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I often worry I share too much in my essays but then those are always the ones that do best.

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I think it's the same for me.

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This is all so interesting and spot on. I do listen to music while writing because I need background noise, but I try to put on things that I’m not going to sing along with 😂 I can’t do instrumental.

A friend has UD HDTV and I HATE it!! It is too distracting to watch. I don’t like my TV looking that real.

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Peas in a pod! What makes you unable to listen to instrumentals while writing?

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Honestly, I’ve never tried it! It just seems too boring to my mind?? I need something that’s not boring, but not too stimulating. Thinking about it more, I did used to listen to the soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ a lot while studying in college and that has a lot of instrumentals.

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Do you have a Pandora account? If so, you're welcome to take a look at some of the stuff I like. I don't think it's boring at all, but it's also very easy for me to push these into the background:

https://www.pandora.com/playlist/PL:144865057153483011:74638688 (BTW, pardon the French in the title!)

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Hahahaha love the title! And will definitely check it out!! Looks super interesting!

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It's definitely diverse. There's everything from thrash to piano, from the Beatles to Kool Keith and Dr Dre. I know it well.

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Yes!! I was scanning through the artists and it definitely piqued my interest because of that diversity! Didn’t know a lot of these bands had instrumentals!

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You just pretty much summed up why I find any music produced by Phil "Wall of Sound" Spector to be unlistenable.

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Jul 24Liked by Andrew Smith

I'm with you on the background music. My wife is somehow able to work with radio on, notifications on her phone, etc. My phone is permanently in silent mode and I typically don't even listen to music when working, but when I do, it has to be some non-aggro instrumental stuff.

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I like a little background noise, and I probably conditioned myself during my middle school years in particular when I'd hide in my room, listen to music, and draw for hours. I would keep the music going when I was reading or studying, too.

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Hard agree on all of this. Now if I can get Cecily to stop putting our tv on the 60p action setting.

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I can imagine it's great for live sporting events, but it's just too much for me for TV.

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I really don’t like it for anything but then I also have the personal programming of seeing that look of video being akin to surveillance footage. To me, the best sports coverage was the NFL Films material up until the late 1980s. And that was mostly played back at 24 frames per second OR LESS. Most tv back then was 30 fps. Those gave the viewer more by presenting things in slow motion. Instead of inundating with more raw data, the footage provides more insight by looking at what’s there more completely. Of course, I’ve never been much of a sports fan and more a movie fan. Still, the syndicated tv show on Sundays was absolutely must-see tv for me. It made something I had very little interest in, cinematic and bigger than life.

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I remember the Bionic Man (or Six Million Dollar Man, whichever) using slo-mo a lot to emphasize a cool effect. The Hulk did this a bunch too.

The other thing about not having so much data is that you tend to cherish the data you get, right? I think that's the overwhelming thing about our youth: we paid close attention to things we came across, even if they were boring, lame, and mundane.

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