Exactly HOW MUCH do you love music?

I am sitting here, in the middle of the night (it's 3:23 AM over here), drinking absinthe (again, but I'm not drunk this time ), listening to pretty crappy, but still enjoyable music (Saga). I change my signature back to what it used to be: the picture of my biggest hero, with his best quote: "Music is THE BEST". And suddenly I realize: This is TRUE. If there was no music, I think life would not be worth it for me. I would probably go completely crazy if I would become deaf. Most of my best memories are linked with music ('Yes I remember that pub in that holiday, we were listening to "..." by "..."'). I mean, what else can be as beautiful as the right music at the right time? A beautiful painting? A nice view? A fabulous building from the Antiquity?

Or maybe LOVE?

I haven't been in love for a very long time. I have very close friends, and I really love them. But to be IN LOVE, that's a feeling I haven't had for a long time. Have I ever been truly in love with another person?

And then another question comes to my mind: What if I had to choose between never finding true love or growing deaf?

...

What do you all think. Just HOW MUCH do you really love music?

P.S. I know this is a stupid, senseless question, but isn't LIFE also one big STUPID, SENSELESS QUESTION?

Edited by Joren

Damn, that was profound.  Music is extremely important in my life.  Truthfully, I don't think I could live through deafness.  But hopefully that will be correctable when I come to the time where I need to worry about it!

Cygnus X-2 wrote: Which brings up the question: Would you rather be blind or deaf?

what a dumbass question! what is this, a painting forum?!

Joren wrote:   I haven't been in love for a very long time. I have very close friends, and I really love them. But to be IN LOVE, that's a feeling I haven't had for a long time. Have I ever been truly in love with another person? And then another question comes to my mind: What if I had to choose between never finding true love or growing deaf? ... What do you all think. Just HOW MUCH do you really love music? P.S. I know this is a stupid, senseless question, but isn't LIFE also one big STUPID, SENSELESS QUESTION?

I really like music, but I NEED love. Take away my hearing, and I will cope -- take away my loved ones, and you will crush my spirit.

Love yourself first -- become who you truly are, strive to rise to your potential, and love will likely find you. (Self confidence is VERY attractive -- pity is no basis for a real relationship.) You have to be worthy of true love to earn it, I believe.

Remember, young Joren, you haven't even been alive "for a very long time."  I yearned for love as a young man too -- loneliness seemed  as if it would last forever -- but it didn't.

Re life as "one big stupid, senseless question," find the intelligence and sense where you can (why not make some?), and learn to question it less, and LIVE it more. Our youth is full of questions, doubt, and despair -- give it time, my young friend, give it time. You won't make sense of it all, but you'll learn that you don't need to; you'll be too busy living and loving.

There's a new flower next to that dog turd. The ugliness makes the beauty all the sweeter!

Here endeth the lesson, Grasshopper.

Thus spake the toothless, wizened old fart with the twinkle in his rheumy eye, and his true love upstairs in bed....

Edited by Peter

Peter wrote: Re life as "one big stupid, senseless question," find the intelligence and sense where you can (why not make some?), and learn to question it less, and LIVE it more. Our youth is full of questions, doubt, and despair -- give it time, my young friend, give it time. You won't make sense of it all, but you'll learn that you don't need to; you'll be too busy living and loving. There's a new flower next to that dog turd. The ugliness makes the beauty all the sweeter

Ah - the profound professor proposes personal progression; only in the Prog Forums can a lonely (if absinthe addled) soul find such solace across the oceans.



Meanwhile, back on thread - I was watching a TV programme about bailiffs the other night, and they were saying the easiest thing to shift at public auction is CD collections; one sequence showed a very large bailiff counting a chap's CDs in preparation for possible sale in payment of fines. That made me look around at the 750 or so CDs in our collection, and made me wonder how I would feel should the unthinkable happen, and I were to lose them....

Alternatively (and this has been mentioned before), the horror of succumbing to deafness, and never again hearing music - sure, I guess you'd eventually learn to cope as Peter rightly said, but can you imagine the hole left in your life?

+++shudders+++

Edited by Jim Garten

oeh guys, you go deep here!

Firstly, I would rather go blind, and then sell all my paintings (they are worth more than my cd's...just kidding..)

Prog has changed my viewing of live. The first prog cd I heard was 1984 by Wakeman. I cound't even hear it properly, let alone like it! But I found it interesting. And I compelled myself to listening to it! I pushed myself into understanding it. By understanding beauty at that level, it opens something in yourself, I think it changes you. I started creating Wakeman, and only Wakeman at first. I knew of nothing else until someone suggested YES to me. Nowadays I consider YES to be the One Band!

Prog is so challenging to listen to, it inevitably changes the way you look at yourself and thus your look on the world. It has me made more aware of who I am, and it has strengtened me. Prog has made myself into my own therapist at times!

Wow, a usefull discussion about life on a musicform!

I think love is the most beautifull thing in life. If your loved ones would fall away, and there won't be anyone to fill op the gap, you will not see any point of living anymore.

If there won't be any music, there still will be a lot of things to live for (like love ).

This doesn't take away the fact that music is damn important in my life and (obviously) in yours. Music can touch your feelings and there is always a part of music that can take your feelings out of your soul.

Like some very famous filosophers in the past said "music is the answer to a lott of our life questions".

I Can't Imagine Life Without Music Especially Prog!

 

 Wow! Great to see so many responses!

First of all, this thread is NOT a cry for help, although I must admit that my post was a bit melancholic and dramatic.  I was just in the mood for a more serious thread.

Thanks for the kind words, Hugues and Uncle Peter  but I think I'm self-confident enough

And thanks all for your views on this. A very interesting subject...

Nice story, TBWART, about the same things happened to me, only my big discovery was Frank Zappa. And vert nicely put, Haas. And Jim: yeah, the fact that there is apossibility to lose all your CD's in a fire or something has always haunted me... that would be terrible...

Overall, most people think love is more important than music. But most of you forget (I'm glad James doesn't) that the most beautiful thing in life is the PHENOMENON that is...

MARIAH CAREY!  

I hear you man... i find it hard to go a day without listening to music. It helps keep me going, and without id go absolutely crazy... i cant remember the last day i went without listening to any kind of music.

It is probably the most important thing in my life atm. listening, creating, sharing music.