was full of energy anyway. It started getting bad when I started working and needed to get up early in the morning ... 5 DAYS A WEEK! That's when the shorter sleeping times started to have an affect on me. Still, I continued sleeping less than 8 hours often because of many nights of partying and sacrificing the sleep to "live the life". However, after I noticed the lack of energy and increase of shitty days (which coincided with me getting older) and after experimenting with different lengths of sleep, I went back to the original 8 hours of sleep.

Now I try to sleep 8 hours or so as much as I can. I will rather come to work late and leave late but feel refreshed than get up early, cut my sleep short and shortchange the entire day.

Finally, in my pursuit of perfect sleep, I read about an application for Android phones called Smart Alarm Lite. The application uses the accelerometer in your phone to sense your movement while you are sleeping. It then wakes you up at a certain time interval during which you want to be waken up. It wakes you up when it senses that you started moving. The reason why you should wake at this time is because at the time the body is moving during sleep is the time the body is coming out of REM sleep, or Rapid Eye Movement sleep. Every human goes through several sleeping cycles, usually 5 cycles, during normal sleep period. Each cycle has a period of REM sleep although the last cycle is usually called REM sleep because it is the longest cycle. Unless you have a sleeping disorder of some sort, meaning unless you are NOT an average human being, your body will not move during REM sleep of each of the cycles. The brain essentially paralyzes the body during REM sleep. The initial cycles are shorter while the last cycle is the longest.

Ok, so why wake up after REM sleep? Because the period of sleep right after REM sleep is a period of light sleep, a period during which you can easily wake up. NOT ONLY THAT, but the period right after REM sleep is the period during which if you wake up, it will leave you feeling the most refreshed. If you wake up during REM sleep, you will feel crappy. If you wake up after early REM cycles, you will feel better than if you woke up during those cycles. However, each progressive cycle leaves you feeling more refreshed, especially the last one. Therefore, you ideally want to go through all 5 cycles, which in total take about 7-8 hours and then wake up right after the last cycle.

The Smart Alarm Lite application senses the body movement after the REM sleep and it wakes you up. The key is to set the alarm for about 8 hours after you go to sleep and set it for a sufficiently long interval so that you don't get woken up during REM sleep. For example, if I go to bed at midnight, I will set the alarm for 8 am with a 45 minute interval. That means that at 7:15 am the application will trigger the alarm only after it senses movement. The application senses movement the entire night (and it displays the chart of your movement) but will not wake you up until it hits the trigger point. I used it twice so far but both times I woke up earlier than the alarm. I'm going to use it for the next few weeks and report on the results.

For more information on sleep, please see http://www.helpguide.org/life/sleeping.htm.

Happy sleeping!

Music as I experience it

I'm back after almost two months. No excuses, just laziness.

Originally, this post was titled "Is music worth anything?". Honestly, I can't remember why I titled it this way and I can't remember what exactly was I going to write. It must have been something about how so much music is downloaded without paying for it and how it hurts the artists who are not filthy rich. Instead, I decided to write about something I said I was going to write about in one of my previous posts.

I know that I experience music differently than most people. I am not sure how many people experience the music like I do. I have met only few in my life and most of those were musicians. To put it simply, music makes me high. Whatever makes you high (including drugs), that's what music does to me. It takes me to another state of mind where my imagination runs wild. Feelings awake in me that I don't feel otherwise. If I close my eyes and let my body move to the music, I move in ways that if I completely let myself go, it can look pretty scary. I'm not talking about dancing but un-choreographed movements related to feeling the music.

I can go through a wide range of emotions during one song. It can make me feel happy, intense, angry, inspired, etc. All of the emotions can be overwhelming and exhausting. It's difficult to compare it to anything. It could be like finishing the most tiring sport match you can think of, winning or losing, depending on the song. The emotions can drain me or uplift me. The song can leave me thinking about something or, completely opposite, put me at peace.

I listen to music to release emotions, much like sports relieve stress. Just the same, I listen to music just to feel alive because allowing myself to let go while listening to a song lets me experience emotions I otherwise wouldn't. The music makes me feel alive!

My favorite song of all time, "Creep" by Stone Temple Pilots. Happy listening.