#3 | A Moment of Humming
Releasing 'A Moment of Humming' and confronting the question it asks: What are you spending your time on? On finishing old songs, music archaeology, and finally choosing the habits that matter.
A Moment of Humming
There’s something sacred about bringing an old song back to life. This one started years ago in a hotel room—just me, a laptop, and an idea that refused to fade. Now it’s finally finished and live on Bandcamp and SoundCloud.
Completing a track is one of the most rewarding experiences I know. It’s not just about the final product—it’s about honoring the younger version of myself who heard something worth capturing, even in that temporary space between walls that weren’t mine.
“A Moment of Humming captures the paradox of time—beautiful and deadly at once.
The hummingbird hovers, wings beating impossibly fast, burning energy just to stay still. The hourglass empties, grain by grain. The woman watches both, caught between motion and stillness, aware of what’s slipping away.
This track is about the habits that drain us while pretending to sustain us. The scrolling, the endless checking, the small rituals that feel like rest but leave us exhausted. We hum along, distracted by the motion, not noticing how much we’re consuming just to stay in place.
The hummingbird can’t stop moving or it falls. But we can.
This is the sound of recognizing the drain—that moment when you finally see how much energy you’ve been spending on things that don’t move you forward. It’s the pause before the change, when awareness cuts through the noise.
Time is running. The question is: what are you spending it on?”
Yes, the right question is asked. What am i spending the time on?
Music Discovery Digests
Music research has become one of my most exciting practices. It’s like archaeological work: I’m clearing away the clutter that streaming platforms created—all those years of background listening where music became wallpaper instead of experience.
→ Music Discovery Digest #2 | Iceland Edition
→ Music Discovery Digest #3 | Post-Rock Odyssey Edition
Now I’m rebuilding my relationship with these artists from the ground up. Each digest comes with its own curated playlist, turning research into something you can feel.
Habits
Here’s the truth: I’ve been circling around the most important decision without landing on it. Which habits actually deserve my time? Which ones will move the needle on the life I’m building?
Classic avoidance pattern. I recognise it now.
I can research music for hours. I can polish album descriptions and craft promotional copy. I can organize my Linear boards and map out content strategies across six interconnected projects. But selecting the core habits that everything else should orbit around? That’s where I’ve been stuck.
It’s easier to stay busy than to get brutally specific about what matters.
But something shifted this week. I’ve finally put it on the list in a way I can’t ignore anymore—not buried in someday/maybe territory, not hidden behind more urgent tasks. It’s there, unavoidable, staring back at me.
This is the habit.ist work I’ve been avoiding while building habit.ist itself. The irony isn’t lost on me. Now it’s time to practice what I’m documenting—to make the hard choices about where my finite attention actually goes.
No more circling. Time to land.
What I’m Learning:
Staying productively busy is easier than choosing which habits actually matter
I can complete tracks and research music for hours while avoiding the core question: what deserves my time?
Building habit.ist while dodging habit selection work is peak irony
Transformation requires landing on specifics, not circling good intentions
Time runs whether I’m specific about it or not
Next: Now comes the commitment: I’ll pick the habits, document what they actually do, and keep building. The focus shifts to production—finishing things, shipping work, creating the momentum that makes time feel well-spent instead of just spent.
Every hour I invest needs to reward the movement forward. No more motion without progress.
Murat, I just finished listening to “A Moment of Humming,” and the way you described its paradox—that feeling of motion without progress—really landed with me. The music absolutely captures that tension: fragile, restless, beautiful and haunting all at once.
Your reflections on the track's meaning, especially about the habits that drain us “while pretending to sustain us,” rang true while I was listening. The hummingbird metaphor nails it—how often do we spend so much energy just staying in place, tricking ourselves into thinking we’re getting somewhere?
I also appreciate the honesty you bring to your process here. It’s so easy to stay busy (researching, organizing, even making music) instead of confronting which habits are actually moving our lives forward. The commitment you’re describing—to land on the specifics, to choose with intention—feels so necessary, and much harder than just staying in motion.
Thanks for sharing the track and these thoughts. You ask the right question: what are we really spending our time on? It’s a tough one, but your work nudges us toward answering it honestly.