nakulanb

My friend has a 7 month old baby. I don’t have much experience with babies, and I disagree with how they interact with him. I think this type of behavior around babies is extremely common. Baby talk, high pitched voices, peek-a-boo, making stupid faces and unintelligible noises that represent nothing, saying overly unrealistic and fanciful things that the baby can’t even understand. Most baby toys are also really stupid IMO, even by baby standards, and I’m concerned that they may screw the babies up epistemologically. 
It’s not that I don’t like babies, but that I don’t want to interact with them in such “babyish” ways. Admittedly, I’m struggling to put my finger on exactly what I object to here—what does the term “babyish” mean if not in a manner that’s appropriate for a baby? If I had a baby, I would be more apt to carry him around with me while I do regular things, or try to think of ways to stimulate him that are based on helping him grasp objective reality. I get that maybe I just can’t relate to being a parent, am just too boring and slow witted to thing of anything to say to a baby, and that times when you just might want to do anything to make a baby smile, laugh, or stop crying. But how can you do this without doing things like making dumb giraffe sounds when you’re not a giraffe? 

Very good question!
Rand identified the essence of friendship as a response to values. I agree with her, although I think something like temperament is also important in regards to who I would find pleasing. Being an introvert, I would not find qualities such as aggressiveness, intensity, or boldness appealing. I'd prefer someone mild-mannered, quiet, shy, cautious, modest, and reflective. In regards to virtues, I need not repeat the list from Galt's speech. 
I would not say that I respond to the same character traits regardless of the sex. In other words, there are traits I would find appealing in a girl which would be unappealing (or unimportant) in a guy. (As a side-note, just like Rand I don't really believe in the idea of having friends of the opposite sex, but to each their own). 
Something that I've sort of learned over time is not to place people in boxes. Each individual is their own and everyone possesses their uniquely stylized character making them truly distinct. Sometimes you just know that someone is a good fit for you, and I find that overanalyzing their character can ruin the organic spark that made them appealing to you in the first place. 

Here is my website:
 
nakulan.bandcamp.com  

Here is my website:
 
nakulan.bandcamp.com  

I agree. I speak to kids honestly. Lying to them imposes and/or reinforces a shift in their focal orientation from objective reality to subjective fantasy. 

I guess I disagree, to a point, with most here. As far as it goes, I think Santa is fine if understood as only a myth of tradition, but not if presented as a fact of reality.

Children can be stunted in a very real way by introducing the idea that this is not just a myth that we Make-Believe this tradition, but a truth. During the first years of a child's life, they are desparately grasping for information to make the world understandable and consistant. This is the worst time to introduce the idea (as true) that mysticism is real and good and faeries and magical people are the way of the real world. Aside from the whole lying thing, this is more destructive.

Then, as they start figuring out the lie, they may keep the idea that magic is real, but THIS time, it wasn't. And Mommy/Daddy are dishonest.

Double-good going.

I wouldn't say that. Though I don't think the source of love is your desire to see the best in them. That is a separate issue, probably an attempt to sustain the love. The source is the fact that they're your parents, they raised you, and I assume they treat you well. It would be difficult to maintain such love if your parents were monsters who treat you terribly.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly.

Intriguing segue around the 2 minute mark!
 

If I am still leaving you confused perhaps the following might help.
I received a piano score to learn that had the guitar notation over the piano score. Instead of learning the left hand part, I used the guitar notation to hit the bass key note followed by it's chord directly thereafter.
Here's another Mozart variation using the same approach.
While it enables me to play anything in B flat, so long as I know the melody, the harmony always sounds the same to me, because there are only so many variations to it. Perhaps it over-sensitized me to the approach.
When we analyze what, and why we like something, it can refine our values, or perhaps it can make us persnickety.

For Cherry Blossoms and Funnel Cake isolate and focus on just what your left hand is playing. Either do it by mental exercise while listening, or play just the left hand by itself without the right to consider it by itself.
Normally, it takes an act of focus on my behalf to isolate the harmony. In those two pieces, it just stood out. Your playing style does not strike me as one who plays by ear. If you play by ear, you may be attenuating to the melody while letting the harmony just fill in.
 
 

In order to play trombone in the band at elementary school, a year of piano lessons were set by my folks as a prerequisite. That turned into about 5 years of lessons along with some music theory.
Apart from short ditty's like these:
there are many songs that can played from memory. In the key of B flat, if the melody is known, it can be harmonized with more or less on the fly. Without a particular melody, some of my playing is more of a rambling, than a composition.
Listening to an informative classical music station helps as well.
Here's a variation on Mozart's "Ah! Vous Dirai-Je, Maman".
 

There are different types of predictability. We do, after all, live in a causal universe.
Your "Tangled Webs" melody had a stanza that repeated while the harmony played off it nicely with 3 or 4 chord changes.
Are you familiar with Parker changes? It is an identifiable pattern intended to support or background jazz improve by basically repeating it.
Music draws from the same set of notes. As repetitive as those notes may be, it is aspects like which particular notes, in what particular order, and in what durations, etc., that the fact that the same set of notes are being over and over fades into the background.

"Tangled Webs"
 
 

The Fountainhead
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Dracula 

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo was the last novel I read, and it was a couple of years ago now. I don't read a lot of novels. It is excellent, though.
The most recent book I finished was Hitler: A Study in Tyranny by Bullock, which was excellent. (I read the abridged version.)
Right now I'm reading A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester, which is about how awful the Middle Ages were and how we got out of them. Manchester is good in terms of philosophy of history - he thinks every historical event leads to the next in a logical, comprehensible fashion. I don't know how factually accurate the book is, but I'm enjoying it.
Good thread!

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly.

😊 Touche'.
I have heard, on good authority, an individual's take is heavily influenced by their sense of life.
I'm sure, by now, your mom knows what she prefers.

The melodies flow well, but the accompaniment becomes 'predictable'.
For the key of C, your left is going C E G C G E C E G C G E C, shift to F or G as a complement key and the left is going F A C F C A F, or G B D G D B G.
It was changed up in Cherry Blossoms, albeit only the structure of the chord, Yet it stayed the same from C to F to G.
C E G E, back to your starting C or F A C A, . . . or G B D B. . . .
The accompaniment should follow the melody, not distract from the melody by drawing attention to itself . . .
Carmel Popcorn was more eclectic in this regard, relative to these last two.

A new work:  "Popcorn"
 

Suzanne Ciani is an accomplished new age artist... who is quite a piano composer as well.
 
Interestingly though... "new age" is not so new anymore...
Hope she inspires!
 

I think your music is too melodic for such a slow bpm. Most people will have trouble retaining the melody over such a long period of time. Consider how Enya has great new age melodies and uses a much faster bpm to make them stick in the listener's mind.
I listened to your songs at 2X speed and some of the melodies were catchy.

It has themes which although can be interpreted as religious in nature are wide enough to encompass the general experience of being human ... at first viewing I was not even sure I liked it... 
now I cherish it.

"Waltz"