The Emotional Impact of Music

It was suggested to me by a friend that my next blog be about music.  I thought about making a top 10 list or critiquing an album, but instead I decided on a slightly different theme.  The list you're about to read isn't a list of my favorite songs, but a list of a songs that make me feel something strongly.  The best way to read this particular blog is to actually click and listen to the songs I talk about.  Try it, you might like it.

Mad World - Gary Jules 

Though the lyrics don't say much to me, this song reminds me of how insane and senseless the world can be sometimes.  The simplicity of a voice, a piano, and a cello express so much with so little.

Look right through me, look right through me

Congratulations - Blue October
Love is not a feeling to feel, but a promise to keep.  A broken promise creates a broken heart.  A broken heart can hold no promises.

I came to see the light in my best friend
You seemed as happy as you'd ever been
My chance of being open was broken
And now you're Mrs. him.

My words they don't come out right
But I'll try to say I'm happy for you
I think I'm going to take that drive
I want to give you something
I've been wanting to give to you for years
My heart

Dead Memories - Slipknot

You can't live in the past and let your dead memories stop you from letting go.

We were never alive, and we won't be born again.
But I'll never survive with Dead Memories in my heart.

Lateralus - Tool

Ok, so this is one of my favorite songs.  It represents my tendency to predict, analyze, and extrapolate possible paths in my social interactions with people.  Given limited data, I fill in outcomes and apply contingencies well before they've happened due to my pessimistic nature.  After a single romantic encounter, I'm already imagining all of the possibilities and protecting myself from the negative ones.  

Sometimes, I just want to cross the line, embrace the random, feel the rhythm, and lose my self between the sounds.  Just let go.

As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn beyond the lines of reason.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must
Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines.  

Passive - A Perfect Circle

Honestly, I really like belting this song out when I hear it.  It gives me intense feelings; I'm just not sure why.

Passive aggressive bullshit 

Flood - Jars of Clay

For those that don't know, this is a Christian band that I used to listen to a lot back in the day.  Though I've given up on Christian music as a whole, Jars of Clay certainly captures why a lot of people come to religion in the first place.  When all hope is lost and you're drowning in a sea of despair, the only thing you desperately long for is a hand to reach down and save you. 

My world is a flood
Slowly I become one with the mud

And on that note, Jars of Clay gets two entries.

Worlds Apart - Jars of Clay

I add this with mixed emotions.  I don't advocate for any religion; in truth, I wish all people could follow the golden rule without an eternal reward or condemnation to motivate them.  I also wish people realized community, charity, and morality are not exclusive to religion but can be practiced by all.  That being said, this is not a blog about religion so I'll get off my soapbox.  

To me, this song represents the ideal of worship and faith in something beyond oneself and why it's such a powerful narcotic.  The song has the same pull to me now as it did when I actually had faith.  It feels good to know you're redeemable and unconditionally loved by someone who can never disappoint you.

So steal my heart and take the pain
and wash the feet and cleanse my pride
take the selfish, take the weak,
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
the sin-soaked heart and make it yours
take my world all apart
take it now, take it now
and serve the ones that I despise
speak the words I can't deny
watch the world I used to love
fall to dust and thrown away

Fireflies - Owl City

Oh yeah, that just happened.  Naysayers be damned [*Chris].  This song makes me feel good about life and I can't say that many songs put me in a great mood.  Fireflies makes me want to dance in the rain, gaze at the stars, and imagine a better future as the planet earth turns slowly.  Haters gonna hate.

Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance

 What music emotionally charges you?

Cognitive Dissonance

When I first thought of naming this blog, the name that came to mind was "cognitive dissonance".  Put simply, it's being at odds with yourself for having two different conflicting opinions about something.  My life has been a series of cognitively dissonant chapters and I thought it was a terse description of me.  Unfortunately, someone else felt the same way, so I had to go with a slightly different yet still tersely descriptive of my personality.

I'm sitting here tonight feeling conflicted.  I've been conflicted before which usually precedes a major change in my life.  I was conflicted in religion.  I was conflicted in desires.  I was conflicted in love.  In each event, I attempted to achieve a kind of inner harmony by choosing a side and ending the internal debate. 

In religion, I freed my mind from preconceptions and started over by thoroughly examining my beliefs and attempted to provide evidence for or against them.  What started as a quest to follow the real "righteous path" so to speak, ended with breaking my beliefs down to a basic underlying foundation that wore away everything I grew up to believe in.  It made me a better person, a less judgmental, more universally tolerant person, yet a man who puts my faith in reason and logic.  I try not to destroy other's beliefs, but I will challenge them if they're intolerant, verifiably false, or unfounded. 

In desire, I fought between the idea of a long-term monogamous relationship in my early 20's and the idea of "playing the field" and "sowing my wild oats".  Over time, that internal struggle ended with me making poor decisions and hurting the one person in my life least deserving of it.  At the time, I somehow justified my actions to the point I didn't even feel guilty about it, like it was all part of my biological nature and I couldn't fight it.  In reality, I was just a giant asshole who couldn't decide who he wanted to be and made a cherished person pay for it in the process.  When I got my chance to be "free", I quickly found it was nothing like the fantasy I had built in my head.  Sad as it is to say, I believe I had pop that fantasy bubble to move on to become a man capable of having a real, monogamous and loving relationship.  I never got the chance.

In love, I realized I made many mistakes and I didn't want to make another.  I wanted everything to be right.  I wanted to correct my wrongs and I wanted to prove I was worthy of full trust again.  I wanted to prove to myself that I had a singular purpose.  That purpose would be to pursue a healthy relationship eventually leading to marriage and leave the rocky past behind.  By the time I had my shit together, it was too late.

So I watched my dream slowly drift away, at first in the span of minutes, and then days, and then weeks until I finally lost track of the time.  I kept hope alive until the bitter end.  As time went on, I kept telling myself that I still had a chance, that I could fix the mistakes I made and fulfill her heart's every want.  I concocted another fantasy that I'd eventually have to pop. 

I don't know when it happened.  I didn't just wake up one day and say "I'm okay now."  I always worried just how badly I'd flip my shit when I'd find out she was engaged to the other guy.  I tried preparing for it, I tried numbing myself to it, I tried hating her, I tried prayer, I tried forgetting about her by pursuing other relationships (both casual and serious), I tried nearly everything (legal). 

Then one day I received a phone call from my best friend who was acting a bit odd.  He was wondering about my sanity too, but he didn't know that I didn't know.  Within about 30 seconds of the conversation starting, I knew what he was about to say.  "Have you been on facebook today?"  The time had come and I remember doing a self-check.  Am I okay?  Did the air just leave the room?  Has the other shoe dropped?  How do I feel about all of this?  While still on the phone, I confirmed what he called about and an eerie calm came over me.  It's finally over.  I can let her go.  She found the right person and despite my fantasies, I wasn't him.  I don't know if I ever could have been with our history.  I'd still like to believe so though if the story was written differently.

So, here I am tonight looking through her wedding pictures with mixed emotions.  I realize that though I can't be her man, the one she loves unconditionally and without reservation, that perhaps I can be that man for another.  Someone with whom I've never lied to, never broken a trust, never crossed a line with.  I want to finally prove that I can be a man worth loving.

Aye, but there's the rub.  The reason I've talked so long about my history with cognitive dissonance.  Though I'd like to be in another relationship now and ready to be in one, I'm afraid to be hurt pursuing one.  I'm afraid to get hurt, hurt someone else, or fall in love with someone who doesn't feel the same toward me.  This conflict has kept me on the sidelines in regard to dating because I can't seem to get past it.  I try to act like it's something else keeping me from dating.  When I get my invisalign done, I'll go on a date.  When my house is furnished, I'll go on a date.  When hell freezes over, I'll go on a date.  Eventually one of the ideas must win out.  Either I give up thinking about relationships and live in relative safety knowing my emotional well being will never be compromised, or I put it all on the line knowing the journey is going to be difficult, yet thoroughly satisfying, when I get to the end of the road.

All I know now is that time is running out; the days get shorter with every passing year.  I don't want to be in my forties by the time I find the love of my life.  I don't want to be alone the rest of my life.

Where is my catalyst?