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dzpenumbra · 1 year ago

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7/12/23

I'm just going to write this now, because I have no idea what the rest of my night is going to look like. It's about 9PM.

Last nights sleep was disastrous. I got one hour of sleep, and couldn't fall back asleep. I lay there for an hour trying to fall asleep. Different positions, deep breathing, focused relaxation, trying not to think, I pulled out every goddamn stop. And I didn't even have the noise from upstairs to wrestle with. I could not fall asleep. Every time I got close, I would jerk back awake. Like nodding off and then reflexively snapping back with a big adrenaline burst.

Maybe it's because I had a very difficult dream. I dreamt of my dog, who died last summer. In this dream, I was tasked with training her... for another person. I was out at dinner in busy restaurant with this guy and his son, and my dog, and... it was our last dinner together... and I had to give her away. And I didn't really feel like these people were going to treat her right. I didn't trust them. They weren't bad people, I just... didn't get good vibes from them. Like they were shopping for a nice rug, not a loving, energetic, playful partner.

So... maybe the dream had something to do with it. I don't know. At 7, I got up. I went downstairs. I read some sleep hygiene tips, they suggested getting up after 15-20 minutes of failing to fall sleep, going to do something relaxing, then trying again. After a full hour, I said fuck it. I raked my mini Zen garden. I sat on the floor and listened to The Beatles and drew more labyrinth-like designs on the string lights. I played guitar. I did that until about 8:30. It was actually really peaceful, it was a very nice calm quiet morning, I enjoyed it. Minus the sleep deprivation.

I am not even fucking making this up... just minutes after I lay my head on my pillow... the upstairs neighbor started creaking the floorboards again. Like... the world's worst timing. I audibly laughed. I put my earbuds in. What choice do I have? It just... kept. Fucking. Creaking. Over and over and over. I have no fucking clue how they don't notice it. I would put money on it being just a poorly placed couch or chair or something, and their shifting body weight just makes the board creak over and over endlessly. I just seriously have no idea how they don't hear it. I have creaky boards in my loft floor and my stairs and I hear them clear as goddamn day. Maybe they just don't care? I really don't know anymore.

I put the AirPods in. I can lay pretty comfortably with them in now. I put the noise cancelling on. I put music on. And the noise cancelling... like some kind of sick fucking joke... almost entirely cancelled out the droning of the box fan, but I could still hear the creaking of the floor... through the fan noise... through the noise cancelling... through the music, even. I tried so goddamn hard to just... let it go. To just... not care. To just sit there and let it happen and just allow myself to fall asleep anyway. But every time the creak happened, my heart would send a burst of adrenaline through my system and I would jump.

The fighter jets flew overhead this morning. Five in formation, one after another. They did a few passes and went back to base. They don't bother me. I can sleep with a fucking fighter jet blasting over head with my windows open. I can sleep with passenger jets flying in to land at the airport like 2 miles away. But this fucking creaky board. It makes my skin crawl. It makes my nervous system turn on me. And no matter how much I try to comfort it, or give it perspective, or ignore it, or cover it up... it just keeps responding the same way. And I genuinely don't know what to do anymore.

I laid in bed for more time. Likely nodding in and out, and immediately waking up to creaks. It was a complete blur. I just remember music. And creaking. And early morning light. And the feeling of the fan blowing the sheets. And trying so hard to sleep. For hours. I even got up and did a small yoga routine and then got back in bed and tried again. Over and over. Until 11 AM. When I finally said fuck it and got up.

I did yoga, something specifically made for... stress relief. :) Right? Well, it helped. It really did. And I made myself some coffee, skipped the workout to avoid exhaustion. And I played Hades. And I ate some food, which helped.

I was expecting the maintenance guy to come over. I... didn't hear him yesterday... or today, for that matter. 3PM came and went and I heard nothing. At 3:30, I decided I would have to take a shower at some point. I couldn't just sit here waiting all day. And I did, and it was a very nice shower, very relaxing. And after the shower, it was past 4. And I decided to go back to sleep.

The parking lot party event today was between 5 and 8pm. I napped until around 6. Yep, I'm actually pretty sure I took out the headphones and just tried to sleep. My neighbors... might have gone to the event. Or maybe just out in town. But... I was able to get 2 precious hours of sleep. Bringing my grand total for the day to... around 4 hours of interrupted sleep. And this is on top of 3 consecutive nights of interrupted sleep around the same duration. That's a lot of sleep debt.

My heart feels weird. It feels... kinda heavy. And kinda tingly, and kinda like someone's lightly squeezing it. I feel delirious. When I woke up, I had to take a few minutes and just... I'm not even kidding... let my eyes focus. With my glasses on. I was unsteady on my feet. Like... I felt pretty fucking drunk, to be honest. Still do. But not in a gleeful way. In a "I've been drinking for 3 days straight and I'm just starting to sober up" kinda exhausted, saturated kinda feeling. I am not enjoying it.

I opened Tumblr, my art one that has nothing posted on it. I have been reading posts tagged with Zen Buddhism lately. I've always been curious and I've been learning a lot about it recently. A lot of the teachings that have been making their way to me, through other schools of thought and through my own personal experiential discoveries, have lined up with a lot of what Zen offers. Minus my severe lack of deliberate meditation... which is really a core centerpiece of Zen, in my understanding.

I'm bringing this up because there was a quote there that I caught in passing and it piqued my curiosity... and I serendipitously stumbled across it again and screenshotted it. It made me remember... what matters to me. What I'm striving to be again. What my goal is, that I am admittedly struggling quite greatly to reach, but... baby steps, you know?

"How should a yogi that has truly realized non-self act?

'Like a child with perfect spontaneity, like a madman unconcerned with what is socially acceptable, like a leper unattached to his own physical well-being, and like a wild animal roaming about in lonely and desolate places.' - The Queen Prajnaparamita Machig Labdron"

That time I went to that New Age festival thing at the ski resort and let my dog walk me around? I received one of my greatest compliments there that day. I met a woman, she was very beautiful, but I was honestly just gleeful to be interacting with another human who might share some of the same values. Or just another human... at all... XD And I had a very childlike exuberance there, my inner child completely had the driver's seat and me and my dog just hung out as peers and played and chilled and talked and I drew and all that. It was very nice. The woman said, "I forgot interacting with yogis can be so intense!" And I just reeled and inside, I went... "wow, she called me a yogi!" She, without being prompted, having known me a total of about 2 minutes, labeled me as a yogi - when I had zero formal yogic practice. I had literally been to one yoga class, a Yoga Nidra practice at a mental health group. And I had been to a group meditation at a Shambhala center back in 2007ish. That was the extent of my formal teaching. It was high praise to be put on the same tier as a practiced, experienced yogi. Which really validated this... rogue shamanic approach I was taking to spiritual discovery, exploration through self-discovery, through autodidactic means. Mostly because I could never find a goddamn teacher. XD But yeah, when I think of the above quote, times like that stick out to me.

So... I screenshotted that right after I woke up. I got up, I got a piece of gum to ease anxiety about bad breath. I put my wallet in my pocket... just in case? I paced back and forth a few times, and the adrenaline started building... I went upstairs to check if I had sheet marks on my face, which I didn't. But I am very pale, and it was very apparent to me today. And I have a lot of blemishes... and my scalp rash is still being a fucking prick and won't leave me alone. And I just sorta... nodded in acceptance of that, and went along. I grabbed sunglasses, which would do me no good because I was wearing glasses... XD Because my contacts hurt my eyes and I don't have an eye doctor up here yet... But I popped sunglasses in my pocket so I have them and then... said "fuck it". And I went outside.

When I got to the outside door, a guy held the door for me. He was probably 10-15 years older than me, looked like a guy I would see at a metal concert, so... probably someone I would get along with. Had lots of tattoos, looked like a musician, graying beard. I couldn't tell if he was... the guy I had met when I first moved here? Who said he used to be a sound guy who toured with the band whose hoodie I was wearing? But I was very self-conscious, I didn't feel confidence enough to be so forward to ask. He held the door for me, and I went to say "thanks" and... my voice was super low. And... barely audible.

It was like... barely a whisper. And it occurred to me... not only had I not interacted with another human in... close to 2 weeks now... But I had not spoken above a whisper in that same amount of time. Really let that sink in, because it was difficult for me to. I. Have not spoken out loud above a soft whisper. At all. In almost 14 days. Until today. I always thought the psychological part of isolation was the hardest. And, I mean... I'll be honest, it is... but go with me here. The physiological stuff can really fuck with your head too.

Anyway, I walked across the courtyard. I could feel my back hunched. I could feel my shoulders raised. I could feel the tightness and knots in my mid-back traps. I could feel my neck tensed and craned. I struggled to see because of the brightness. --- I have been playing Hades a lot lately, which is about Zagreus repeatedly attempting escape the Hells (Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium, then finally the Temple of Styx). I have to say... I related quite a bit to that when I went outside today. XD "Ahh... so this is what the surface looks like!"

I went over to get food. I didn't know what else to do. I saw some people throwing frisbees around. Some people throwing axes in a truck trailer. Some people doing what I found out later was mini-golf. But there weren't... a lot of people. It wasn't like... a county fair kinda thing. It was like... 10 people? With people cycling in and out. And I just... I didn't really know what to do with my hands, you know? I was super sleep deprived, I did not feel comfortable throwing a fucking axe. I didn't really want to play mini-golf by myself. So I just went to get food, to break my "diet".

I went to the table and immediately saw one of the only people I knew here - the Assistant Manager of the building. She has always been super friendly, since day one. And... one of the first things she said to me was "haven't seen a lot of you lately" or "haven't seen you in a very long time, how are you?". And... I had 1000 responses to that. None of them "socially acceptable"... XD "Oh, well you work until 5... and I've been waking up at 5..." "I haven't been leaving my apartment." "My cat died and I've been grieving." "I have mental health barriers that are impeding on my ability to function in society right now." You know, the bog-standard answers to that simple small-talk prompt. But... my social graces kicked in and I recognized... "this woman is not genuinely asking me 'where have you been, are you okay?' It would be socially jarring for me to be bluntly truthful here." And honestly, this isn't Social Anxiety Exposure Therapy Hardcore Mode, I really don't have to make this shit harder than it already is by just... throwing all my dirty laundry onto the table when she's trying to be friendly. So I just said... "yeah, I've been working a lot. A lot. You know, inspiration strikes and I'm just... putting a lot of hours in the studio." And she asked, innocently, "oh, where do you work?" And I said, "from home, from my apartment." Yep, you don't see me because I never leave my apartment, quaintly-somewhat-attractive woman who works right at the front entrance and would see me any time I left the building, and has clearly noticed that... she does not see that happen.

But hey... that means she remembers me, right? What an odd, alien concept. To be remembered. And... perhaps fondly? Hmm...

It was about that point in the back and forth banter that I noticed that my croaking whisper of a voice was not just something caught in my throat when the man held the door for me. You know when you're thanking someone in passing and you like... get some spit caught in your throat or something and it's not so much of a word but an awkward gurgle that comes out? It was like that, but weirder. And this? I was forming coherent sentences. But my throat was just... not used to being used that way, it even felt weird.

And I used to fucking sing, dude! -_- I used to goddamn SING! And look at how much I have to say! It was a very jarring experience to see how much disuse my throat had fallen into. It was disorienting. It still is.

My talk with the woman made me very insecure, very aware of how... different my life is from everyone else there. How alien I am. Not just in my interests, or my chosen profession, or my presence and demeanor but just... my lifestyle. Like... my entire life, the way I live my life. Like... I often feel like I can relate more with Buddhist monks in a monastery than the people I interacted with today. I felt very out of place. And not in a special way... but in a way that made me feel... defective. Or ill.

Maybe it was just because I ran into... the only person that recognized me. And she was the first and only person I talked to, besides the pizza lady, who was very nice. I got a slice of pizza, a cup of grapes and a... souvenir bag? Like a gift bag? With an empty water bottle, a bottle... of water, a bottle of gatorade, a cheap frisbee and some cheap sunglasses. I chuckled about the sunglasses. I found a spot right by the axe throwing trailer, and sat cross-legged under a tree on the grass and ate my pizza and grapes.

I felt a bit insecure about like... watching people. Because I knew they would feel pressure and anxiety, and maybe just be off-put by a stranger watching them? But I pushed through it. I tried to let it pass. If they think I'm weird, they think I'm weird. They're not far off. XD

I found myself looking everywhere, drinking in so many beautiful sights. I find myself doing that a lot, it's the artist/inner child thing. I adore those moments. There was something about the light coming through the maple leaves of the tree I was sitting at the base of, and the moss growing up the side of the tree... the colors were just so warm. The moss was so well fed with water and so vibrantly yellow-green. It made me very happy, very content, I found it very beautiful. I find so much joy - bliss - in the small beautiful things, especially of nature. Maybe I felt out of place there because... I was out of place. Because people there were talking to their friends about superficial things like dating and clothes, and looking for fun thrills like throwing axes or competing to hit a ball into a hole... and here I was, just sitting alone eating grapes and looking at all of the trees surrounding the events that people were there to do... XD I was literally looking at everything but what was part of the event. The axe throwing kinda bored me compared to the growth patterns of the trees by the building. The shades of red and orange from late afternoon "golden hour" light pouring through the overcast sky and reflecting off the side of the red brick buildings. The vivid green of grass that had been deeply saturated with rain over the past two days. I took a hint. Nature was calling me home.

When I finished my food, I went inside. I felt a little bad that I didn't socialize, but... it looked like almost everyone was coupled up. And... I was a lone wolf. And people don't always open doors for wolves. You know? Even if they're pledging to a life of vegetarianism. XD But more than this, I realized that the whole... pressure to socialize thing? It was manifesting more as a... "I don't want to upset the one person I know here by just grabbing food and then leaving, as though the event was a 'failure' or 'boring' or something". And I realized that fantasy narrative was not a healthy thing to live by. I can always just go by the office someday and say "that was a lovely event, thank you so much for setting it up" and it will completely make her day. What I was deeply craving... was going for a walk. Being in nature. The riverside trails were calling me. And I was not prepared for what I was about to see.

I wish I had gone there first, to be honest. I would've had a lot to talk to the Assistant Manager about. The second I turned the corner and saw the river... I was gobsmacked. What I first noticed was that the entire river looked like chocolate milk. And... the smell. The smell just sent chills down my spine, it was... hauntingly familiar. As I approached, I saw all the debris that was normally on the rocky artificial shore below - branches and tree trunks carried down the river to the waterfall - was on the sidewalk now. All along the edge of the building towards the riverside trail near my building. It was nearly impassable. I didn't even bother going down, though I was very intrigued to come back when it dries out and try to gather some medium sized driftwood sticks to carve into wind chimes. I've wanted to do that for a long time. In fact, I brought my backpack with me specifically in case I found any good sticks to gather for that wind chime idea.

Then, my attention met the river. There were people filming it. It was... insanely powerful. There were whitewater swells rising up... at least 5 feet? Again, the whole river looked like a mocha latte. And the sound. Even with my headphones and music in, it was thunderous. I could feel it.

I was in awe. The sheer power, the majesty of that much force. I was enthralled at first. But after about 5 minutes of walking to different spots... my mood started to shift. I started to... think about how... this flooding had killed people. How it had destroyed peoples' homes. I could see people being pulled down the river, unable to save themselves. I occasionally would see debris, like a plastic jug or a metal pail floating down the river. And it just... it made me unsettled. And... god, I was just washed over with waves of sorrow. I was looking at a literal disaster. And people were just filming it. They were doing what I did too, when I first looked at it. And then I went emotionally deeper. Because my history with this kind of flooding... it's much more extensive than theirs.

I remembered. After I had walked further up the river, I just... god, this is hard to describe... the little details started to bring experiential and emotional memories back. Like... okay, first off... just the general speed of the river. Not the size of the swells or the whitewater or the color of the water, the obvious shit, but just the baseline speed of the river was the first thing that started bringing me back. But I'll tell you what really did it. I went all the way up to where the bridge leads to the riverside trails. They were... somewhat unsurprisingly blocked off. I'm sure I could have jumped the caution tape and walked. Who knows how far I would've gotten before I got flooded out. But... I was content in just... observing the more calm part of the river, above the big rapid section. And what I kept seeing was... calmer sections where it almost looked somewhat still? But the water was clearly still moving fast, and there were these... little whirlpools forming. Little eddies all over the place, causing micro whirlpools, like when you let the water out of your bathtub. And little clumps of ripples and bubbles on the otherwise somewhat still-looking water. That was what brought me back. That started fucking with my survival instincts. That made my brow furrow and my eyes start to tear up.

I remembered that for the first time since I was there. I remembered looking at water like that, which was not so chocolate-milky, but just as strong. And I remember saying something like, "it's not that bad, we can handle this." And what the whirlpools and bubbles and ripples showed was that the water appeared calm there, but under the surface? It was churning. And that water will pull you right the fuck under if you're not careful. I could see the deceit in it. Irene was in 2011. I feel like 12 years later, I finally concretized a lesson learned about dangerous water conditions... and humility before the almighty power of the flood. It genuinely felt like my first time reconvening with a deity, since my brush with potential death by his hands. A very powerful, humbling, and emotionally confusing moment of reverence and awe... and mortal fear, and shame of my former hubris.

My neighbor just stepped on a creaky board and it literally made me jump and my heart skip a beat. AGH. This is driving me crazy. It feels so unhealthy. It feels like every time I jump, my heart is getting weaker. It feels like it's damaging my body. -_-

Maybe it's just because I'm in a state that psychologists call "hyperarousal", where I'm super alert and sensitive to my surroundings because I'm in the moment of processing trauma. I want so badly to not give a shit. I want so badly to just let the emotions and reactions just... flow through me... to just happen and pass. But then... I get hit with another wave. It's relentless. Did I compare it to being bitten by a mosquito here yet? Like... just letting a mosquito bite you and watching. Well, I can do that, and have done that. But I'll tell you, good luck finding someone who can sit there and let a conga line of 25 mosquitos come and bite you one after the next. It takes its toll on the body. At a certain point, sitting there and enduring it feels like you're just... punishing yourself by not doing something, anything. Because I can't just reach in and rewire my brain, make it normalize these sounds. Consider them safe. I can't just will that into being. That part of my brain has to allow it. It's a process.

Like... imagine sleeping alone in an old creaky house in the woods. When you hear creaks from another part of the house at night... that's going to freak you out. It's natural. It's a survival thing, from when we were sleeping in fucking trees, it's hardcoded into our DNA. I'm stuck in that mode because I was not raised in a living environment like this. In fact, I don't think I've really... ever lived in an environment like this longer than 6 months. It makes perfect sense why I would be reacting this way. I do not know these people... and as far as my brain knows, there are strangers inside my personal space bubble, while I'm attempting to rest my conscious mind and I'm leaving my body completely vulnerable. Or when I have my back turned. Or when I'm exhausted and incapable of defending my physical self competently. My biggest issue in normalizing this panic response is... again... the response is logically sound.

All because some people. Who are likely overweight college kids in their late teens or early 20's (that seems to be the prevailing demographic in my building) decided to rent a top-floor apartment when they have no awareness of how to be light-footed. Walk. On. The. Balls. Of. Your. Feet. Dammit. And take your fucking shoes off!

Ah yes, here's that Zen I was talking about. XD I have a long way to go. Loooong way to go. And that's okay. I've come a long way as well, the path is as long as it is, it's okay with me.

So... I was talking about the flood memories. And that just filled me with even more profound sorrow. The entire walk back was just... realizing I was looking at the aftermath of a disaster. Not a novelty, not a wonder of nature... something that destroyed homes and claimed lives. And I mourned them. It was a difficult, solemn walk back.

I was also struggling a lot with posture and eye contact around strangers, and there were a lot of people out. It was just... very alien feeling. It had been longer than I thought since I had been out.

So yeah, I got home right as the event was wrapping up. And I went straight inside. And I finished my run in Hades. And I wrote this.

Now it's 10:45. Do I eat dinner? Do I get ready for sleep? Do I take a nice calming bath? I legit don't know what to do with myself.

I really just want to... take care of myself. I've been through so much stress. My body, my mind... god, my soul. The past several days have been just full of intensity and strain. I really need a spa day. The pizza was nice. After losing... yep, turns out my scale wasn't well calibrated... after losing 10 fucking pounds in a month. I think I can have a cheat day. I had my one slice of plain pizza. I think I can have some ice cream. And I think I can have a nice bath. And god I wish weed actually chilled me out, because I'd love to just smoke a bowl and chill and melt into my comfy chair and watch some funny cartoons or something. I don't know. Maybe I'll try a super low-dose tincture tonight, maybe that will be good.

So yeah, for now? I'm going to go and throw another coat of oil on the beads. No polishing, just oiling tonight. Even gods needed days off. Then maybe... play some music and get some soup? Then figure out a nice treat for myself.

What a day. Starting with peaceful bliss, transitioning into otherworldly social anxiety, then into intense traumatic sorrow. And now here I am on the other side. Where to now? XD

Oh, god, how could I forget. The quote! I wanted to share an observation. So... the question was: how should a yogi who has truly realized non-self act? And the answer was: Like a child with perfect spontaneity, like a madman unconcerned with what is socially acceptable, like a leper unattached to his own physical well-being, and like a wild animal roaming about in lonely and desolate places.

And this? This is like a direct chronology, beat-for-beat, of the evolution of my creative and spiritual self. It started with a reconnection with my inner child, and allowing myself to play in the mud and roll around in the grass with my dog and wrestle, and splash in the water, and to say yes and go on adventures. Then it led to me exploring spirituality and the paranormal... because who can truly call themselves a scientist and just say "that shit is fake" without even trying to do experiments? That's literally the opposite of science, that's an act of faith. Science demands replicable results, so... why the fuck would I not just... run the tests and find out for myself? Are ghosts real? Go to a "haunted" place and do all the ghost tests, find out for yourself. Why would that be considered "madness" for an adult to do that? It's literally science! But... what pulled me out of the sky was... my concern for what is socially acceptable... again, social anxiety. Mostly because of my family. It's a real bitch, and it keeps getting me time and time again. Fueled by that whole... fear of witch-hunting... fearful knowledge of what people do to "madmen". Then... the leper thing... made me think of these actual pustules and boils forming on my scalp the past 2 years, that two doctors have not been able to figure out. I have very deeply felt like a leper for some time, and that has taken the form of... insecurity. But this is interestingly approaching it from the perspective of them... not caring about their body, because their body is already ravaged? And I guess I am profoundly attached to my physical well-being. Gonna put a dogear on that one... And finally, like a wild animal roaming about in lonely and desolate places. I miss it. I miss roaming the woods alone. I miss nature. I miss being a wild animal out there, with all the others. I look out my window and I see the Blue Jay hopping from branch to branch on the tree across from my window and it brings me so much joy. I feel so much more connection to him than to any person I locked eyes with today. It's just... different.

So yeah, I just wanted to share and further explore those thoughts. While it can be a bit frustrating to see how big the barriers are in front of me, how strong the wall of flame has grown... this helps serve as a guidepost to show me that... those were not foolish goals, those were noble goals. And it shows me exactly what I need to work on. I need to be okay being childlike, regardless of social norms. I need to be okay being a bit crazy, regardless of social norms. I need to find a way to balance care for my vessel... while still not allowing the fragility of my mortal shell to prevent me from living life. That's a big one that I'm just starting to unpack. And I need to make more time to wander the earth. To commune with nature. Which I am already one step ahead of.

As a final note... I'm... ... I've been hesitating to write this. Mostly because I have no idea how any of this life shit translates into money, which is unfortunately a necessary thing in this modern life. Unless I can find some way around that, some community that would take me in or something, I don't know. But... I'm feeling the woods call me back. I'm feeling nature call me. And I know it's a one-way ticket back to isolation. But seriously... I'm just as isolated here as I had been back at my old house. I've been picturing myself working on a farm, or at least working with people with ecological knowledge. I would love this to be caring for and maintaining hiking trails, good lord that's an absolute dream job to the point where at the river back in my old town, I used to go and clean up the streams and tend to the trails for free. For nearly 5 years now, it's just been right out of reach. To live right on the trails, and just go out and keep them in great form, and pick up peoples' trash, and make sure animal habitats aren't being disturbed, and to set up art installations integrated into the landscape, in a way that doesn't obstruct nature, or interfere with the natural flow of the ecosystem... but rather... to amplify. That's where the permaculture stuff comes in. To learn how terrain works, and ecosystem balance and all that... and to integrate that science into my aesthetic work, to do ornamental and symbolic artwork that actually contributes to a diverse and flourishing environment, that is practical. Beautiful decorative art which actively nurtures nature. That would be so fucking cool. That would be an amazing life.

But how to get to that life? Being where I am? Not having a car anymore, I had to abandon my dream of going to this sustainable trail making course. I don't know. One step at a time, I guess. I'm going to look into that course, and see if I can find a way to make it work. Maybe even call someone there and explain my situation, and see if we can find some way to make it work out. Any life worth living is worth taking a leap for.

But my step today? Self-love. Self-care. Getting comfy and doing something nice for myself. I've earned it.

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of thoughts #stream of consciousness

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josephlrushing · 4 years ago

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Jabra Elite Active 75t Raise the Bar for True Wireless Earbuds Even Higher

Some months ago, I declared the Jabra 75t the “current champ of true wireless earphone.” I currently switch between them and the Master & Dynamic MW07 Plus as my goto daily TWEs- The M&D when I want top fidelity and the Jabra 75t for activities like walking my dog, Nava. Now we’ve got the impressive Jabra Elite Active 75t.

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Battery: Not bad for a little bud. Enjoy up to 7.5 hours of continuous use, or up to 28 hours with the charging case. Speaking of the case, it’s extremely compact, with powerful magnets that lock the earbuds into place, USB-C charging, including fast charge, and a handy upright design.

The earbuds themselves deliver up to seven and a half hours of playback before needing to be recharged in the included case. As noted above, with the case, you can expect to get almost thirty hours of playback! And if you do run the battery down, in fifteen minutes, you can get a fast charger that will give you up to an hour of playback.

All this is thanks to an ever-evolving intelligent power management system that, when combined with a new low-power Bluetooth 5.0 chipset, provides impressive battery life!

Sound: Real world: optional. We’d all like to hear more of what we want to hear and less of what we don’t. That’s why we created HearThrough. It’s like a volume button for the real world.

When I want the best audio experience possible, I reach for my Master & Dynamic MW07 Plus. Most of the time, however, I find myself using the Jabra Elite 75t and now the Jabra Elite Active 75t. They don’t have the audiophile quality of the MW07, but they sound damn good and, thanks to recent updates, are continually getting better.

Hear Less: When you just want to lose yourself in the music, our superior noise-isolating fit helps keep the real world at bay, leaving you free to feel the powerful bass.

The Active 75t don’t have active noise cancellation like the MW07 Plus, but the fit is so secure that they block out a significant amount of ambient sound.

Overall, when the headset is on and the music raised to just over a whisper, the Elite Active 75t TWE do an excellent job of isolating you from the world. But that, however, is not always a good thing. Thankfully, Jabra baked a solution into the Elite Active 75t.

Hear more: When you need to hear what’s going on around you, HearThrough has a handy slider, so you can decide how much of the outside world you want to let in.

At the touch of a button, you can turn on the Elite Active 75t’s HearThrough mode. This allows ambient sound in so you aren’t totally lost in your own little world. This is key for people who are wearing the headset while running on a busy street or commuting into the city and, for safety reasons, can’t afford to be cut off from the surrounding world. (This is one of the reasons Raina is so partial to her AirPods- they deliver audio without cutting her off from the world.) It gets even better when you use the Jabra sound+ app. It lets you control the amount of sound HearThrough allows in!

The Elite Active 75t have 6mm speakers, four built-in microphones, Jabra’s latest digital signal processing algorithms, and new beam forming technology, so calls sound crisp and clear. I’ve been impressed with how good these sound despite their lack of a boom that brings the microphone closer to the speaker’s mouth.

The sound gets even better when you use the Jabra Sound+ app. As the company explains:

In the Jabra Sound+ App, a call equalizer gives you complete control over how you hear other people, while Sidetone allows you to customize how much of your own voice you hear on calls, so you won’t need to speak louder to hear yourself. And with seamless switching from calls to music, you’ll never miss a beat (or a call).

The Jabra Sound+ app lets you control the amount of HearThrough sound allowed in, control the equalizer (there are presets, or you can create personalized settings) and more. To make life even easier, Jabra, “engineered a whole bunch of different sound profiles, from Smooth to Bass Boost, which you can customize even further in the Jabra Sound+ App.”

MySound is your sound. Everyone hears differently. Your favorite song? It sounds a little bit different to everyone who listens to it. We know it’s impossible to improve on a classic – after all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – but we realized that we could still make the music you love even better, by revolutionizing the way you hear it.

Jabra recently released an update for the Jabra Elite 75t and Active Elite 75t that adds their new My Sound functionality to the earbuds. MySound performs a hearing test with each of the listener’s ears and then takes the data it collects to customize the sound output to the specific listener. We’ve seen this technology employed by other companies in their over-the-ear headphones, but this is the first time I’ve experienced it with true wireless earbuds. I’m impressed. The process begins by asking a few questions, including gender and age. The age question seemed especially significant because we all know that those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s already have some degree of hearing degradation. This allows the earphones to compensate for that and deliver audio in the best, cleanest way possible.

I’m quite sold on this. My Elite Active 75t sounded excellent out of the box but was even a bit crisper after I took the time to make use of the MySound functionality.

The update also introduced Jabra MyControls. MyControls gives you the option to use just one earbud. This is great since the 75t line are great for calls. It also lets you map the button functionality so you can set up the controls in the manner that works best for you.

Assistance on tap. Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant – we love them all. Hit up your favorite assistant at just the touch of a button.

One final piece of technology built into both the Elite 75t and the Active Elite 75t is direct access to your choice of voice assistants. You can choose from Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant and, thanks to the recent update, control which buttons activate the service you want. I used MyControls to map the launch of my voice assistant to three presses of the button on either ear. This way, I don’t even have to think about which ear to press when I want to use the voice service.

Inside the box, you get the true wireless earbuds, a chartering case, a USB-C cable, three sets of silicon eargels, and paperwork.

Specifications:

Passive noise cancellation (PNC): Yes

Noise reduction on outgoing voice audio: Yes, 4-microphone call technology

Wind noise protection: Yes

Audio codecs supported: SBC, AAC

Speaker size: 6mm

Speaker bandwidth: 20Hz to 20kHz (music playback), 100Hz to 8kHz (calls)

Microphone type: 4 x MEMS

Microphone bandwidth: 100Hz to 10kHz

Battery:

7.5 hours for earbuds, 28 hours total with the battery case.

Auto turns off after 15 minutes without a connection and 60 minutes without activity. (This can be adjusted in the Sound+ app.

Standby time of 6 months

Charging time of 2 hours and 20 minutes

Fast charge in 15 minutes for an extra hour of playback

Connectivity:

Bluetooth 5.0

10 meter (33-foot range)

Pair up to eight devices

Connect two devices at once

Auto pause music when earbud removed

Auto power runs on earbuds when removed from the case and turns them off after 15 minutes of inactivity

I’ve been a fan of Jabra’s true wireless earbuds since I reviewed the Jabra Elite Sport. Jabra’s true wireless earbuds have gotten better with every incremental update. The Elite 75t were a huge step forward from the excellent 65t. As was the case with the move from the Elite 65t to the Elite Active 65t, the move from the Elite 75t to the Elite Active 75t is relatively small. Still, for a few dollars more, you get Jabra’s latest technology and an increase in durability. I’m a fan and have no doubt you will be too! The Jabra Elite Active 75t are available in Navy, Copper Black, Grey, and Titanium Black. Check them out here.

Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample of the Jabra Elite Active 75t

What I Like: Comfortable; Upgraded protection from the elements; Sound quite good and with recent update sound even better; Excellent battery life; All the tech you could hope for other thank ANC

What Needs Improvement: The product page indicates there is a wireless charging case coming soon. I want it NOW!; No ANC

from Joseph Rushing https://geardiary.com/2020/06/02/jabra-elite-active-75t-raise-the-bar-for-true-wireless-earbuds-even-higher/

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