Timeline

2001: Born in Brisbane, Australia

2002-2014: Lived in Malaysia and went to school at Garden International School in Kuala Lumpur.

2014-2020: Went through high school and was diagnosed with cancer twice. Played professional Dota 2 in my time recovering at home. Ranked 219th in south-east Asia at my peak and 537 in the world. Coached other players how to improve at the game. Competed in online and in-person tournaments in Australia.

2021-2025: Began producing music under boyfriday, enrolled in Creative Music Technology at The Conservatorium and dropped my first album MR. 80%. Started working @ Apple, and dropped an EP in 2024.

2026: Graduated, currently the lead guitar player for Colleen Ave, continuing at Apple and branching out into freelancing to support my life and interests outside of work.

Current Beliefs

Friends

I really find the concept of friends fascinating because we’ve built a family bond out of a chance meeting at school 12 years ago. They’re the people I’ve grown up alongside, the people that understand me the best, the people I’ve made the most mistakes around, and made plenty of memories with too.

If life was a video game and I had to put all my skill points into anything, I’d put them all into being mates with the fellas.

Would I be the same as you?

I’d like to preface this section by saying:

I recognise that I’ve grown up in an extremely fortunate situation. I’ve never had to worry about access to clean water, food, electricity, education, risk of natural disasters, dinner on the table, physical or mental abuse at home, being without a home etc.

This privilege is the structure beneath a significant proportion of my beliefs and reasoning. It shapes how I interact with the people I love, strangers, and is the clearest way of capturing my my behaviour and how I am as happy as I am.

A core belief that grounds a lot of my emotional judgement at the moment comes from a forgiveness meditation I did a few years ago. It’s also concept that is deeply rooted in Buddhism - under the umbrella of dependent origination.

At the time, I was working through past experiences with my father’s alcoholism, and a difficult relationship with a friend when I was challenged with the question:

If I had their genes, their brain, their childhood, their parents, their traumas, their relationships, their experiences, and every other condition that shaped them, would I have acted differently?

Hearing this, it became simple for me to let go of the frustration I had towards others and look at their actions with kinder eyes. Recognising that I’m not entirely the author of our experience helps me have more compassion for myself and others, and in-turn, bring a sense of equanimity to my day-to-day interactions.

My happiness is my responsibility

This idea of, "we’d be the same if I were you", was the slam dunk from the alley-oop of a prior nugget of wisdom I heard from Dr. K which is:

It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility.

This quote bubbles up especially when I’m feeling frustrated toward some difficult life circumstance or an unwanted side effect of ADHD. It’s easy to wallow in self-pity when life doesn’t seem to be going our way but implementing this mindset does wonders for me in those moments. It takes all the subjectivity out of the equation and reminds me that no one else is going to fix this for me.

Additionally, I find it helpful to acknowledge that taking home $56,000 AUD a year makes me richer than 95% of the world’s population. So whatever I might be negative experience I may have, probably isn’t so bad in the grand scheme of things.

My ability to implement these tools each day wouldn’t be sufficient if it wasn’t for my meditation practice. Meditating has had tremendous benefits for recognising unhealthy mind-states faster and with more clarity. If you’re interested in learning more, Headspace was how I got started or message me here hello@hughjbarton.com