Music as a Life Thing

                                                                    OK003 

                                                                    MUSIC AS A LIFE THING

Originally written 2/4/2022

Revised 2/16/2022

Performed (read aloud) 2/18/2022

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxXBfjt5xczGYmu1M6pqdopQjU2jNxCFqL?si=MgQYXTJF4PyxTnYz

“A man’s own head 

Is his own town”

For me, music is a life thing. Unlike the listening obsessions I fall into–where I ebb and flow and come and go with artists, songs, albums, and genres– this is not temporary. I know my love of music will be with me forever. It is a certainty in an uncertain world.

And so I wonder… is there a commitment to be made? A collective agreement between myself and music? If I know music is a life thing then why not commit to it now? Other than friends and family, what other certains do I have? Would a commitment make it certain?

As I write this I am realizing, I am ready to commit to it. Music is a life thing for me, and I want my actions to reflect that.

Maybe I already did commit to it– just unconsciously. Growing up, I loved football. All I wanted to do was play football. But, then, when I was a teenager I listened to the Ramones 1976 self-titled album. Hearing that album was absolutely world-breaking for me. It reshaped my life and my identity. As a freshman in high school, I went to football tryouts. After a few days, I abruptly quit football, I gave it up, and I started my first band (shoutout to Death Hurricane).

So, maybe hearing that album was my first commitment to music. And maybe these commitments are involuntary. It’s not that I found the Ramones, rather somehow, there was a strange type of predestined agreement that the Ramones would reach me. 

Or maybe I’m wrong about these past commitments and the present commitment, and my commitment, if it is real, exists far off in the future. Or maybe this commitment will never come for me and this is all bullshit. Even if that is true, I know now in the moment music remains a life thing. 

And what does music as a life thing do? What does it change? Music as a life thing shapes a lot. Reading becomes listening. Playing and performing becomes listening. Living becomes listening. Listening becomes listening. Events are no longer solely events, they become processes. Concerts, for instance, are no longer just a chance to hear your favorite musician live. Concerts become rituals, spaces of collective creativity and potentially transcendent social interaction. Everything becomes a process. And that may sound slow or boring to you, but in actuality it is beautiful and life-changing. 

One of the most affirming moments in my life was when I realized that music is a life thing for other people too. No, I’m not the only one who feels this way. What a beautiful thing, to meet and converse with friends who share this love. I believe there is a power in the individual who materializes music as a life thing. And just think of what could happen when a group of people does this. It’s powerful. Like within the words I write on this page, there is a lot of possibility. 

My main point is that if music is gonna be a life thing for me, I want to act like it. Music will be my pivot for how I move through the world. To the world, through music. Through music, to the world. I want to bend it, I want to push it, I want to shape it, I want to unsettle it. (I want to bend it, I want to push it, I want to shape it, I want to unsettle it). That is music as a life thing.