My Silly Paradigm

Music Paradigm Shift

Written by cbte on April 14th, 2010

Well, folks, it’s finally happened.  I say “finally” like I expected it to happen all this time, but I really never knew it would happen.  There has been a paradigm shift in my music taste.  As I’ve said in posts long ago, for a long time I’ve often enjoyed emotional, sad love songs, because of their characteristic quality to add emotion to notes and rhythms.  On a fresh, recently discovered note, I believe that another reason I enjoyed this type of music was because the emotion portrayed in the music was something I wasn’t capable of expressing myself.

Something happened this morning, on my way to work.  As I was making my way through traffic, there were many more people than normal performing routine San Antonio driving feats – cutting people off, not using turn signals, etc.  But this time… I smiled.  I laughed, even!  It was so funny to me that these people could get so caught up in doing douche-bag things, and that other people on the road could get so mad at them, but what is it all for? We’re all just people.  We’re all just trying to achieve something, whether consciously or subconsciously, in this life.  Why get worked up over bad drivers, of all things?

So I laughed at every single one of them, because of the feeble nature of road rage.  It cracked me up.  I have become so grateful for what I have lately that the things that used to perturb me simply entertain me now!  There is so much to be grateful for in life that we don’t really have time to be annoyed at the little things – but most people do anyway.  Why?  Because it’s easier. It’s easier to get pissed at someone for cutting you off than to be grateful that you have a roof over your head every night.  It’s easier to flip someone the bird than to be thankful that someone loves you.  I don’t want easy.  And I’ve already rejected it.

So once all the bad drivers subsided, I noticed something else.  What in the world was playing on my iPod?  “The Lovers are Losing,” by Keane.  BTW – I picked it.  I have always been a huge fan of Keane’s first album, and almost as big a fan of their second album.  They are both freaking depressing.  But I just loved that stuff.  I never really liked their new stuff from Perfect Symmetry, because it was too upbeat and happy – and it didn’t sound like “classic Keane.”  But today, I was bobbing my head, smiling, and basically laughing to the music.  I also noticed that I haven’t hit almost any of my “depressing music” artists in the past 2 weeks.  I am so positively optimistic about things now, that I can’t even afford to listen to a sad song!

This might not make sense to many people, but it is huge for me.  For my preferred genre of (vocal) music to change is a big, big deal.  There are some seriously monumental things going on inside of me, and I am surprising myself every day with what I’m capable of.

I made a serious discovery this morning, while laughing at bad drivers and listening to happy music.  I’m not going to share it here, because someone else needs to hear it first.  But I guarantee you, it is a discovery that will change – and already has changed – my life forever.