Do you listen to and follow music to fill a void in your soul that you perhaps unconsciously believe can only be filled by material or externally derived pleasures?

I know several people who are yet to come to the same conclusion.

At this stage of my life I'm decidedly more interested in making my own music rather than listening to someone elses.

Ultimately I think one needs a greater purpose than just checking out and listening to tons of music, even if that purpose is just actually writing about the music or making your own. I actually found that element of "High Fidelity" to be right on -- the part about the main character needing to feel like he is "bringing something into the world" (paraphrasing) and not just a "professional appreciator".

CUSAK: "should I sleep with Lisa Bonet again?"

BLONDE GF: "What?"

CUSAK: "Sorry, you're not supposed to be around when I monologue."

Hm, maybe but

if you didn't have music, how would you spend your time?

much worse, I'm fairly sure, if not criminally.

good point. i think that's an important issue for me; that there must be some sort of dialogue between the media and myself. i feel like one of the big points for me in how i spend my time is that i want to grow as a person when i do things, and unless i have some sort of dialogue with my media, or create media by myself, it is ultimately somewhat useless to me in the long run.

furthermore, in regards to what someone else said, I understand that there's no hard separation between "life" and "music", and that they are clearly interconnected, yet I found that there was a point where I found that doing certain things like watching TV and obsessively listening to music kept me from engaging completely in the real world. Although these things might complement or enhance our lives, I eventually came to the conclusion that focusing on them as a major part of my daily life was doing an injustice to my limited time on this earth, and moreover was causing me to, in a way, de-evolve.

anyway, this epiphany planted itself in my brain one fine morning in early 2003, and my obsessiveness for music simply slipped away, almost overnight. i still listen to music, but i couldn't even tell you a good album i discovered in 2004, which when i hear myself saying, i find somewhat hard to believe, considering the way i used to be.

also, maybe what happened to me was that the highs stopped coming. music used to give me what I was looking for in my life in general-- those brief moments of sublime pleasure. maybe it could even be likened to an addiction, where music was the drug i used most often to produce feelings of pleasure. yet, as time progressed, the highs were never as high as they used to be, and i'd have to try harder and harder to get that previous high, which resulted in me searching for weirder, crazier, and more obscure music (to be slightly facetious about it). it was going through this consistently disappointing process of finding new music that i discovered that the music wasn't having the strong effects on me that it used to. from this, i concluded that i was misguidedly trying to achieve positive feelings by obsessively consuming music, and i had been pathetically reduced to searching for a high. i guess i felt in my heart that for real, lasting pleasure i'd have to go somewhere deeper than consuming all these mass produced products.

and although i still appreciate music, and certain albums still give me intense pleasure, i'm not convinced that it is beneficial for me to search out new albums to do this, and anyway i have definitely lost my zeal for it. compounding this is the fact that the commodification and celebrity culture of music has further discouraged me from walking that road again. interestingly, i've sort of rediscovered musical pleasure in folk music from around the world, which has a certain stripped down and spiritually purposeful 'soul' to it that i now feel is rarely observable in most commercially produced music. but even this is a very minor pleasure i take, and where music used to be my life, it is now only a subtle footnote. i mostly just enjoy the silence-- which of course, my friends who claim to listen to 8+ hours of music a day find disappointing and lame of me. they say that i'm just a malcontent now because i don't bother with it; they say my standards have gotten too high. i dunno, i guess i just prefer to call it a different set of priorities.

anyway i don't mean to criticize the music consuming habits of anyone here; these are only personal observations that i noticed in myself, and i just thought i'd throw them out there to see if anyone else had similar feelings.

This is one of the most exciting things to me about "keeping up" with music (or any art form, really), aside from the sonic pleasures of any given record: the notion that your experiences with and ideas about that record are part of a larger discourse. Writing about music professionally is probably the most obvious way to engage in that discourse, but I find something thrilling about just having good conversations with other people about music. (And obviously ILM and the blogosphere serve as intermediary realms.)

This thread is very interesting.

In response to KKK's original question: yes. There used to be someone who filled that void in my life and then all of a sudden that person wasn't there any more.

How I went about forlornly trying to refill that void is extensively documented.

Sitting in a room on one's own "engaging" with music as a substitue for sitting in room with other people "engaging" with them. I gather Marcello used to (figuratively) sit in a room with a person AND some music and "engage" with both, thus getting the best of both worlds (apologies for any projection/assumption here, Marcello).

I am certainly feeling less and less as though being a "professional appreciator" is what I want, but I do still need som ekind of relationship/dialogue with music/culture.

Sitting in a room on one's own "engaging" with music as a substitute for sitting in a room with other people "engaging" with them

Yes that's pretty much my situation as it stands, though I would prefer to think of it as an alternative rather than a substitute.

I'm wondering if maybe I've hit a peak point, a fruition, a goal that I was aiming for and that probably wont be surpassed again, and maybe I should just chill the fuck out about music now, enjoy what I like and keep "an interest", but spend time enjoying other things too.

Let's not make this personal Marcello, hmm? I don't know you and you don't know me.
I'm not some random troll who just googled his way in here, I'm here everyday and you'll find I am perfectly reasonable if you can refrain from trying to insult me personally. I won't push the issue any further if you don't.

good advice, we should all do that. oh wait...

this is 'funny' if you've been paying attention

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...), February 5th, 2004 5:35 AM.

-is really any different (besides the fact that I used lax grammar and syntax, and you wrote a nice proper paragraph) than what I did on this thread. It was your first post on that thread, you vehemently disagreed with the opening post, and you said so - none too cordially.

I wonder if the prevalence of downloaded music helps decrease it's existence as a commodity, as an object? It's certainly different from people who need to buy clothes or cars etc. to gain happiness.

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, you've been a marvellous audience, my name's Hope and Keen, park your Crazy Bus nicely, good night...

/bleh.

(If anything, my internet is probably more of an unhealthy attempt to fill a void.)

Music surely makes things more bearable, even exciting sometimes.

Music can be inspiring. It can inspire one to do better, be better, and so on.

The part that confuses me is not that I spend so much money on music, it's that other people aren't as passionate about music as I am. Life would be better if I could spend more time talking about music and less time thinking about stupid things like politics (just kidding).

But I did have a horrible nightmare about the US presidential election
last night

King Korn - how old were you in early 2003 when this epiphany occured?

I was 24.

KKK - an unfortunate acronym

Shit. I didn't notice that awful acronym. The name is from a character in a 1987 video game Pro Wrestling, for NES. My apologies. I am not a racist.

Anyway, I knew that this thread would cause some people to react negatively to what I was saying-- after all, it's a sentiment that is easy to mock, and difficult to explain, and hard as hell to defend in an era of cynicism. And to respond to other jabs, I'm not sure if this change in me has been for the better or for the worse. I would lean towards better, if only that I've stopped to reflect on what the important things in my life are, and how I should spend my energy to reflect that.

It sounds like you're being facetious, but then what you're saying also sounds entirely plausible, where you say it in a way that might elicit laughter, but behind the laughter there is a truth to it. If what you are saying is true, then do you feel that the music is truly an adequate surrogate for what you are looking for, or are you "settling" for something lesser when you don't get what you are really looking for? And do you find this state of events acceptable? And are you willing to continue doing it at the cost of getting the "ass" you seek?

OTM, as others might say.

I think, however, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy when it comes to my large(ish) record collection against my political beliefs, and a hypocrisy which is not really very justifiable. Nor do I think, at this current moment in time, that downloading music helps to resolve this conflict - to do so I have, after all, had to purchase a computer and the Broadband connection with it, which is an indulgent luxury as much as the purchase of vinyl or CDs.

And whilst the 'spiritual' side to this argument is something I find slightly nauseating (yes, it would be nice to find transcendence and/or meaning, but there isn't any, you are on your own, you will die, there is nothing afterwards, terribly sorry) music has provided an impetus to keep going and an inspiration to question things (normally unrelated to overt subject matter, for some reason) that nothing else has.

So, in summary, I don't know.

[x-post: as for getting some 'ass', of course it will work! It's fool-proof!]

emil.y, I must be worse than a fool then.

Why nauseating? Not saying that it's necessarily true in your case or with anyone else here, but I think that many people reject the spiritual because it is not easily quantifiable or explainable, and it leads to ideas that are buttressed by more by vague and undefinable feelings more than articulable concepts, which leaves a funny taste in our logical minds, and also many of us have associative issues with spirituality (i.e. seeing flakey "spiritual" new agers with power crystals in SUVs). Nevertheless, I think it's important, and something that's easily overlooked or pushed to the side without being given its fair due because of its elusive nature.

But then, maybe it is silly to speak of "true meaning" in one's life, given that the meaning only comes from what you assign that meaning to be. Yet, it does not stop me from feeling that some assigned meanings are more worthy than others, and what most people assign as their meanings are simply distractions that allow them to divorce themselves from engagement with reality, in the same way that an alcoholic feels he needs to drink to psychologically make it to the next day, or at least to escape the numbing boredom he faces due to his lack of engagement in the first place. Now, I'm not going to say that every music fanatic is like this, but I don't think I would be going out on a limb to say it's true for at least some of them, and I think I used to be one myself. But let me just posit this one hypothetical situation, and I say this without any smugness, hostility, irony, or self-righteousness: suppose for a moment, just imagine, a world in which all of us just spent, let's say a QUARTER of the time that we spend on music, TV, and all that, on doing something positive in the world, whatever that may be (of course, I don't really know what these positive actions would be or how they would manifest themselves in real life), but wouldn't it change a lot to have the world have the same enthusiasm for that as what we have for our personal hobbies? I think it could make all the difference in our increasingly fractured and dysfunctional world. Now, I'm as guilty as anyone in NOT doing doing these undefined positive things, and it is not a pleasant feeling for me, and I often feel disgust for myself in my inaction, but I continue to justify it by saying that "Oh, I don't know what I'd do."

And I know some of you out there will read this and immediately dismiss it as the tedious ramblings of some lame hippie guy who's got his head up his ass (or arse, if you are British), but I am not a hippie, nor am I a spaced out new age guy. I'm someone just like all of you, and I'm just looking for some insight and opinion.

OK, it's not the stereotypical new-ager types who get me, it's everybody. Everybody who thinks that there is something more, and deeper and more meaningful. It's a blind that I feel prevents most people from actually achieving anything that you seem to be striving for. Official bodies of spirituality - churches etc - negate any good that they may do by creating division and restriction, external hatred and self-loathing, while personal odysseys tend to be just as indulgent and self-centred as spending all of your time collecting records.

Yes, it would be amazing to have every person devote some time to helping their fellow humans, but I don't see why you feel that music is stopping them from doing this, and I really don't understand why anyone would feel that it is more preventative than anything else (but I guess you're arguing about everything else as well?).

but music itself is a spiritual, mental, social or intellectual pleasure more than a physical one

I think that many people reject the spiritual because it is not easily quantifiable or explainable, and it leads to ideas that are buttressed by more by vague and undefinable feelings more than articulable concepts, which leaves a funny taste in our logical minds, and also many of us have associative issues with spirituality (i.e. seeing flakey "spiritual" new agers with power crystals in SUVs). Nevertheless, I think it's important, and something that's easily overlooked or pushed to the side without being given its fair due because of its elusive nature.

It seems like the same thing to me. After all, feeling like you can't go on suggests that you are experiencing a lack of something you need or want.

What do you mean by spirituality?

It is difficult to define, as it defies articulation, particularly in a manner that doesn't sound schlocky. I won't even try, but I'm pretty sure that it's a concept we can all understand without a strict definition.

Sreeni, your wiseass quip implies that I'm trolling, which I am not. I'm asking for some feedback and opinions of other people who might share some of my feelings about this, and judging from some of the response, there are some people who are interested in discussing this. If you don't want to answer in a meaningful way, you don't have to; there are plenty of other threads that might be more your cup of tea.

Fair enough. I suppose it means the part of consciousness that eschews the physical and material in exchange for the intangible and mental. But still, that seems reductive.

Not for those who belong to a church. And not everyone who goes to church is a right-wing fundamentalist. And who said spirituality had to have an official body anyway?

But in that sentence I conceded that there is some good in these official bodies, ie charitability, community etc. This is still negated by what is taught, namely that you are right and Godly or holy or about to transcend. This is taught even in liberal churches. Plus, those churches that attempt to modernise are merely displaying their own irrelevance. AND, if you read the whole of what I said, you may notice that I didn't even imply that these were the only paths of spirituality, I made a somewhat facile distinction between official bodies and personal journeys.

I suppose it means the part of consciousness that eschews the physical and material in exchange for the intangible and mental.

But then surely you're rejecting the physical efforts of people to help those who are in desperation/a less fortunate position than yourself in favour of navel-gazing? Which lends favour to my anti-spirituality judgement, as well as marking your dismissal of music as an oddity, seeing as music, to me, is part of the intangible and mental side of oneself.

Not at all; you are reading my words very literally, as if an adherence to the spiritual necessitates a complete and total rejection of the physical, including mental and spiritual action that manifests itself in physical action. Who would argue that a guy who sits in his room all day thinking is-- grrrr- "more spiritual" (i would like to avoid this term from hereon out) than someone who is doing physical labor to help people? Not me, anyway. But now we're getting into philosophical areas that hinge on semantic reasoning...

I'd like to redirect the discussion to some more personally contemplative issues and observations regarding our habits, rather than arguments regarding the validity/invalidity of MY feelings or comments exclusively. I'm not trying to get psychoanalyzed here; it's more like Musiholics Anonymous, where I'm trying to elicit responses from everyone on your own observations about your music habits and their relationship to your beliefs and the larger picture of reality.

Again, I never said that you HAD to answer it. I naturally (obviously rather naively) assumed that only people who connected or somehow could relate to what I was saying would respond. but alas, this is the internet, and every asshole with fingers has to get their word in, regardless of whether they have anything significant to contribute or not.

and without getting too uppity here, you might think it's stupid, but i feel like it's not only relevant, but also more important than what's on Ashlee Simpson's IPod. Of course, that is an opinion, and I don't think less of anyone who contributes to that thread. everything is relative. this may not be an important issue for anyone else but me, but that's the nature of human opinion; it runs the gamut on every issue known to us as a species. that's nothing new.

...But I was hoping to see some honest and heartfelt response to what I was talking about, and I thank those of you who did talk about it. I'm sorry that the negative flames had to enter the picture because, even they could be stated in a way that would have addressed the question by stating a lack of relation, rather than being dismissive of me for asking.

And regarding "overanalysis"-- I know what you are talking about. There are many areas of our lives that don't require analysis that somehow get it anyway like: "what did it mean when that girl said 'hi'? did it mean she liked me??", and many areas of theoretical philosophy and metaphysics that aren't applicable in anyone's real life... but is it overanalysis to examine one's own behavior and the thought processes that drive one's behavior every single day of one's life? I don't think so. If I didn't do it, I might as well be a robot because I'd be on autopilot 24/7, and going through my life without thinking about anything regarding myself and my behavior, and why I act the way I do, why I don't live up to my own moral/ethical standards, and so on. Surely you can all at least relate to that. It's that part of me that is asking this question.

"An unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

Probably. But it also helps to set my soul free sometimes, when I hear a soulful refrain, or a wash of anguished feedback, or the click clack of a little mirohouse my soul feels a bit less constrained and I like that.

i hesitate to fuel your seething adolescent rage, but why is this thread insulting to you? and why do you continue to post all these angry and negative comments on a thread that you don't relate to?

all this ultimately disposable music was a method for me to distract myself from finding true purpose and meaning in my life.

it often seems sad and inexcusable that it's easier for me to get excited and passionate about some stupid CD than events that affect the wellbeing of the human race, and the world at large.

how do you justify the way you spend your time? does the commodification of music undermine its ultimate goals to the human spirit? do you see any hypocrisy in the amount of time you spend on music and your political beliefs?

i feel like one of the big points for me in how i spend my time is that i want to grow as a person when i do things, and unless i have some sort of dialogue with my media, or create media by myself, it is ultimately somewhat useless to me in the long run.

Although these things might complement or enhance our lives, I eventually came to the conclusion that focusing on them as a major part of my daily life was doing an injustice to my limited time on this earth, and moreover was causing me to, in a way, de-evolve.

i've sort of rediscovered musical pleasure in folk music from around the world, which has a certain stripped down and spiritually purposeful 'soul' to it that i now feel is rarely observable in most commercially produced music. but even this is a very minor pleasure i take, and where music used to be my life, it is now only a subtle footnote. i mostly just enjoy the silence

ANSWER ME OR I'LL KILL YOU

Will post on the subject in a moment, have definitely been thinking a lot about this.

But you've already made it clear that you don't agree, Aaron. So now you're:

1) no longer contributing anything significant
2) engaging in harrassment
3) being aggressive and hostile
4) making pointed personal attacks

which basically means that you're trolling. Anyway, this will be my last post to you because it is clear that you are seeking negative attention, and my speaking with you is bringing down the quality of discourse, and causing an atmosphere of hostility and negativity. But your points are acknowledged, and I thank you for sharing your opinion. I'm sorry that we were unable to speak to each other at an adult level, Aaron.

By the way From a Land of Grass Without Mirrors using the word facist to end a sentence is a little overkill.

Kinda reminds me of those goth kids on south park.

THANKS AND GOODNIGHT

I've been very concerned about my listening habits for the last two years as they've gotten entirely out of control. when I come home, I'm not comfortable until I've got the CD player running, almost like someone heading for the liquor cabinet before they've taken their coat off. A mid-thirties thing, I'm lucky it's not actually alcoholism (someday you'll understand, jon williams).

Two points, one: fear narcotics. If you find yourself listening to music that does nothing but make you turn inward, then moderate your intake. Painkillers are great but make sure what you're listening has more of a point than total blissout.

Secondly: There no room for politics in absolute music but I don't think it's a mistake that my musical tastes have drawn me towards people who share and sometimes influence my political beliefs, once I learned what they were through research.

Most people in the world do not own stereos. A friend of mine just retired from managing an insanely successful independent record store because she was sick of enabling consumer escapism; she's volunteering with political websites now and I admire her flexibility. It hit me really hard. I want to stay entirely focused on listening & playing music. But I'm aware that may not be an option for too much longer.

I think you may have interpreted your "dependence" on music a little harshly.

Having had some experience with being debilitated on narcotics I can understand the appeal of the music metaphor.

However.

Music can be so much more than mere escapism. It is ephemeral art that you can share with your friends, discuss, be intellectually stimulated by, and use to inspire yourself with.

I have recently begun a program of limiting my music intake by several degrees of magnitude. With a new child we simply do not have the money to sustain my endless music lust. I am finding it not as bad as I thought though. I am able to listen with more depth to the things I do have, which makes me happily remember the high school days of only owning a few cassettes that I played endlessly. Also i am able to recapture that time I felt I was losing to my record shopping.

Music can be addictive, but in a world of endless choices of addiction it seems relatively benign. By the way good luck to your friend working with politics but that is a far worse jones to kick than music.

cute girl at a party the other night, I guess that she's from Russia before she tells me her name is Natasha, so that's good, she actually pulls off wearing shoulder length gloves, she's insanely sharp. so what do I do? within thirty seconds I'm talking about how the invention of equal temprament choked off polyphonic chant just as it was about to get interesting. she says 'uhm sorry english is my second language could you repeat some of that' and I just look at her and say 'ANIMAL DESPAIR'

it didn't work too well as a pickup line, so back to my perotin CD

耕ちゃんの「あそびってなんや」No.2
地域集団で子どもたちが遊ぶとき、一人一人としゃべるときのしゃべり方や
距離の取り方を無意識のうちに変え、相手との関係を瞬時に判断しながら変えていく
しなやかさを身につけ、集団と個を経験で認識し、集団の中での自分を生かす道筋を
知らず知らずにつけていくという果実が生まれるわけですが、
その果実こそが他人とのコミュニケーションの基礎となっていくわけです。
このおいしい果実を食べないで過ごしてしまう子どもたちが、
オートメーションによる製造物のように製造されているのが今日の子どもの状況と
言えるでしょう。もちろん充分家族とも交わらなければいけないわけですが、
今はそれさえも難しい時代になってしまいました。家族とも交わらないということは、
個の確立（人格の形成）が充分なされない可能性があります。
個の確立が充分なされないままファミコンなどの浸ってしまうのは、
自慰行為を進めているようなもので、非常に危険です。そればかり他と交わり
切磋琢磨する時間と奪いかねません。出来るならば個がしっかりと確立するまでは
そういう文化に浸らないようにさせたいですが、「そうもいかない」と言う声が
聞こえてきそうです。ファミコンは日本の生んだ優れた文化の一つですが、
人格が充分形成されないうちにそれを与えることは、
ファミコンの中の世界がその子の人格に刻み込まれる可能性があることを
親は認識しなければなりません。「子どもはいつの時代も変わりない」
と思っていましたが、最近はその考えを改めなければいけないと
出会う子どもを見て思います。個の確立が充分なされない子どもが多いことを
特に最近感じます。
子どもたちのしゃべる言葉の中から、少し前には「てにをは」の助詞が消え、
今「ぼくが」「私が」主語が消えようとしているのです。
「ぼくは○○ちゃんと○○する。」と5歳ぐらいになったら普通はしゃべることが
出来るのですが、それが出来ない子が結構目立ちます。
それはとりもなおさず自分自身の認識が出来ていないことを表すのですが・・
続きは次号で

耕ちゃんの「遊びってなんや」NO.3
　私が子供の頃、遊び集団の中には必ずボスのような役目の子がいて、
みんなを仕切ると同時に私たちの面倒も見てくれていました。
もちろん彼は良いことも悪いことも教えてくれたのですが、
彼のその卓越した能力に羨望のまなざしを向けていたのは
私だけではありませんでした。遊びの中での彼の行為は、
全て無償の行為であり、当然彼がやっていたことは、
いつしか私たちもするようになっていきました。
　まさに遊びの中での文化の継承を行っていたのです。
自然派生的に出来たあそび集団の中で、
生きるための目標となるべき人間像をつかみ取っていたわけです。
ところが今はその目標が持ちにくい時代です。
親の生き生き働く姿を見てなければなおさら、
目標となるべき人間像は自分の内側から消滅し、自分が何者かわからず、
ただ浮き世を浮遊していくだけの人間になってしまいます。
解決するには、なにより遊び集団の復活しか方法はないのですが、
その課題を克服するべき大人たちが、もうすでになるべき人間像を
見失っている人が多いですから、解決には相当の困難が予想されます。
遊び集団に変わる、無償の行為の中で育つ環境が今まさに必要なのです。
　今日、劇場や文庫、そういった運動がそれらのことに気づいた
お母さんたちの手で根付いてきました。
それらはまさに遊び集団に変わる無償の行為を保証してくれる場所なのですが、
前記のような理由でこの運動も現在継続しにくい状況が生まれています。
運動に関わる人たちには、自分たちのやっていることの意味を再確認してもらって、
「がんばれ」とエールを送り続けたいと思います。
　次回からは遊びの具体的な中身について書きたいと思います。
人形劇団とんと　前田耕一
2000年3.27

あそびってなんや.4
遊べない若者が最近増えています。
そのほとんどが乳幼児期に遊びの礎が出来ていないことが原因です。
子どもの遊びに欠かせない最も身近で、最も欠かせないおもちゃがあります。
それは、人間のからだです。
その中でも最も優れたおもちゃが手と顔です。
手と顔があれば、数限りない遊びが出来ます。
赤ちゃんは親の手の感触と声によって、
安心感と同時に遊び（文化）の礎を得ることになります。
「いないいない、ばあ」は手と顔によって成り立ちますが、
赤ちゃんにとっては、その所作が遊びの第一歩です。
赤ちゃんには繰り返しやってあげると、本当に喜びます。
「いない」という言葉の意味は解っていなくても、
「いない」が顔を隠すのだとわかると
今度は顔が見える瞬間を期待するようになります。
親の顔が見えたときの表情は、この上なく至福の顔をしてます。
「いないいない」の言い方の工夫で、
顔が見える瞬間への期待感を膨らませることができます。
「い・な・い・い・な・い」と一音一音切ったり、
「いないいない」を速く言ったり、またおそくいったり、
抑揚を付けたり、平板に言ったり、
「ばあ」の前に間を入れたり、
「ばあ」を可愛く言ったり強く言ったり、
「ばあ」をのばしたり詰めたり、
「ばあ」の瞬間の顔の表情はおよそ未知数に変えられますので、
そのバリエーションは限りありません。
世の中にこれほど優れているおもちゃは他にありません。
人間のからだ以上に優れたおもちゃはないと思うのですが、
このことを手抜きして既成のおもちゃを次々に与えてしまう風潮は
戒められるべきです。
なぜならそれら既成のおもちゃのほとんどの文化性が
人間のからだの持っている文化性より大きく劣っているからです。
もっとも使う人次第ですが・・・。

人形劇団とんと　前田耕一

あそびってなんや.5
からだと言うおもちゃを使った遊びと同時に、
いろいろな物をおもちゃとして使ってほしいのですが、
その物というのは時には土遊びの土であったり、
木や紙であったり布であったり、
つまり形になる前の素材でたくさん遊んでほしいものです。
その中でも幼児期には土遊びを飽きるほどやってほしいと思います。
土の感触は、晴れが続いたあとと雨上がりでは全く違いますし、
その感触はさわってみなければわかりませんし、
土の地面をほじくり返して、
中から石っころが出てくるととってもうれしいものです。
ありの巣やミミズなんか見つけるともっと嬉しいですね。
石っころやミミズを見つけることは、子供にとっては発見する喜びなのですが、
土の中にはいろんな物が埋まっているという可能性を開くことにもなります。
土に生えている草をほじくり返して、
ながーい根っこを見つけるとまたまた嬉しくなります。
一個発見するとするとあっちこっち掘りたくなります。
掘って一つ発見して、また次を掘る。いくら掘っても飽きません。
掘った穴に雨が降って水がたまると、また違った遊びのキャンバスになります。
水の中に指を突っ込み、
全部はいるとどのくらいはいるのか確かめるように腕全部を水の中に。
泥水だと自分の手が全く見えなくなります。
小さい子はこれが面白くてたまりません。
出したり入れたり何度でも楽しめます。
底の方はどろどろになってまたたまらない感触です。
土の感触、土の状態が水気によって変わっていく様、
土の中に根っこが生えていること、土の中にいる動物、
そして土と関係するありとあらゆる物に目が行き、
やがては・・・・・その土の上に立つ自分や人間社会（と少しオーバーですが）
そういったことを感覚的にからだで憶えていくわけです。
土との関係を感覚で憶えます。
やがて中学、高校と勉学する机上の科学と連鎖的に結びつき
生命の連鎖を感覚的に体得出来るのですが、
汚いと言ってこういうことをやりたがっているのにやらせない親は、
発達の目をつぶしていると自覚しなければいけません。
もっとも安心してほじくり返す地面がないことが
最も憂うべき事なのですが・・・

土を触ると言うことは地球を触ることなのです。
（続く）

　戻る

gives new meaning to the term, "ridin' spinnaz"

To (finally) answer the question: yes, in a way, with the caveat about regarding music as a "material pleasure" that has been mentioned far above.

YEA!

Thanks for reaffirming that for me! At least being dumb means I have better things to do with my time than flooding a bulletin board with crap.

it didn't work too well as a pickup line, so back to my perotin CD "

You are just hanging out at the wrong bars.
Just try and look casual hanging out in the hallways of Cal Arts or another music school.
I know I dated a hottie that was a piano performance major that would have totally been up in your shit for that pick up line.

-- hector (hector233...) (webmail), October 27th, 2004 1:14 AM. (hector) (later) (link)

139 older messages are hidden.

I guess there's no point adding my two cents at this juncture.

Shit.

I suspect I may be suffering from keeping-up-fatigue, meaning that these days when I get home from work I am generally confronted by at least one Jiffy bag with a CD in it (thank you, person at EMI who likes Stylus), but I don't want to put the CD player on. Sometimes I dread choosing something to listen to. Sometimes I dread having to listen to something new that's arrived on spec. A lot of stuff gets a cursory glance at the PR sheet and is discarded into a pile without listening ("sublime Finnish sound-art inspired by the Aurora Borealis" ; "politically-aware Swedish trip hop"). A lot of other stuff that I know I wont get to review gets filed in with my other CDs and stuff with the intention to get it out later and actually enjoy it (Pet Shop Boys DVD). Some stuff gets listened to, reviled and reviewed and sold on promptly so I can buy another Fred Perry (Dirty Vegas!).

I barely seem to have enough time to listen to music I already know I like and have a relationship/dialogue with, let alone try and engage with stuff enough to establish new dialogues. I don't think I ever wanted to be a "professional appreciator", I just wanted to understand better why I love the stuff I love, how I can find new stuff that gives me the same feeling, but at the same time I'm wary of turning into Hornby by the time I'm 30. But the semi-regular existential panic (or, perhaps, near-constant degree of existential awareness brought into being by years of semi-regular existential panic) I live my life within means, I hope, that this wont ever happen. Because no matter how much I'd like to stop, and only ever listen to Talk Talk and Orbital and whoever else again and never buy another CD (I said recently, when asked how many CDs I owned, that I had "nearly enough", and am almost constantly contemplating, lately, getting rid of the ones I suspect I'll never wish to listen to again), I don't think i could do that.

What I need, like anyone with anything, is some degree of balance.

But music is more interesting than 'the wellbeing of the human race', much of which seems to want to kill each other for money, oil, law or some stupid fucking God their forebears wished into existence to give their empty lives some point.

I'm not syaing people aren't important, but at some point you have to grow up and realise there are more important things than saving the world.

And the conclusion I came to is this: if I'm not shopping for used CD's or going to some CD fair or listening to anything on my 2ft.high "to listen" pile, or writing crap on a music forum somewhere, I don't know what to do! I try, but I can't find the same thrill in other things. I recently started doing some music photography and the casual review once in a while, but even so, it's hardly unrelated. It seems music has really got me addicted, in a way that I can't think about anything else.

I think it's time for me to get a girlfriend.
Quickly.

I have experienced the same sentiments you are now expressing. For me, though, it wasn't music. It was something else. Later, like yourself, I tried to fill my void with an obsessive music hobby, which I still do today. I believe other people have tried to say (although in different words), that nothing will fill that void. Everything you place into it will be a temporary solution that will ultimately make no difference.

I believe that one of the only things that is truly universal "human nature" is the void. It's timeless as well and be witnessed in the oldest literature still available, and the subsequent failing search to satisfy the void. No matter, like teenagers, people have a tendency to think it is a phenomonen unique to themselves, their time, or their society.

It reminds me of this commercial I saw on TV once for some Church. It has some guy standing there saying, "Do you feel like something is missing in your life? You can't figure out what, but you can feel it? YOU NEED JESUS PRAISE ALLAH, etc." Although I'm sure that somehow convincing myself that I believe in Christian theology wouldn't be any more effective than music, it almost makes me want to try.

Welcome to being a semi-nihilistic. The first step is realizing that you're trying to fill a void in yourself with something that isn't working. The next step is accepting the fact that nothing will.

That's a very interesting and astute point, Mickey. Perhaps it is this very thing that makes us do what we do. In fact, I'm almost sure it is. I think that filling this void is what all these musicians we love are trying to do with their music, all the scientists who push themselves and their technologies, all the activists, politicians, movie stars, writers, and everyday people like ourselves who find something to try and fill it... In fact, you might even say that the people who become famous and drive themselves to do great things are the ones who, ironically, are more cognizant of their void and feel more like they have to validate themselves somehow. In this sense, the void might be in some way equated with self-loathing, a sobering way of viewing the course of humanity throughout the ages.

Of course, the question is whether the void can ever be filled by anything. Like I said before, that void sometimes-- ever so fleetingly-- seems filled in my heart. I used to experience that feeling especially in music. I'd get lost in the words and melodies of music, and it would haunt and enchant my heart, but at some point, this feeling starting to wane. Yet, hundreds upon hundreds of albums kept coming out week after week-- so many, in fact, that I, like the other people who mentioned this point, panicked, and (wrongly) put the emphasis on getting the albums rather than listening to them closely, engaging in them, forming a dialogue, and growing with them. This was a process that never registered with me until I started questioning why I was losing interest in music despite the fact that my hard drive was getting larger and larger with MP3s (most of which I rarely, if ever, listen to!).

But now, even though I'm aware of my recent lack of effort in forming a dialogue with my music, I'm not entirely sure that it's beneficial for me to do it with any sort of the rabidness that I used to exhibit. Or to rabidly do anything for that matter. Like many of other people mentioned, I channeled a lot of my energy into making music, writing, and making art, that while they will probably not be appreciated by others, I feel is a good form of expression and growing within myself.

At the risk of bringing this conversation to a down-to-earth level :), what might this music be, Milton? I'm curious.

this thread is missing something without the porn. perhaps we should start over on the noise board.

and you posted a ton of it.

I thought this referred to the thread itself, momentarily.

That guy casts a long shadow over ILM.

Not that anyone was talking about Buddhism, but the sort of question asked at the start of this thread, pushed to its extreme, could point in that sort of direction.

Siouxsie and the Banshees: Love in a Void
The Raincoats: [I think they have a song with the word void in it, but I can't actually make out what they are saying in this case]

I think what I might have been thinking when I said this was: if I just stopped buying CDs (and maybe similar things) and attempted to focus on doing something about my problems (with my job topping the list), I think maybe I would just go under (i.e., suicide).

yes.

Although you stated it properly above, I think your commentary is misleading of the Buddhist ideal. It speaks more to the idea that nothing NEEDS to be done, rather than nothing SHOULD be done. The difference is that one implies an attachment to an activity while the other implies a constant enjoyment of everything without a necessary fixation on [a] particular[s]. It's not meant to be a total rejection of the material, so much as a rejection of the attachment to the material. Perhaps to make a more concrete example, enjoying music without feeling that you need it; you can live with it, you can live without it. You can collect tons of CDs, thousands of them, and enjoy them all, but if the entire collection is stolen, you couldn't care less because you're still enjoying everything.

I find this philosophy very attractive, and in fact, I hope that it is a worldview that someday leaves its stamp on everything I do and feel. I want to enjoy the world, I want to take pleasure in everything, but I never want to feel like that my happiness is dependent on anything external.

This is an interesting thread. Well, except the stupid stuff posted by angry trolls. But I'm curious to hear how some of you who posted nearly 10 years ago feel about all this now.

Music doesn't replace love, family, friends. But it is basically one of the few things I view as justifying the existence of humanity more broadly. I am not a "spiritual" person, but I'm fairly convinced that whatever most people go into religion or spiritual exploration looking for, I find without trying in music. So while of course it can sometimes become merely a game--however enjoyable and valid as such--to search and find and share new musical discoveries, I believe it has added real meaning to my life. And in fact, the creation/sharing/appreciation of music brings us closer to what I take the original poster of this thread to mean are "more important"--other people. It's one of the things that really counters all of the "atrocities" that humans are capable of--because it proves that we're also capable of incredible and, as far as we know, uniquely human expressions of beauty and investment of meaning.

Unlike religion, architecture, even food--music also tends to have much less potential for destruction: even when we might say it's not very good art, if it moves people (physically, mentally, emotionally) and brings them closer to others (literally or figuratively) then it's still a positive achievement. It's one of the aspects of life without which I believe we merely survive--which has been humanity's lot, and may yet be again (perhaps soon). I don't question the impulse to take stock of ones approach to material acquisitions, etc., but one runs the risk of negating the very things that make life worth living just because they don't necessarily keep us alive.

Of course, I don't think about this stuff very often vis-a-vis music--I'd rather be happy that I'm in the right position in history, place, economics, whatever, to appreciate this distinctly human gift. It's amazing, and I'm never going to apologize for giving it a high priority in my life. Of course I won't be on my death bed withing I'd found that one elusive LP (or certainly wishing I'd listened to more indie rock) but I think I will be glad of the memories, associations, shared experiences, and continual joy of discovery that music gave me in my life, and thankful for the ways it connected me to the people I loved. It's part of who I am, all the geekiness is just part of the process--and I'll have no regrets.

I forgot how much I loved Pro Wrestling for the nes.

Sometimes when I hear a beautiful song or a beautiful story, I feel like I don't need anything else in this world. Sometimes these things seem like the only redeeming things about the world to me.