Hard Habit to Break

I like to title my posts with a song. The first one that came to mind was Hard Habit to Break by Chicago. My daily habits? Well, I eat, sleep and wash like everyone else. I’m trying to think of anything interesting, but I’m not a particularly interesting guy. But the following are habits that I would find hard to break 😀.

Coffee

Walks

I walk around my neighbourhood a few times every day. I would like to live in a more scenic area, but I just enjoy walking. Generally I daydream while walking, but it’s nice to consciously make an effort to notice things too. And it’s nice to greet strangers.

Books

I listen to audiobooks every day and at night. It requires much less effort than reading, but I do miss things when my mind wanders, but I don’t mind missing bits. I often listen to the same books over and over. I do read too. I read the Bible every day and I generally have a Christian book and a secular book on the go.

Diary

On a private Google Sites site, I have a page for every year of my life, which I work on each day. For each month, I generally have a pic (a collage representing what I read, watched, listened to etc,) and four columns;

• Songs
• General – this includes what I remember about my personal life for that month
• TV & News – national and world events, movies released etc.
• Christian – I use this column for months where I recall stuff related to my Christian faith and church activities – if I can’t remember anything, I omit a column.

The songs are the new releases for that month. I use retrocharts to find these for the distant past. For example, I’m in 1980 this week. Here are three songs from the 15 that I have listed for June 1980:

The songs help me to figure out what was going on in my own life that month, as does news events. At that time, I was an apprentice fitter/turner in Irish Dunlop in Cork. I was investigating communism, pacifism, and evangelical Christianity. By August, I chose evangelical Christianity. In June 1980, I bought three records;

I got the Police singles in preparation for a Police concert in Leixlip castle the next month. I was a big fan of Pink Floyd throughout the seventies. And I had recently bought Dylan’s Slow Train Coming. I loved it so much that when I saw the newly-released Saved in Pat Egan’s record store in Cork, I bought it immediately. Dylan’s Christian albums were among the things that gave me the final nudge to committing my life to Christ, as did visits to the Christian bookshop in Tuckey Street in the weeks leading up to my conversion. In June 1980, I read George Orwell’s 1984, I was learning to swim, and I saw Monty Python’s The Holy Grail and Blazing saddles in the Capitol cinema in Cork. I won’t bore you with everything else, but it’s great fun to work on my diary. I’d recently bought an SLR camera and took pics around Cork. Unfortunately, I chose slides, which don’t scan very well.

Music

I generally play the guitar, the keyboard or work on music production software on my computer, such as Logic Pro, Mixcraft, and various Native Instruments products. I like to play secular music and also hymns and worship songs.

TV

I don’t watch live TV much, but we generally watch something around 9 pm every night, often watching the same thing over and over. Currently, we’re watching BBC’s Coast.

Virtual Reality

I usually spend an average of 30-60 minutes in virtual reality (VR) on my Meta Quest 3s. My favourite apps are:

• Read VR Fishing: You can fish at various locations around the world, the closest to me being The Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland
• Walkabout Mini Golf: I have a few other golf games, but this one is the most fun and has the nicest graphics.
• Wander: This is one of several apps based on Google Street View. Others also include Google Earth, but this is the one I bought first. You can go right around the world, but oddly, I spend most time in Ireland and the UK, often revisiting places I visited in my youth.
• Paradiddle: One of several drum simulators and rhythm games. I like Paradiddle because you can download lots of custom songs for it.
• Demeo: This is a tabletop game simulator where you walk around mazes fighting monsters. I generally play this on Saturday afternoons. I find it very relaxing, and unlike real life, the scary things aren’t real 😀.
• YouTube and Bigscreen: I generally use these for 2D videos in 3D environments. 3D videos need to be high quality to be pleasant to watch, and there aren’t many available.

And I have a little sleep after lunch everyday. And of course, there’s the Daily Prompt, which is great fun.

I would also like to get into the habit of physical and mental exercise. I often start and stop again. And I would like to be more systematic in my prayer life, which is why I’m currently reading Christian Prayer for Dummies.