I suffer from nostalgia from time to time, but I've learned to not let it take over me now because it can get dire. Listening to some pop music in the staffroom today I'm suddenly stuck wondering why I can no longer just enjoy this music on my own now. I don't go online to look for pop music and I certainly don't browse around that section of a music shop. Yet ten years ago its mostly what I listened to. Then my mind trails off...
Ten years ago today I was in grade ten. A year before that I wasn't attending Saturday school yet because I wasn't doing Science. So I would spend Saturday mornings cleaning and then spend the rest of the afternoon reading novels and listening to music simultaneously. East Coast Radio was my favorite station and I listened to the Top 40 chart from 1-5pm every Saturday without fail.
It was a magical time I spent with myself, I loved it. Thats where my love for music was first nurtured until I learned to write my own songs and then I started writing music instinctively. Form and wording came naturally. Wher did all of that go? I could call it consciousness and moving into hip hop, rock and other ways of expressing my anger and growing frustration with dissilusionment but I cannot deny the fact that after all that, at some point I gave up my art. I forgot the purpose of music and I lost all feeling of it.
Now I struggle to write at all, I don't sing unless I'm drunk at karaoke and I hate that I don't quite know how to break out of this. My understanding of music, since my music degree has changed and I have a deeper appreciation of a much wider spectrum of music but that doesn't change the fact that my understanding of the core concept is burried, mabye suppressed for what I have thought to be higher enlightenment until now.
I guess the nostalgia lies more with the little girl that didn't know much about the world and therefore wasn't consciously affected by the issues and politics around her. Its the innocence and all the bliss and peace of mind that comes with it. Its the appreciation of feeling over thought, the sincerity of just being without wondering or worrying too much about what this means or how people view it.
I stopped reading too. First I stopped reading novels because I was angry at the way they warped my perspective of reality. I quit watching television for the same reason. Those things I don't regret. I do however read much less now than I used to because non fiction can get really boring, but I'm steadily getting back in the habit. And non-fiction catagorized books aren't always truly non-fiction. I guess I just choose my influences more critically now.
All in all, growing up is interesting and at 24 (almost 25) I feel that lots will still change about me. I just don't want the final product to be sour, bitter and angry at the world. After all, I enjoy being here. The world can be a wonderful place if you have the right attitude.
