Making Lists of My Own Art

DISCLAIMER: The following is subject to change as my opinions continue to evolve (and as I continue to make more art, hopefully).

  Since I’ve been obsessed with making lists lately (rankings, top tens, and a-to-z’s mainly), I figured it made sense to now do so for my own art, by which I mean my music (released under my real name), books, short stories, and poems. Links to everything at the bottom.

Thank you for indulging in my self-indulgence:

SONGS A TO Z

Angel Voice, Bad Man, Cycle, Dream Me Up, The Escaping, Finishing Touch, Gateway, Happy Little Accidents, Into the Night (Influx version), Lovemaker, Meant to Go Insane, No Rain in the Distance, On the Run, Palm Trees, Resolve & Dissolve, A Storm Is Coming, The Turnaround, Understand, Where Have You Been?, You Only Think of You

TOP 10 SONGS

1.Cycle

2.A Storm Is Coming

3.Lovemaker

4.Lost in Time

5.Finishing Touch

6.Connect

7.Sapphire

8.No Rain in the Distance

9.On the Run

10.Last Lullaby

TOP 10 SONGS (VOCALS ONLY)

1.Cycle

2.A Storm Is Coming

3.Lovemaker

4.Lost in Time

5.Finishing Touch

6.Connect

7.Sapphire

8.No Rain in the Distance

9.Into the Night (Influx version)

10.Resolve & Dissolve

TOP 10 SONGS (INSTRUMENTALS ONLY)

1.On the Run

2.Last Lullaby

3.Silent Spring

4.Palm Trees

5.Little Spider

6.Never Always

7.Radiation

8.Gateway

9.Nomad

10.Lift

TOP 10 SONGS (2010s ONLY)

1.Lovemaker

2.Finishing Touch

3.Connect

4.Sapphire

5.No Rain in the Distance

6.Into the Night (Influx version)

7.Meant to Go Insane

8.More Often Than Not

9.The Outlier

10.Orbit

TOP 10 SONGS (2020s ONLY)

1.Cycle

2.A Storm Is Coming

3.Lost in Time

4.On the Run

5.Last Lullaby

6.Resolve & Dissolve

7.Bad Man

8.Palm Trees

9.Gateway

10.Nomad

SHORT STORIES A TO Z

Alone, Blessed with Immortality, Causality, Daughter Nature, Every Minute Matters, Foster Mother, Glass of the Sun, Highway to Avalon (short story version), Indoors, Just One Word, The Knowing Stones, The Last Laugh, The Missing Day, Next Star Over (short story version), One Year to Alpha, The Phoenix Curse, Rutharia, Sunrise Order (short story version), Tale Orbs, Wonder’s Last Rescue, You Haven’t Been Around

TOP 10 SHORT STORIES

1.The Phoenix Curse

2.The Last Laugh

3.The Knowing Stones

4.Causality

5.Sunrise Order (short story version)

6.Next Star Over (short story version)

7.Highway to Avalon (short story version)

8.The Stowaway

9.Blessed with Immortality

10.One Year to Alpha

POEMS A TO Z

Another Way to Survive, The Boy & the Lamppost, The Choice, Distant Lights Downtown, Echo Land, The Future Will Come, Guess the Town, Highway Exits, I Gambled, Just a Feeling, Know-It-All, Land of Silence, Make the Meaning, The Nineties, Only Fear, A Poet in the Middle Ages, Questions & Answers, Real World, Shoreline Community, The Things That Stick Around, Unrequited, Vendetta, What Little Time, You Vs. Me

ALBUM RANK

I still like every song

1.Beautiful Corruption

2.Whispers

3.Retrospecter

4.The Orange E.P.

5.Influx

6.Scrapbook II

7.Scrapbook

I regret a couple of songs

8.Daytime Moon

9.Agora!

BOOK RANK

1.Real Enough

2.Meaning in It All

3.Little Life Lessons

4.Next Star Over

5.Next Star Over: Into the Past

6.Highway to Avalon

7.Sunrise Order

SHORT STORY RANK (BLOG STORIES ONLY)

1.The Phoenix Curse

2.The Last Laugh

3.The Knowing Stones

4.Causality

5.The Stowaway

6.Blessed with Immortality

7.One Year to Alpha

8.Guilty Conscience

9.White Star, Cold War

10.Lunch Meeting

11.The Thing About Space

12.When Nightfall Comes

13.Glass of the Sun

14.Shades of Justice

15.The Sun Elixir

16.The Secret Above

17.Donny’s Motive

18.Dark Magic Trial

19.The Galaxies Beyond

Peace!

UPDATE: I made an ongoing counter for all my stuff:

Books: 4 (7 counting collections)

Short stories: 94 (19 on my blog, the rest in collections)

Poems: 247 (128 on my blog, the rest in collections)

Albums: 6 (8 counting demo albums)

Solo EPs: 1 (3 counting deleted EPs)

Songs: 82 (99 counting repeats and covers)

Blog posts: 87 (113 counting stories and poems)

Playlists: 247

Related: My BandCamp

Related: My YouTube Playlists

Related: My SoundCloud

Related: My Reddit

Related: Fiction Repository

Related: List Repository

How My Friends Rank Star Wars

  Due to a combination of boredom and insanity, I decided to reach out to a bunch of different people I know and ask them to each rank all live-action, theatrically-released Star Wars films (yes, all eleven of them).

Out of all twenty-five people part of this experiment, only five were women, and the rest were all men. Furthermore, four people here are Zoomers born after mid 1995, while seven are Gen-X’ers who are old enough to remember the original trilogy when it was new, and the remaining fourteen are all Millennials born in the early 90’s. Through my findings, I have found that Zoomers seem to favor the prequel trilogy, and women seem to favor the sequel trilogy (or at least think highly of it).

I changed most of the names here to “protect” identities, and at the bottom of this post I did some analysis/ number-crunching (so feel free to just skip to that part, if you want)…

Welp, here you go!:

TROY

1.Star Wars, 2.Solo, 3.The Empire Strikes Back, 4.Return of the Jedi, 5.The Phantom Menace, 6.The Last Jedi, 7.Attack of the Clones, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Force Awakens, 11.Rogue One

LYDIA

1.Return of the Jedi, 2.Star Wars, 3.The Empire Strikes Back, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.The Last Jedi, 6.The Rise of Skywalker, 7.Rogue One, 8.Solo, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Revenge of the Sith, 11.Attack of the Clones

MANNY

1.Rogue One, 2.Star Wars, 3.The Empire Strikes Back, 4.Return of the Jedi, 5.Revenge of the Sith, 6.Attack of the Clones, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.The Last Jedi, 9.The Force Awakens, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.Solo

SAL

1.Revenge of the Sith, 2.Attack of the Clones, 3.The Phantom Menace, 4.The Empire Strikes Back, 5.Star Wars, 6.Return of the Jedi, 7.Rogue One, 8.Solo, 9.The Last Jedi, 10.The Force Awakens, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

DAN

1.The Rise of Skywalker, 2.Return of the Jedi, 3.The Phantom Menace, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.Star Wars, 6.Revenge of the Sith, 7.The Last Jedi, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.The Empire Strikes Back, 10.Rogue One, 11.Solo

KEVIN

1.Star Wars, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.Solo, 5.Rogue One, 6.The Force Awakens, 7.Revenge of the Sith, 8.The Rise of Skywalker, 9.The Last Jedi, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Phantom Menace

RONALD

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.The Last Jedi, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.Return of the Jedi, 6.Solo, 7.Rogue One, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Revenge of the Sith, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

DANTE

1.Revenge of the Sith, 2.Attack of the Clones, 3.The Phantom Menace, 4.Return of the Jedi, 5.The Empire Strikes Back, 6.Star Wars, 7.Solo, 8.The Rise of Skywalker, 9.The Force Awakens, 10.Rogue One, 11.The Last Jedi

ROY

1.Star Wars, 2.Rogue One, 3.Solo, 4.The Empire Strikes Back, 5.Return of the Jedi, 6.The Force Awakens, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.The Rise of Skywalker, 9.The Last Jedi, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.Revenge of the Sith

CARLA

1.Star Wars, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.The Rise of Skywalker, 6.The Last Jedi, 7.Rogue One, 8.Solo, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.Revenge of the Sith

RYAN

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.Revenge of the Sith, 5.Rogue One, 6.The Force Awakens, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.Solo, 9.The Last Jedi, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

JOHN

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Rogue One, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.Star Wars, 5.Solo, 6.Revenge of the Sith, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Last Jedi, 11.The Force Awakens

WILL

1.Return of the Jedi, 2.Revenge of the Sith, 3.Attack of the Clones, 4.The Phantom Menace, 5.Rogue One, 6.The Empire Strikes Back, 7.Star Wars, 8.Solo, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Last Jedi, 11.The Force Awakens

CHRISTOPHER

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.Rogue One, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.Revenge of the Sith, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.Solo, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.The Last Jedi

JAMES

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Return of the Jedi, 3.Star Wars, 4.Revenge of the Sith, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.The Phantom Menace, 7.Rogue One, 8.Solo, 9.Attack of the Clones, 10.The Last Jedi, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

DARLA

1.The Force Awakens, 2.Solo, 3.Rogue One, 4.Star Wars, 5.The Empire Strikes Back, 6.Return of the Jedi, 7.The Rise of Skywalker, 8.The Last Jedi, 9.Revenge of the Sith, 10.The Phantom Menace, 11.Attack of the Clones

JACOB

1.Solo, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Star Wars, 4.Return of the Jedi, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.The Last Jedi, 7.Rogue One, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

JIM

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Last Jedi, 5.Rogue One, 6.The Force Awakens, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.Attack of the Clones, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.Solo

FRANK

1.Return of the Jedi, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Star Wars, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.Rogue One, 6.Solo, 7.Revenge of the Sith, 8.The Phantom Menace, 9.Attack of the Clones, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.The Last Jedi

EVELYN

1.The Last Jedi, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Star Wars, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.Return of the Jedi, 6.Solo, 7.Rogue One, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

OCTOBER

1.The Last Jedi, 2.The Force Awakens, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Empire Strikes Back, 5.Star Wars, 6.Solo, 7.The Rise of Skywalker, 8.Rogue One, 9.Revenge of the Sith, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Phantom Menace

LOUIS

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.The Last Jedi, 6.Rogue One, 7.Revenge of the Sith, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.Solo

HANK

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Last Jedi, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.Rogue One, 7.Solo, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Phantom Menace, 11.Attack of the Clones

EVAN

1.The Phantom Menace, 2.Attack of the Clones, 3.Revenge of the Sith, 4.The Empire Strikes Back, 5.Rogue One, 6.Star Wars, 7.Return of the Jedi, 8.The Last Jedi, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Force Awakens, 11.Solo

KEITH

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Rogue One, 3.The Last Jedi, 4.Star Wars, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.The Rise of Skywalker, 7.Return of the Jedi, 8.Solo, 9.Revenge of the Sith, 10.The Phantom Menace, 11.Attack of the Clones

And with that, let’s do some analysis:

FAVORITES

The Empire Strikes Back: 9

Star Wars: 4

Return of the Jedi: 3

Revenge of the Sith, The Last Jedi: 2

Attack of the Clones: 0

Everything else: 1

LEAST-FAVORITES

The Rise of Skywalker: 6

Solo: 5

Attack of the Clones: 4

The Last Jedi: 3

The Phantom Menace, Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens: 2

Rogue One: 1

Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi: 0

DIFFERENTIALS

The Empire Strikes Back: 9

Star Wars: 4

Return of the Jedi: 3

Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One: 0

The Phantom Menace, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi: -1

Attack of the Clones, Solo: -4

The Rise of Skywalker: -5

So there you have it! As you can see, the original trilogy is still beloved far more than everything else, in general. Though as I said at the top of this post, some of that might have to do with demographics. Nevertheless, it’s cool to see a whole bunch of different opinions! Thanks again to everyone who willingly participated in this. And for what it’s worth: No, I won’t be doing this again when the new movies are finally released, whenever that’ll be… If ever…

Peace!

Related: List Repository

My Favorite Distractions

  A while back I wrote about how journaling has really improved my mental health. That said, there are other things I do, to distract myself from the “rough spots” in life, as I feel sometimes distraction is better than reflection (as long as it’s in small doses). Therefore, I figured I might as well share said distractions here…

So here we go:

Music, etc.

Figured it made sense to start with this one, cause it’s no-brainer. Listening to music is a part of everyone’s lives, and for some of us, making music helps too (and other art). While I no longer write my own songs, I still “jam” on my guitar at least a little every day. I find that listening to music especially helps when you’re stuck with other people that make you uncomfortable, as you can use music to “tune them out.” I recommend getting wireless earbuds for this, as they’re easier to take with you wherever you go. UPDATE: Podcasts, audiobooks, etc. work here too.

Little games

By “little” I mean stuff like Tetris, Solitaire, Snake, Wordle, etc. Basically just easy stuff that’s universally accepted as “low-risk.” Studies show that these kinds of games can be quite therapeutic, as a matter of fact! Make no mistake, though: If you’re prone to “gamer rage,” you might still get that even from these kinds of games, at least to a certain extent… Oh yeah, and for solitaire in particular, I like to alternate between easy mode and hard.

Making lists

Meta, I know! But seriously, I’ve found over the years that making lists can be pretty relaxing for me, and I’ve heard others say the same. Doesn’t have to be a specific topic, either. While I lean towards pop culture related stuff, I can make lists of pretty much anything. You don’t need to look further than my list repository to see that. In fact, I recently made a food list, of all things! Making lists (especially to-do lists) is also a good way to motivate yourself to try new stuff.

Mind games

What I mean by this is little games that you play entirely in your head. My favorite example of this is “track-by-tracks” (a term coined by a YouTuber I follow called Almost Human). This is where you take two different albums that have the same number of tracks and do “song vs. song” for Track 1, Track 2, and so on, and then add up all the points in the end to see which album wins. Basically any other variation of comparing one thing to another applies here too.

Muscle relaxation through “mentalizing”

This is actually a technique that’s mainly used by the military, to help them fall asleep faster/ in uncomfortable conditions, but I find that it can also help with simply de-stressing during the day too. Basically, you start by picking a spot on your body (usually somewhere on your face like your nose or the inside of your mouth, but starting from your fingers or toes works too). Then you think about all the different little muscle fibers in that particular area, and imagine those fibers “loosening up.” Then, continue that process through different parts of your body, until you fall asleep (or feel relaxed). This is basically an advanced form of “counting sheep.”

“Survival mode”

This is simply the act of reminding yourself that the most important thing in life is simply just to survive in the present moment. Humans need three things to survive: Food, water, and shelter. Constantly remind yourself that you have those things, and if you don’t, figure out what you need to do to get them. If it helps, pretend your life is a livestream, or reality show of some kind, and constantly narrate to yourself in your head as you do the things you need to for survival. Even sleep is technically something we need to survive, so I find that narrating to myself “I’m going to sleep now cause I need to” in my head also helps (in addition to the muscle technique mentioned above). Funny side note: One of my favorite movies of all time is Wall-E, and one of the key themes of that movie is “life should be about living, not just surviving.” What I’m saying here kinda goes against that, but sometimes, it is what it is…

“Easy” watching

As one might expect, this is just simply the act of watching TV or videos that don’t require too much attention or investment. Your favorite game show, your favorite cooking show, your favorite YouTuber, your favorite movie series or TV show that you continue to marathon over and over cause it’s comforting for one reason or another… You get the idea… I find that game shows in particular help me here a lot cause they’re on TV here all the time, so it gives me a “schedule,” of sorts. In fact, one of the reasons why I don’t like streaming as much as everyone else is cause having unlimited options overwhelms me, and I like that regular TV basically “chooses things for you.” I think I also like game shows in particular cause I can “play along,” and with competitive cooking shows, I can try to guess who’s gonna win.

Tea

Caffeinated tea is both energizing yet also relaxing, thanks to the amino acid L-theanine. Alternatively, herbal tea can also be relaxing, for a variety of other reasons. I’ve recently gotten into a new routine where I drink caffeinated tea in the morning, followed by herbal tea in the afternoon, and then herbal tea again in the evening. Just the act of preparing tea alone (in addition to preparing meals, of course) gives me something to “focus” on. An additional “purpose” for getting through the day, if you will. I think hot drinks in particular work for this reason cause you have to drink them slowly. Just make sure you don’t take vitamins at the same time as caffeine, cause the latter “cancels out” the former. Also, I notice that drinking coffee instead of black tea increases my anxiety, so on days when I do drink coffee, I usually drink some chamomile right after, to “balance things out.”

Looking for patterns

I saved this one for the near end cause it’s not really something I do anymore, but felt it was worth noting anyways. This task just simply entails looking for patterns all around you. Count how many pens happen to be on the table in front of you right now. Focus on the seams on the blanket on your bed. Look out the window and see how many cars (or cars of a particular color) pass by over the next minute or so. Stuff like that. Again, I eventually burnt out on this one, but for at least a little bit of time, it helped me a lot.

Multitasking

This basically just means doing one or more of the things above. In fact, just the other day I was listening to a live stream while playing solitaire and occasionally looking over at my TV on mute. This sorta thing may be frowned upon by some, but personally, if multitasking doesn’t burn you out, I think there’s nothing wrong with it.

As I wrap up here, I’d like to make one more point: Whatever you decide to do to distract yourself in a healthy way, if you’re still not “feeling it,” treat it like work. Pretend like you have to do it. I guess it goes with the whole “pretend your life is a reality show” bullshit. Alternatively, get into the habit of “rotating” through different distractions.

…Well, thank you for indulging me once again!

Peace!

PS: Reddit is also a nice distraction…

2025 UPDATE: Admittedly, I’m starting to prioritize distractions more than journaling now, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing, cause I stick to a set routine. If my current routine ever falls apart, I plan to make journaling and/or drawing (physical and mental, in both cases) my main thing(s) again.