I always "use" music when I write. What that means — in somewhat plain English — is that I know how various types of music affects my brain and my mind in such a way that various kinds of "flow" result.
Maybe that sounds a little too Woo-woo and mumbo-jumbo for some of you, but let's not forget that there's an entire science centered around music and the exact music that gets used in marketing... specifically so you'll open your wallets as much as possible!
But I digress.
My preference for what to listen to while writing is what I have dubbed "drifting music."
I like it because it tends to induce a reflective mood that also unlocks creativity and my mind just flows around and grabs random thoughts and memories out of the ethers.
Here, have a brief "sample," from Pink Floyd, no less — it is offered with the caution that what might inflences your brainwaves isn't necessarily the same as what influences mine:
The "problem" with music like this is that it also makes it all but impossible for me to focus; I invariably just go drifting off, at a moment's notice. Hence the name I have given to this genre...
We have a word in Danish — "strøtanker" — which describes this state, but doesn't lend itself to translation into other languages. "Random thoughts" might be the most literal explanation, but it utterly misses the nuance of the original intent which includes nostalgia, memory, direct experience and much much more.
Anyway, I got on this pathway by randomly thinking about dreams and specifically dreams that are so vivid and memorable that we end up wondering where dreaming ends and reality begins. Which led me to thinking about dreams I clearly remember from years and years ago... in more vivid detail than than lots of actual events — some of them significant — also from years and years ago.
Why would our brains be wired to remember things that ostensibly didn't actually happen? Or is the fact that we are able to have these speculations actually a reflection of something different; something greater, like the possibility that we actually exist in multiple dimensions; multiple timelines, simultaneously?
Not saying it IS so; just speculating that it could be.
We spend a large part of our lives "looking for answers" to life's problems little and large... and if you have spent much time in/around the self-development and "consciousness" field, we also spend a lot of time looking for ourselves.
But what do we actually find? Moreover, would we actually be happy if we suddenly did find ourselves? I suspect not, because there seems to be a sort of cognitive ecstasy attached to find the tiny clues we uncover along the way... it comes from the learning process itself, something that feels deeper and more significant than the actual having.
Some might label such thinking as "woo-woo rubbish" but consider the sheer wonder of children discovering the universe around them; every new bug and rock is a wondrous miracle. Eventually, though, many of us lose our sense of wonder.
But what if we were never told — as my mother so often told me — that these thoughts are "absolute rubbish?"
I'd surmise that those few among us who retain that sense of wonder; that desire to explore thoughts too complicated and convoluted to distill into mere words; are also the ones who earn the "woo-woo" label because we never succumbed to viewing life through a lens of pure what IS but also through the lens of "WHAT IF?"
Not suggesting that we lose touch with the tangible around us... but just that we be open to the possibilities, even when those possibilities in no way contribute to things like making dinner, mowing the lawn and paying the electric bill.
Consider what we are doing right now, right here: Ten years ago, who would have thought communities like Proof of Brain or Hive could even exist? Or — perhaps more significantly — who would have thought such a thing unless they had just let the thoughts of POSSIBILITIES wander all over the place?
I, for one, am grateful that whomever it was (Dan?) didn't get constrained by "that makes no sense! Can't be done!"
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!
How about YOU? Do you listen to music while doing creative things? Moreover, do you USE music to guide and inspire creativity? Can you use diffetrent styles of music to generate different outcomes? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210818 14:52 PDT
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