Stephan Reed — The American Nightmare

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Speak With Substance, Avoid Superficial Conversation

Dec 4

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I have come to the realization that our common conversations have become incredibly superficial and lack depth and substance.

While watching the film “God Bless America,” the protagonist, Frank, goes on a tirade about this subject. “Nobody talks about anything anymore. When was the last time you had a real conversation without someone texting or looking at a screen or a monitor over your head?”

Why do we shy away from talking about our feelings, aspirations, religious convictions and/or things that aren’t entertainment or sports? I’m not saying there is anything wrong with popular culture-based talks or sport chats, but try and think critically about what you have seen and speak original thoughts. Don’t just spew what you read online or heard on TV.

Some of my closest friendships were spawned from spontaneous, personal conversations. One doesn’t have to pour their soul out to a stranger, but opening up shouldn’t strike fear into their heart.

Everyone has a history. Every individual has a unique story. Each person you come across probably possesses the memory of an experience that you would find intriguing.

There aren’t many things better than those long, all-night conversations with someone. The ones in which you can feel the friendship forming into a long-lasting bond. The ones where you think “I should probably go to sleep,” but your friend has you so encompassed and on the edge of your seat that you throw the ideas of morning exhaustion out the window and listen onward.

You’re completely engaged. Your phone doesn’t matter.

When you listen, it feels great for both parties. You retain the knowledge about this person and feel a deeper connection with them, while they feel special and unique because they have someone who will actively listen to them without texting mid conversation.

We live in a society where all of our thoughts and ideas are posted on social media, yet we can’t talk to people. Social media seems to be taking the “social” aspects out of our daily lives.

Instead of posting about how angry you are at your professor or subtweeting about your friend, try talking to them about it. Hell, they may even commend you for taking the initiative to attack the issue head on. Instead of posting a Facebook status containing lyrics that you relate to, bring the song up in conversation with the person who inspired the thoughtful connection. The song will never sound the same again.

Feelings. Dreams. Personal history. These are the things we should be talking about, not Miley Cyrus’ new haircut or what your ex said about you on Twitter.

Superficial chatter is a plague. It keeps us from talking about stuff that truly matters. These issues get overshadowed by “pop-politics.” There’s always the typical conversations about abortion, the death penalty and gun control, but why don’t we talk about the conflict between the University’s Faculty Association and the Administration or the on campus smoking ban that is being discussed?

It is doubtful that we can control the hot topic issues of the nation, but we can have a say in the problems that are in our own backyard.

I strongly urge everyone out there to strike up a real conversation with that one person who catches your eye in the Union or the girl who sits by you in class with the sweet Attack Attack! bookbag or the professor who makes you feel like a human being and not just another kid in class.

It’s the last week of classes. Take a chance.

What’s the worst that can happen? They could look at you weird and you will never have to see them again.

What’s the best that can happen?

You could have a new friend for life.

 

 

 

 

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Use Internet to Help You Get the Most Out Of Your Night’s Sleep

Nov 11

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One of the greatest lessons I have learned in college is time management . More importantly, I learned how to manage time well enough to get a good night’s sleep.

I have woken up countless times and thought to myself “This is so awful; as soon as I get home, I’m going to sleep.” However, the next evening, I wouldn’t hop into bed until after midnight. This cycle of restless nights and miserable mornings continued for quite some time.

Eventually, I started working out and making sure I was absolutely exhausted before hitting the hay. I would work out for more than an hour and burn off all my energy. I would also make sure I wouldn’t eat two hours before bed, thus feeding less into my metabolism as I was trying to fall asleep.

After a while, this stopped being so effective. I needed something else. I then remembered certain experiences from my childhood that resulted in absolute relaxation. Two instances stood out most: watching Bob Ross’ painting demonstrations and when other kids would “check my blood pressure” while playing doctor.

The  soft speaking, almost whispering voice and the light touching of the childhood game were Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response triggers, also known as ASMR triggers.

These triggers result in a tingling sensation in the head, almost under the scalp. But most importantly, they result in extreme relaxation.

Over time, countless Youtubers took to the Internet to perfect the craft of giving me this relaxing tingle before bed (SilentCitadel, WhisperSweetie and EmoGirlLettersare among my favorites.) These videos are 10 minutes or longer and consist of a lot of whispering, tapping and scratching.

Often times ASMR Youtubers will avoid showing their faces on camera. They say mystery adds to the ASMR effect.

One drawback from this method of winding down is that the mind can get used to the video, resulting in no ASMR trigger, thus these Youtube producers create many of this videos, sometimes even hundreds.

ASMR videos are a good way of relaxing before bed and knocking  you out cold without the use of cold medicine, but I found myself still groggy and miserably tired in the morning. After some Internet soul-searching, I found out that many of us wake up in the middle of our Rapid Eye Movement cycles (REM). The contrast of being so relaxed to being so panicked yields an awful exhausted feeling.

Have you ever woke up 40 minutes before your alarm and thought “Wow, I’m well-rested and I still have 40 minutes to sleep.” Only to wake up 40 minutes later in a groggy state? That’s because you started a new sleep cycle.

A website called www.sleepyti.mehas been created to help people solve this problem. The site is very bare-boned and simple. All you have to do is type in when you have to be awake (or when you are falling asleep) and it will tell you the exact time to fall asleep (or wake up) to wake up in between cycles instead of in the middle of a single one. Sometimes it’s better to get less sleep to make ensure you get the right amount of sleep and don’t wake up mid-cycle.

Sleepyti.me is a very simple website designed to help people get the most out of their sleep cycles.

It is important to note that the average human takes 14 minutes to fall asleep and to feel fully rested, it is recommend that you go through six to eight of these 90-minute cycles.

I have found myself waking up a few minutes before my alarm clock and just using the excess time to roll around in bed until the alarm sounded. Waking up slowly is much more comfortable than jumping out of bed and taking on the day.

These solutions have done the trick for me and I can honestly say I wake up everyday without wanting to keel over in exhaustion.

So, if you’re ever having trouble falling asleep at night or you’re just feeling groggy and tired even after sleeping 8 hours, use these tips to help you wake up on the right side of the bed.

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The Murder Scene of the Music Scene

Oct 3

Posted by Stephan Reed in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Much like the early 90s grunge scene in Seattle, Washington, the current music scene has been destroyed by a few bands that made it big in the mainstream marketing.

In 2006, Ohio was a Mecca for local music. Everywhere you turned, there were bands coming out with new singles and pushing their newest merchandise. Band stickers and flyers for local shows were plastered on any open space and, as a young musician myself, this was exhilarating.

That's me in the middle, playing live at Howard's Club H in 2008.

For many young bands, “making it” and getting signed were dreams that rested in the back of the mind, but what really mattered was practicing and playing live, in front of family, friends and complete strangers.

I can tell you, firsthand, that there was nothing more exciting than looking out into the crowd and seeing people moshing and dancing to your heaviest breakdowns or the glow in the eyes of the females in the front row as they looked up during the clean choruses. I’m getting chills just by recalling it.

Bands took whatever measures they could to record their songs. Whether it was through the use of pirated music software, a grassroots record producer (Swordfish Studios in Findlay, Slaughterdog Records in Lima, ect.) or just a hand-me-down 8-track recording device, bands were adamant about printing their own music.

Bands would record anywhere and do just about anything to get their music into a reasonable sounding format and then onto their Myspace music player.

At this time, the music was nowhere near perfect. In fact, it was perfectly imperfect. Listening back, one can hear missed notes, off time bass drum hits and poor leveling. But those little miscues are what make this so special to me. It was more about the message and the experience than the money-hungry attitude that consumes today’s music industry.

Bands began cutting their hair, spending thousands of dollars on recording and acting like complete snobs. The Internet was always a mainstream outlet for pushing shows and your music, but it quickly turned into a cesspool of shameless plugs and “You can only listen to this band if you ‘Like’ it first” messages.

In this way, MySpace.com trumped Facebook. Myspace was a purveyor of music; the guy who would let you play at his church or record your EP for free. Facebook is just that slimy guy who collects the money at the door and cuts your playing time in half.

After bands like The Devil Wears Prada, Before Their Eyes, Bring Me The Horizon and A Day To Remember started gaining speed, other bands ditched their originality to sound like the bands that were making money. They started over producing their records, tuning to ridiculously low tunings and mixing their bass guitars out of any song.

Now, we are living in 2012. It is a time where local shows are an endangered species. It’s more profitable to record an album and push it online than it is to go out and play the music that you wrote from your heart. The emotion has been sucked out the local music scene.

Even though the good ole days are gone, I can still be proud to say that I was out there living each day. I can still recall the feeling of walking onstage hundreds of miles away from home. I can still remember meeting hundreds of new people. I can still reminisce on a time where music was full of heart.

As lame as it may sound, I can’t wait to look at the younger generations and tell them my stories. “Back in my day, music was real.”

 

 

Settle The Sky performing Cheyenne in Gibsonburg, Ohio 2008

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What does a deleted post really say?

Sep 6

Posted by Stephan Reed in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

It’s late. You had a bit too much to drink or maybe you’re just irritable because of fatigue, but you decide to log into Facebook and respond to your ex’s post about her new relationship or you really let your boss have it for making you stay late. You let your true colors show — and they are not beautiful.

You wake up in the morning and your phone is blowing up from notifications about your post. You promptly delete your post, pretend it didn’t happen and continue on with your day.

That post was deleted and never happened … right?

Wrong. Even if you delete a Tweet or remove a Facebook post, it was still read and has been archived.

When a user posts on another’s wall, the receiving user gets an email with the text of that post. This is proof or evidence. If you tweeted an ill-tempered tweet — or any tweet actually — it has been archived by the Library of Congress. If someone follows you to his or her phone, your angry tweet is saved as a SMS text. 

Suppose what you said online could be considered threatening; if someone was truly offended and wanted to report you, saving the evidence is as easy as a quick keyboard command to screenshot your post.

I know this latter archive technique because I used it once. Someone I knew threw water balloons at my car and put a Frosty on my windshield. I was unhappy, so I browsed Facebook and found the culprit because they didn’t think before they posted. I “screenshotted” what she said before she deleted it and made her clean up my car or else I would get police involved.

Suppose an organization begins to delete negative posts on their page, there will be some backlash. (Unnecessarily vulgar and explicit posts are fair game for deleting, especially if stated in the About section of the page.) These posters will ban together, spam the page and continue to do so until the organization addresses the problem and fixes it. People don’t like it when you ignore their criticisms, let alone delete them.

Deleting posts show weakness either way. If you said something dumb, take responsibility for it. If someone posts a negative critique on your page, respond to it in a mature way.

 

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