I noted a December 11, 2022 New York Times' article by Jenny Odell about what Twittering does/did to her sense of time. Her conclusions, to be expected, were that it mainly screwed it up and dragged her into some kind of remote, dizzying, nausea-inducing whorlwind of "short loops never completed...breath goes short...with no full inhale possible...joints ache from a state of constant anticipation."
Poor lady.
A musical friend protested much the same last January, and took a slowdown and time-out from email. Smart. But for me I needed an email and texting connection with my valued friends and the outside world, because of my increased social isolation from the pandemic. I also use email a lot (write me at: rhapsody.dmb@gmail.com), because I "think" best by writing first, even if I usually start with a rough draft. Sometimes that draft is on email, or sometimes in journaling, preparing and honing a poem, making notes of my therapy or Alexander Technique sessions, writing blogs, and in the past, writing legal briefs in my civil law practice. Writing concretizes my thoughts and sooner or later, makes me struggle through haze to clarity.
What was most distressing about the writer's experience of Twitter, was that she had "a sense that I had no substance...and that the world was somehow losing its color and texture."
Poor lady. She should try to learn a musical instrument, and find ways to add music in many of its iterations, back into her life! I always loved the silly picture of me sitting behind the very first sterling small grand piano I ever played in my life over a year ago. It was a small Kawai that a gracious neighbor couple invited me to play. My smile is just after completing two hours at the piano, and I look totally blissed out -- as I was!
Playing/learning the piano, reading theory and musicology, and listening intently and expansively to music on YouTube and at the symphony, render substance, color and texture to my life, full stop.
I "feel" myself in music. I "feel" and clarify my "self" boundaries, my aspirations, and my hopes. I "feel" and enhance my love of life and my excitement when I assuage my curiosity learning new things that before, I had no time or interest to pursue.
Maybe you relate?
And no, I've never joined the Twitter nation, and considering the management, political, and philosophical perspective of the recent new owner, I never will.
Something About Music
There’s something about music
that’s grabbed my soul,
turned me inside out
and my spirit roiled,
more than dance that sets me free
or when painting rocks my world,
music came to abide with me
to help my soul unfurl.
“Open to the wind” is what Webster’s says
is the definition of “unfurl.”
And so it does, this magical gift:
the music I now hear, and heard.
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