This weeks thoughts:

*This topic was inspired by my English assignment and after doing a terms worth of research and writing and blah blah blah I felt like I couldn’t waste all my rambling thoughts so here goes nothing*

I feel like in our day to day world everyone is living their main character life through music. Usually, music is for the in-between places (like trains, walks and busses) but it also lives in present places as background music (like get-togethers, dinner cooking and baths). Now, is this bad…no, but I’d like to propose that instead of ‘transporting us’ (to feel like a main character and find meaning in #individualism) it can also ‘displace us’.

Let me explain.

How it displaces us:

Having soundtracks for every occasion, whether it be playlists like ‘going for a run’ or ‘pizza night’ or ‘your daily mix’, allow us to basically ‘sound engineer’ the vibe of our lives (usually to make ourselves feel a certain way). In a cynical way, I think that this is somewhat making us accustomed to blocking out or avoiding the silence of the world (silence as in, the mundane sounds and innate lack of noise in our everyday surroundings). Instead, we ignore this silence by creating ‘artificial’ noise (hence, a world that is muted by music) that robs you of what you may have naturally experienced for an artificial feeling (if we define music and sounds as being things that fabricate feelings).

This is neither good nor bad, but is a lil bit of context for this next bit.

How this can create social connection:

Music can both create or destroy social interaction, connection and/or purpose to the world outside of our personal bubbles. The key defining difference being -whether it displaces us from the world in a way that is not or will not be shared with others (I’m not sure if this is right but it is the best theory I have come up with so far).

When music isn’t shared (e.g. headphones on the train + you don’t talk abt said music being played with anyone), it creates a barrier between our personal and social worlds. With non-shared music we experience a strictly solitary feeling that penalizes non-listeners (e.g. everyone else on your train) while confining it’s value to individuals (e.g. you). That said you can share individual experience but there is still an element of disconnection (e.g. you text your friends abt the music ur listening to but the ppl on your train will never know of it).

On the flip side, when music is shared (e.g. a concert or online fandoms), it creates connection based on coincidence of curating the same music taste (or, if we want to link it to before, having the same feeling).

Conclusion:

In a world where we are all craving to live not as an individual but as a participant of some greater, shared thing; I think that one of the best things to share is music. This doesn’t mean you can’t listen to music on your own, I for one could not live without it, but just make sure not to use it as a means to ignore the world or people around you.

I have absolutely no idea if any of that made sense but if it doesn’t, hopefully then you can do your own contemplation on whatever the jumble of thoughts is🤪.

Side note of things to consume:

Read: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. DON’T be put off by the cover!! It’s so clever and funny that you won’t be able to put it down (trust me).
P.S. The book is Big W for $12 (such a bargain 💸).

Listen to: The superior vault tacks on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)

Cook: This 20 minute Berry-Sugar Coated French Toast (I haven’t tried it but it looks sooo good).
P.S. If you don’t have a food processor for step 1, I feel like you could easily just crush dried berries into power using a zip-lock bag or just chop them into lots of little pieces.

Watch: Drive to Survive. Yes I just plugged that again but this week at Silverstone was amazing and I simply need to talk abt it with ppl who care; with Paris Hilton DJ-ing at the Grand Prix, Brad Pitt filming an F1 movie IN THE REAL PADDOCK, McLaren (Lando and Oscar) doing so well + so much more to talk abt and we’re only halfway through the season!!

Join: The Just Some Thought Bookclub by clicking here!! (see what I did there 😏) You will need to download the Fable app and make an account but pls pls do it 🙏 coz the app allows us to discuss each chapter through message threads, letting you read and discuss at your own pace 🤗. ALSO, if u sign up to Fable + download the app (on your phone) with this link you will get a nifty $5 to spend on any ebook in the Fable bookstore!!!!!
P.S. We just started reading ‘If We Were Villains’ by M. L. Rio and it’s a bi-monthly book club so you can defs catch uppp (we finish this book in early September).

Hope you have a silence filled week

C