DO YOU LISTEN TO YOUR HEART..?

TACTICAL

Pretty static… not much change from previous entry.  After all, leading a life as free from “drama” (or as I like to frame the dealings of the day-to-day, “The trifles of life”) was part and parcel of my relocation efforts.  This is another theory to why I haven’t been journaling as much recently.  But because journaling has been a tool for me to regain balance as well as an extension of my social life, well, there you go..!

RUNNING OUT OF LIFETIME

As I find myself renewed with vigor from rediscovering my direction, there have been several songs during the past couple of months that have spent plenty of time on repeat in my Spotify.  Before I get to any of them, one of the things that has “kinda, sorta” been an itch on my “Mark Music” back, has been asking someone what they listen to and they reply generically with “a little bit of everything’.  It bothers me because just as there are different kinds of infinities, some being larger than others, there are different kinds of “everything” when it comes to personal preferences.

When it comes to music, “everything” is not inclusive when it is dominated by a specific genre of music.  Listening to the Taylor Swift station on your Itunes is not going to be inclusive enough of all the styles of music there is.  And don’t get me started on what passes for Punk music in today’s stratification of musical styles.

It never fails that when I ask someone what they listen to and they reply with “everything”, part of me sighs with exasperation.  It means that imagination is not one of their go-to resources and that they likely are bland, flavorless, and culpable of falling in with whatever passes for “taste” in life, much less in music.  “What is everyone else doing?”, “Is this the hottest band?”, “Gotta get the latest phone/tech gear … have to be like everyone else!”  This thinking is exacerbated when the culture is determined for you and expressed through your environment.

My lack of appreciation for the pop music that dominates R&B music has always been what I felt is a the unimaginative themes and the way those themes are told.    As a child, I quickly lost interest with the “R&B fandango”, telling me how I should feel and behave in relationships, or the more unimaginative pop songs that I felt were socially nihilistic in their nature.  The relationship between what the music and the lyrics had in different musical genres appealed to the imagery that filled my boyhood mind.  I can still feel the wonder that I had when I first heard “Strawberry Fields” by the Beatles, and David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” (to say nothing of the consciousness-expansion that took place when I played Rush’s “2112”).  No matter what the artist was inspired by in the creation of their music, I could “take” from it what I heard and give meaning to the emotions that I had inside of me.  

Listening to Liars latest release, “Mess”, the song that has my ear has been “Vox Tuned D.E.D”.  I can’t fathom what the song’s title means, but the alienation that is felt when you do something that you have taken great pride in only to have it critiqued poorly because it did not fit the expectations of others is clear.  Still, some of the lyrics taken separately from what I supposed was the artist's’ intention, is in alternative music, fair game.  You don’t necessarily have to get what the song means to others just because of another’s interpretation.

I WON’T GIVE A LIFETIME OF MINE…

Breaking out of my months-long torpor also means a return of my sense of being.  Two recent dreams, one of which was inspired by one of Facebook’s new features.  

In the sidebar under the “People You May Know” was none other that lil’ Mook!  I could not help but click her name and the link took me to her page.  She looks great, a beautiful young coed, going to the only school I would have thought she want to go to, MICHIGAN STATE!!  Though my thoughts at the moment were of being a part of getting her off to the school on Cedar Street, the dream that I had was less whimsical.  It was one that was reaffirming of my decision to leave for the vision that I have for myself.

The second dream was about Tee Jay.  Like the other dream, I was again validated by its contents.  What drew her into my “Facebook Dream Salad” is her frequent posts about relationships and the qualities of the kind of man who is a good partner.  If she was in her 20’s and still trying to getting her “adult legs” and maturing into a woman, I could understand.  But she isn’t.  In her mid-40’s, still having the same kind of complaints about love that my imagined aggrived groups of “Sisterhood’s” have, is disappointing.  Her posts make me wonder what things would have been like had she taken me up on my offer to restart our loveship again.  And in my dream, I was left disappointed in her.  And I woke up untroubled from both unconscious visions.  The summertime that could have had together, with either Mookie Dee, Tee Jay, Princess, and yes, even Nebraska, is nothing now, not even a badly faded memory.