Finding the Music
Everyone is rushing around and standing still simultaneously. Anxiety is on the rise. It feels as if the whole world is atremble with anticipatory tension. Everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the first domino to fall, everybody watching somebody else for signs that corroborate their fear which they dress up as the truth of how things are. There is noise, but no music.
Grasping at ways to relieve the tension people resort to apathy, dogmatism, violence, criticism, blame, over-empathizing, quick-fix legislation, dependence on authority, the ideology of purity narratives, cutting-off from family and friends with whom they disagree, etc., all of which serve to inevitably increase tension. The list above is far from exhaustive.
When stress and anxiety increase, awareness decreases, and people get tunnel vision, put on blinders, and react based on their most automatic programming. That programming is a mix of automatic and learned behavior.
The challenge is, what comes automatic to us, which is rooted in survival mechanisms, tends to exacerbate the issue, increasing tension and anxiety. It can also prompt us to believe we are ‘thinking’ rationally when in actuality our thoughts are being driven by our automatic programming.
As a society we’ve become more and more caught-up in the ping-pong of emotional reactivity; anxiety abounds, fear and hatred are dressed up as morality and truth, and people are so stuck in defending their reactive position that they cannot have a disagreement without stripping away the humanity of those with whom they disagree.
We have replaced hope with a sense of fear and dread, our faith in universal transcendent principles has been unseated by total relativism and power dynamics, and love for one’s neighbor, along with joy, have been left to drown in the wake of materialism.
We have lost the music of life. Our imagination has dulled.
So many of us try to solve the emptiness of this by getting and grabbing at what we think will fill the void. This too is an automatic anxious reaction to the uncertainty of a threat no one can quite articulate, which only furthers the problem.
The answer to our dilemma does not lie in technology, nor economics, nor politics. The answer resides in how we perceive the world and how we relate to one another, both of which are intertwined and inseparable.
What difference would it make if we stopped, slowed down, took a breath, realized the world is not ending (or is always ending), that things are ever in flux, that our neighbor is not our enemy, that we are all interconnected, and in that space began to look at ourselves? What would we each be doing differently?
To gain perspective, you can begin by slowing down and observing yourself exactly where you are. If you are observing, you are activating the part of the brain that is calming and thoughtful, rather than reactive. Observation and anxiety have an inverse relationship, meaning when one goes up the other goes down. If you are observing, you are accessing the part of you that isn’t reacting.
Once we can observe, and find some steadiness, we create the potential to see the world more broadly, less impinged by the blinders of anxiety. We can begin to see that situations which appeared so dire had more to do with our reactivity and the reactivity of others, than the facts of what was happening and what is possible.
Not only does being less reactive free us, but it also creates an opportunity for others to do something different. When we are simply reacting, we lock each other in to behavioral patterns that perpetuate the tension in the relationship and within the individuals in those relationships, from families, to communities, to nations. When we’re anxious, we try to calm ourselves by getting others to be different in order to ease our own distress. This is a losing battle.
If your solution to any problem involves getting someone else to change, it is ultimately doomed to fail. This is the situation we are currently in; all the solutions to our predicament involve managing others rather than ourselves. That is what I call an other-focused framework.
When people are other-focused they get stuck in blame of others, become racked with guilt, charged with hatred and spite, overflow with anger and fear, wither into isolation, etc. None of that is a principled position from which to engage others let alone enact legislation, erect new social norms, and build families. That operating system does not provide solid ground to stand on. Nothing can be built from it.
We are so locked-in to perceiving the other as the threat, that we have lost the music of life, and a world without music is a flat, lifeless, and polarized world.
When you start to work on observing and seeing the bigger picture, patterns will begin to emerge and reveal themselves, and you will see that everyone participates in the pattern, that everybody plays a part, that reciprocity is the rule of life.
The beautiful and hopeful thing, and the very practical thing, about seeing and thinking in terms of reciprocal patterns is that there is always something each individual can do, or work at, without needing the other to do anything different.
The challenge is getting clear about your own part in the drama of life. That work is very subtle and requires constant observation and assessment, and reassessment. This is where life becomes really interesting, when you begin to make a project out of yourself. When this happens, the music starts to return, because you are returning to life, to your life.
To work on yourself, to grow, you have to go out and be in relationship to others, make mistakes, feel the pain of being hurt and hurting others, and connect that suffering or contentment to the principles that guided your thinking, actions, and behaviors. Then you can sit in the quiet and assess, or reassess, redefining your principle so you are ready to experiment in the next interaction.
Life is not static; it has a flow that requires constant attention and awareness. A response that was appropriate in one situation might not be the appropriate response for another situation. No one can give you a manual for what to do—no one. That is the adventure.
Humans have a particular proclivity to want to assign specific behaviors and steps as “the way” to do things. I think this has more to do with our anxiety in the face of uncertainty than anything else. It is not a specific action or behavior that is helpful, because what is useful varies based on circumstance, but rather it is the principal underneath that is essential.
At best, people can point to the narrow path. People can give you clues for the obstacles you might encounter, and even guideposts for the direction to move, but the particulars of how you traverse any obstacle will carry your unique fingerprint.
Any knowledge, insight, or wisdom you think you gained has to be lived for it to become part of you, and living it means enacting that knowledge, insight, or wisdom in relationship to others.
As a society, we are so obsessed with the superficial differences between us that we have stopped looking for and being aware of what connects us. We have been tuned-in and listening to the wrong thing. We have become enamored with echoes, voices that repeat what makes us feel comfortable, what we already know, already agree with or disagree with, anything that brings back to us a familiar noise.
Difference can be tolerated when there is awareness of a deeper connection. That is the mystery and music of relationships: tolerating difference allows for growth, evolution, and for exploration, which in turn allows for meaningful and deep connection.
The good news is the music hasn’t left or disappeared, it has simply been buried, muted with how we attend to the world, how we perceive and treat one another, and with what we allow to govern our lives.
The good news is the music is a small ember aglow in some dark cave of your body, your heart, your mind. As you become quiet, listen, and work at living well that ember will turn into a flame, and the flame will spread in your life and to the lives of others, and you will move differently in the world that rings again with music.