Nobodies Felt Like You

Actions in and of themselves do not produce the most key parts of experience. You can build a bird house, perform the act of sex, arrange notes in time, or any number of other actions, but the mere happening of any of these actions may not lead into expected results. This is a problem with much of human behavior; we have expectations which we expect to achieve through action, and action alone. We're conditioned to believe that certain actions, certain life situations, yield certain results, and to an extent this is true, but there are levels to our experiential self (selves) where the truth of this breaks down.

You can put notes together according to tempo, rhythm, amplitude, dynamic structure, timbre, etc., and according to popular or typically pleasing formats, but

You are not guaranteed to end up with a song that connects you to the world.

You can donate half your income to charities, volunteer in soup kitchens, shelters, support groups, build houses for the homeless, recycle and clean up oil spills, but

You are not guaranteed to then be someone who cares about the world.

You can find someone, get engaged, get married, have kids, raise a family, work hard, retire comfortably, die after 70-80 years still together, but

You are not guaranteed to have lived a happy, fulfilling life.

There's an invisible component, something words can't nail down and describe, that bridges the gap between actions and certain experiential results. It's that 'chemistry' that turns certain arrangements of chords and/or lyrics into soul shivering music/poetry. It's an honesty, which, if you obey it, will lead to actions that are expressive of an existent truth: I care about the world, or, I am truly happy. The actions are very much the result of a truth that is followed, not merely a path towards making something true.

The trouble with this is, what if the actions that result from following your truth are, say, weird, atypical, and/or misunderstood? People might not interpret your actions to mean what they mean for you. So, you might figure, it's safer to perform actions that other people are known to interpret certain ways. That way, through your actions you can persuade them into thinking that you are what you really feel you are (happy, caring, etc.), even though you have to sacrifice your natural impulses, your natural actions. We want to be perceived as what we feel we are, and ironically, we try to achieve that by being things we're not. Does that make sense to you?

The Rite of Spring, a ballet by Stravinsky, when it was first performed in 1913, caused a riot in Paris. It was such a sharp departure from the norms in music at the time, people were upset enough to get into conflicts that devolved into violence. And the baby-boomers think today's rock and roll is a bad influence. But now, I have to wonder, if Stravinsky knew what kind of reaction the public was going to have to his music, or even figured it would have been so bad, there would have been the choice: Write it just like he did, and perform it, or... make it more palatable to the general populace. Something they could understand and enjoy. Something closer to the norm.

Today the Rite of Spring is revered as one of the most amazing pieces of music ever written. A pretty good change from something that inspired a bunch of Frenchmen to beat each other down. Chances are though, that if Stravinsky decided to dumb it down, make it more palatable, it would have been forgotten in a few months. Just another ballet. Not too great, not too dull. The modern music scene suffers greatly from this regurgitation of formula, but not only that - much of our entire lives today is affected by the same ailment: We walk all the familiar paths for fear we will walk away scorned and alone. The result is a sea of bodies, plodding along, not too great, not too dull. Ants, bumping antennae, moving along, to borrow an analogy from a neat little movie I just watched.