Born and raised Muslim, but I think I'm somewhere between that and agnostic now? As a kid I was raised to be extremely religious, then leaned heavily towards hard atheism as a teenager/young adult, but nowadays I just don't find myself thinking about religion or the presence of a higher being. I don't necessarily believe that it doesn't exist, but I don't necessarily believe it does either, if that makes sense.

It gets a little more complicated since my family and community is Arab, and our particular form of Arabic culture is very closely intertwined with the religion, it oftentimes feels like you can't have one without the other. It gets hard to pick and choose which parts of Islam I want to participate in (especially considering there's a lot in Islam that I don't agree with) and still consider myself a "good" Arab. Hell, at that point can I really even call myself a Muslim? Who knows. But in my eyes religiousness is a spectrum, and I move up and down that spectrum a lot, and I think I'm okay with that.

We got back from Tokyo recently as well! There's a very apparent difference in culture that I think contributes to this. I'm not Japanese nor am I super experienced with Japanese culture so I can't comfortablely speak on what those differences are. However we also can't ignore the fact that public transit in general is massively underfunded across the states, not just in Chicago. We're car-centric first, and public-transit-based like, fourth is the way I see it. Not that I'm happy about that ofc, I take the train and the bus everywhere I can, but that's just the reality of the situation right now. Tokyo's train system is very obviously much better funded than Chicago's, and the infrastructure is built to support that.

Finally! Wish this was out when I was trying to mess around with HoloISO, would've made things much easier for me lol. Super exciting news!

Aside from big things like my partner and my family, being outside or in nature always gives me that type of relief. Going on walks or hikes, noticing all the little things, the birds, the bugs, the leaves, the grass, the trees, the dirt, the gravel, just sitting down and watching people go by, as small as it sounds it really helps me center myself and put things into perspective.

may I ask what's changed for you? just curious! not sure if I've missed something or if it's just for personal reasons.

There's a couple that I really enjoy:

• Vulfpeck - Live at Madison Square Garden: I was never really one for live albums, more often than not I found it tough immersing myself in the music and the performance so I (wrongfully) write them off. But this album flipped a switch in my brain I didn't even know I had, I could physically feel the energy from the band and the crowd, it's seriously infectious! every single one of the musicians on stage brought their absolute A game, to the point where there's several songs on the live album that I prefer over the studio versions (e.g. Funky Duck, Christmas in LA, 1612, Cory Wong)

• LCD Soundsystem - the long goodbye: I got into LCD Soundsystem a little after their touring hiatus, so I'd always listen to this one sad that I probably won't be able to go to one of their live performances in the foreseeable future (I did get to see them at Re:Set though which was great!). Hearing the crowd go crazy during the drop in dance yrself clean is a religious experience! and all my friends is a song that's always made me pretty emotional, so hearing it in a live setting always gets me going lol. Absolutely recommend this one to anyone who's even remotely into their music.

Exactly!!! How are people just giving him a pass all the sudden? Have we forgotten who's behind these apps and their track record with dealing with user data?

A community about music production would be cool! I feel like the current music community is mostly about listening to music or making recommendations, it'd be cool to have one that's dedicated to production.

Growing up, my grandma used to just make me rice and pour some strained Greek yogurt (laban) on top. I still do that from time to time, brings back very fond memories.

This might sound weird but Dark Souls 1 does give me a certain level of comfort, not sure what that says about me lol. I haven't played it in a while but back then, creating new builds and trying out new weapons was really fun, and I got very accustomed to the game's mechanics and it's general progression and pathing. I could run through the whole game without even thinking about it. I'll still go back to it every now and again and it still gives me that comfortable nostalgic feeling.

I really love That Trav Guy, he makes super interesting and entertaining videos on the history behind and gameplay of games and game series, his MegaMan X6 video got me to finally finish the game after struggling with it since I was like 6. I also follow him on Twitter and he just seems like a swell guy!

I just want to say I'm excited to be here! Feels like how message boards used to feel back in the day with the number of users not being crazy high like other social media platforms.