Why ride?

Both music and motorcycles are wonderful things.

One offers psychological freedom - able to dictate, guide, and alter emotions and mood; while the other offers  physical freedom - nothing besides you and the wind on your face.

Combined, they are even better.

I've recently taken up a Spotify offer for students, allowing for the monthly premium service for a reduced rate. The enhanced quality is nice, however it's never going to translate well into the Sena headset. The more-important feature for me is being able to save music for offline play. Grab a bunch of tracks, or better yet - the weekly mix, and no worries about data usage.

The weekly mix is surprisingly great too. I'm not sure how many tracks I searched for - I suspect it wasn't many, but somehow the mix consistently plays music I genuinely enjoy. The only downside is remembering to 'plus' them before the new mix is out. Not an overly complex task, but easy to forget nonetheless.

It's really nice being able to listen to new, good music when out riding.

Headspace is a topic I've encountered recently - thanks to the mobile app mostly, where an English fellow named Andy guides you through some useful techniques to clear your thoughts and wind-down. I would sincerely recommend it to anyone interested. I wouldn't call it meditation - I'm not a believer in that side of things, but this has been quite useful.

That leads me, in a roundabout way, back to motorcycles.

I'm going to coin a term here.

'Helmet-space'.

Like clearing one's thoughts, and calming a overly busy mind - when I put the helmet on, nothing else matters except for me and the road.

From a safety perspective, of course this makes sense. Anyone who's ridden a motorcycle has surely heard the phrase "Ride like everyone else is out to hurt you", or something to the same regard. Being distracted by the rest of lifes worries is a surefire way to expensive and debilitating injuries, and so the helmet, for me at least, acts like a filter.

It's my way of getting away from the daily struggles of today's lifestyles, and focussing just on myself for a short time.

Combined with some good music, I'm not sure what else anyone could really ask for.



My spotify link is below, for anyone interested.
I'll try to make my Discover Weekly playlists public when I remember.
https://open.spotify.com/user/1255921685

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