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

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.