Not Without My Permission

   I want to think today about the effect music has on us. The old saw is pretty true that “Music soothes the savage beast”. Effects can be seen in the way we get lost in a song, or the way our mood can take a turn for the worse if we hear something we aren't a particularly fond of. Music has a way of penetrating all bounds, race, class, or gender. We respond to it on a sort of basic level, we may or may not think about...

  

  If we don't notice when a commercial comes on television we may find ourselves humming along to a tune we have fond memories of from our youth only to realize we are now singing the new national anthem for a corporation we may prefer not to help market or be the spokesperson for. (I did this just yesterday) We are affected by what we expose ourselves to. I don't want to start the witch hunt of the 80's when everyone tries to play records backwards to find a secret message. But realizing we are triggered by things like this helps let us make a conscious choice about what we are thinking about. If we realize the source of our thoughts we can make active choices about supporting them or discarding them.

  Music talks to the most base part of us. We can be hypnotized by a catchy “hook” till we have trouble getting it out of our heads. Getting caught up in thinking about something that has no real value to our current situation can take up space that may be better used for solving other issues. We tend to seek entertainment to keep us from getting “bored” but the entertainment we seem to choose tends to be of the spoon fed variety. Instead of increasing our capacity for creativity, we are just reciting memorized material. We aren't creating when we are singing songs already created. 

  We only have so much real-estate in our heads and if its all used up by fluff there is little room for free or new thought. Music has a place in our lives but I don't want to let it be a lever used by companies to flip a switch in me to have feel all warm and fuzzy about their latest venture. 

Not at least, without my permission.