Breaking the reality spell...

It's funny the things you pick up over time. I haven't been listening to a lot of music lately. It just seems - extra? Distracting? Lack of headphones? Unreal? I can't quite articulate the relationship. Generally, the focus has been on the here and now, the big present, not fearing futures that haven't happened or lamenting pasts that can't be controlled. It's been good. I like this approach.

Last night, I put on some new music, crappy iPod headphones and all. It was the sort of yearning ecstatic music that strives to stretch your innards into silly putty. Echoes of soundtracks of a former lives. Aural dope.

The effect was shockingly immediate. The rich and fulfilling present I'd been inhabiting disappeared, and a micro-depression set in: All the things I don't have, all the regrets of days gone by and out of reach futures. These came rushing in, reverse osmosis style, tsunami on my being, the mood power of the music colonizing me and enforcing its demands like an emotional legal system. Manufactured melancholy borne of synthetic sonic yearning. I'm ok now, but golly. Altering stuff that music. So much power in the hands of so many dopeheads.