One of the Pleasures of Life
Posted by evanescent on 14 March, 2008
In my opinion, there are very few pleasures in life greater than music. Okay, there’s friendship, love, sex etc. But I’m not even sure how you’d classify the pleasure you can derive from listening to a song you love. A great song, a great voice, great lyrics, can be pleasurable emotionally, intellectually, and even physically.
It is so hard to pin down exactly what it is about music that can make it so addictive and why humans would evolve to invent and then appreciate it, that it seems almost magical, almost irrational. But I believe it is anything but. If there is anything to be said for the human soul, it can be found, and evoked, in music, as in other forms of art (something that is seriously lacking in the world today). After all, animals have no appreciation for music. Music has meaning, and songs have power, but only to a being that can draw inferences from sound, and tie lyrics and tunes to memories, emotions, and fantasies. In other words, it takes a conceptual mind. It takes a rational mind, an intelligence.
A life without art, without music, would be no life at all. It would be soulless.
Posted in Life, Me, Music, People, Philosophy, evanescent | 5 Comments »
