Cook With Music

As many of you know I'm a new Vegan, its been about 3+ months now, and I'm loving it.
I still consider myself a "n00b" and I learn something new with every gathering I have with fellow vegans. Going into this experience I knew that I was going to learn to cook. Something I had not done well in the past, I must admit, the first few attempts were definitely a learning experience for me. But now I have a favorite dish which I make, its a cooked Kale with a Peanut Butter sauce that I make. The PB Sauce is a recipe similar to a Sudanese dish my mother used to me when I were lived back in Sudan, it gets better every time.

Not everyone has that "spark" to cook, some flat out don't enjoy it. I cooked out of necessity when I needed, either I cooked a can of whatever, or I would be hungry that evening. So when I spoke with fellow Vegans before I joined the Vegan Living Program, "cooking" was pretty much "Step 2", after deciding to be a vegan.

For a while, that alone kind of scared me of making the switch. I couldn't cook rice in a rice cooker, and that actually happened. So in my mind, if I had to cook for my self, then being a vegan is basically culinary suicide for me. Needless to say, I was not a fan of "cooking", it just wasn't a talent I possessed. But I had to find a way to make it enjoyable, and I don't care who you are, "music" can make any task enjoyable.

Now, one of the main ingredient of any complicated dish I make, is a killer playlist. I have little speaker in the kitchen, so all I do is plug them into my phone, choose an album, an artist, a playlist, or put the whole damn thing on shuffle, and hit play.
I would recommend choosing a particular album you like, or create a playlist of tunes you really enjoy.

This helps in two ways in my opinion:
1- Time will seems to slip by as you are cutting up your vegetables, or boiling your water. A little hip shaking can go a long way :)

2- Since you are listening to music you enjoy, your brain will associate that joy with your activity. There fore positively enforcing "happy" with "cooking", voila.

I am no scientist, but I have done this myself, I now look forward to choosing an album and making my dishes, it really works.

Try it out some time, the worst thats going to happen is that you will have a good time making your dinner :)
I'll blog you later.


Much Love
Mosno Al-Moseeki
www.mosno.net |  Insta/Tweet: @mosno_music

Space: A Philisophical Frontier

Space, has been living in my brain since I was about 9 years old, I'm talking about "Outer Space". Growing up in the 3rd world, an unfortunate common idea is "The Sky", quite literally, "the sky" is the limit. So you can imagine my shock when I learned about "Astronauts" when I arrived in the USA when I was about 9 years old. The "idea" that there is MORE then just "The Sky", blew my mind. Ever since then, I've had an infatuation with Outer Space.

Unfortunately a short 3 years later I was sent back into the 3rd world, and by the time I returned, I had to focus on things like learning the educational system of the USA so that I can get a college degree, and of course work full-time to support myself getting that degree. I think if I had not been sent out the USA at age 12, I would probably have been an Astronaut.

One of my dreams is to be the 1st Sudanese artist to perform at the International Space Station, and no I'm not joking. I genuinely want to do that, and will keep trying until I achieve it one day.
I have my personal reasons for wanting to do this, but one of my reasons is to hopefully help my beloved people of Sudan know that "The Sky" is NOT the limit.

I'm currently reading a book called "The Overview Effect" by Frank White, he has been labeled a "Space Philosopher", and rightly so. The book is fascinating to me, it talks about the emotional and philosophical effect of seeing "Earth" from outer space. The experience is different for each astronaut, but there is a common theme, unity. It really is amazing.
I will be talking more about this book and my thoughts on it in future posts, so brace yourselves :)

One of things that I keep thinking about is "Why don't they have an 'Art' mission to outer space?". One of the quotes in the book was from one of the Astronauts who said "They should send poets, not test pilots", because one of the first questions they are asked is "What was it like?", and many of them don't have the words to describe it.

It is no secret that 'Art' is a powerful tool, from paintings, to songs, to poems & novels. Artists are in a way superheros, with the power to evoke thought and emotion. I constantly use the cosmos in my writing, be it references, or flat out songs like "Cosmic River" which is about auroras, and "Moonless Planet" about the "planet of contemplation" which is part of a universe I created for my concept album "Novella".
Maybe I should become a "Space Desert Poet", I'm practically one already :)
I was having a conversation with my talented friend and musical brother Nelson of Nelly's Echo, and he even challenged me to write a song that DOESN'T have some kind of cosmos reference, needless to say, I did not accept the challenge, I love my cosmos too much :)

I've never thought I would be a "philosophy" guy, but this book is really getting my brain gears to turn, adding more questions to the ones I already have about "life on Earth". One thing I also noticed, is that most of the countries who live in a particular "Archaic Thinking Bubble", don't have a Space Program.
I wonder if there is a connection.

I have a feeling this book is going to add fuel to the Space Fire that is already with in me, what I have been reading so far has actually given me hope that my dream of visiting outer space may actually happen, so I'm crossing my fingers, and trying to find avenues to make it possible. I can only imagine what kind of material I will end up writing about that out of world experience.
Wish me luck :)

Much Love
Mosno Al-Moseeki
www.mosno.net | Inta/Tweet: @mosno_music

The Other Blogs Posts

I love to blog, and being a creative, vegan, musician, tech, space enthusiast kind of person, I tend to write quite frequently on a variety of topics. I had a couple of blogs that I would post to, but I really wanted ONE place to be able to write about ALL my topics, and I simply keep it super organized, to make it easy for my readers to find.

I will not re-write my previous posts from my other blogs, I will just have links to them below if you wish to read the older posts. All the new posts, to all my blogs, will be on this one from now one, and I will use the the older blogs name, as the label for all future posts, because I can already tell, there are already a few projects which I want to blog about, so here we go:

mosNOLOGY
This is the blog in which I would write about tech & gadgets, as a musician / creative person, I tend to use all different kind of tech, and in this section I will be talking about that.
older mosNOLOGY posts here

Vegan Muses
I'm a new Vegan, and I have decided to document my adventure as a musician turning vegan, its been a great adventure, and I will continue to write about that aspect of life.
older Vegan Musez posts here

Earthman Effect
I'm a HUGE Space enthusiast, I enjoy reading and discovering new things about this vast universe we live in, and I've recently been sucked into the beautiful world of "The Overview Effect", and it is sparking some ideas in which I will talk about in this section

Thoughts
That is just that, sometimes I just have random thoughts, or point of views about general topics, and I figured that if it doesn't fit into the other 3 specific categories, then it would go here.

As the blog progresses, I might end up adding more sections, who knows, but for now, these are the things occupying my mind.

I hope you enjoy the journey with me.
Much Love

Mosno Al-Moseeki
www.mosno.net