Music I Love ... The Lumineers

Music always seems to have the ability to transform my writing, and vice versa. So as my writing changes, my musical tastes are evolving. Or maybe my taste in music is changing, and it's effecting my writing. Hard to tell.

But today, on cold, wet, winter's day, I'm discovering the Lumineers. I'm thoughtful. And a little bit melancholy. More importantly, I'm writing. And I don't want to stop.

In case you aren't familiar, here's some background from my bestie, Wikipedia:

"The Lumineers are an American folk rock band based in Denver, Colorado. The two founding members and songwriters of the Lumineers are Wesley Schultz (lead vocals, guitar) and Jeremiah Fraites (drums, percussion). Cellist and vocalist Neyla Pekarek joined the band in 2010, after responding to a Craigslist advertising."

"Josh Fraites, the brother of Jeremiah and best friend of Schultz, died of a drug overdose in 2002. As a way to cope with their loss, Schultz and Fraites began writing and performing together ..."

That may explain the feeling I'm getting as I listen to them. Although they've often been compared to Mumford and Sons, the two have very different sounds and inspire very different feelings. The Lumineers leave me with a weight in my chest. A gentle sadness. A soulful longing. A reluctant hope.

Their most well-known song is probably "Ho Hey." You've heard it. Even if you think you haven't. But my favorite (for now) is "Stubborn Love."

It's better to feel pain, than nothing at all
The opposite of love's indifference
So pay attention now
I'm standing on your porch screaming out
And I won't leave until you come downstairs

So keep your head up, keep your love
Keep your head up, my love
Keep your head up, my love
Keep your head up, keep your love

It's hard to not to be affected by these lyrics.

Honestly, though, their self-titled debut album is absolutely perfect listening on a day like today. I haven't yet heard a song I didn't like.

Here's another favorite from their second album, Cleopatra.

Gale Song

And ... that's all I got. I'm not feeling particularly snarky today, people. I blame the weather. And the music.

Apologies. Next time is double.

J. L. Dodd

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lumineers

Abaissement du Niveau Mental

"When I write you I anticipate my words will have an effect on you; they will elicit an emotional response because they're being written from an emotional place. That's a large part of this: emotion.  Feelings.  Sensations.  Desires."

Another idea that has resonated with me while reading Carl G. Jung's writings is this, in it's most simplest form: emotions drain your brain. I've often heard the same notion in other ways. Emotions make you stupid. Emotions cloud your judgement. Emotions preclude rational thought.

Abaissement du niveau mental literally means "a reduction of mental level." It is a phrase coined by French psychologist Pierre Janet, and expanded upon by Jung. More specifically, it refers to a "weakening of the ego due to an unconscious drainage of its psychological energy." It can be caused by a number of things, including physical fatigue, illness, shock and yes, violent emotions. Jung doesn't mention it, but I would add drug use to this list. Typically, drugs of all kinds impede our inhibitions, smash our self-imposed filters, and cause us to not give a flying fuck about consequences. Anyone who's ever been drunk knows this.

I digress. Let's think about this, because what Jung was getting at is much, much deeper.

Experiments in psychic ability (J.B. Rhine's) and Jung's own investigations into sychronistic events lead him to conclude that a heated emotional state would lessen the rational self to the point that your mind was more likely to tap into the collective unconscious, and thus be influenced by archetypal instincts. Once connected to that great ocean of thought, time, and space, you are likely to have psychic visions and experience sychronicity.

Again, it might all be bullshit. It's probably bullshit. Bunchoffuckingbullshit. But if it isn't ...

Shouldn't we wholly embrace our emotions? Be it hate, fear, loathing, elation, warmth, love? As a logical, thinking, responsible adult, we do just the opposite the majority of the time. Adulting is about conformity, and conformity is about acting "normal" and level-headed in any situation. Strong emotions often must break through to be seen and even felt. But to know and understand this experience (life) we should give more credence to these feelings. Engage and revel in them. Then, according to Jung, we'll be more likely to tap into that magical trove of collective human knowledge. As cool as that sounds, were we to be successful, we likely wouldn't be consciously aware of the fact. But what could we learn? What truths could be imparted to us?

I'm fighting my own daily battle. Do I smile blithely through everything that happens to me? Peacefully accept that change is inevitable and life happens? Or do I fight it? Do I allow my emotions to influence my decisions? Allow the brain drain to take over?

I always thought emotional people were weak. But now that I'm thinking about it, I mean, really thinking about it, perhaps it's us control-freaks who are the weak ones. We let fear keep us from realizing and expressing how we feel. And if we don't know our true feelings, how can we attain in life that which we truly want? Maybe there's a happy medium. I'm always looking for the happy medium.

Yet another work-in-progress. This recent path I'm on is causing me to ask more questions than I have answers for. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

J. L. Dodd

“Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”
― Jean Racine

“One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“What is this "heart"? If I tear open that chest of yours, will I see it there? If I smash open that skull of yours, will I see it there? -Ulquiorra”
― Tite Kubo

“When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Work Cited:

Jung, C.G. Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Bollingen Foundation, 1960.

Links:

http://www.nyaap.org/jung-lexicon/a/

http://www.rehabs.com/drunk-talk-isnt-just-nonsense-says-study/

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/emotions

Evil psychopomps and rhythmical crescendos of unholy anticipation

I've been reading about sychronistic events that Carl Gustav Jung observed during his own life, and one in particular caught my attention.

"The wife of one of my patients, a man in his fifties, once told me in conversations that, at the deaths of her mother and her grandmother, a number of birds gathered outside the windows of the death-chamber" (Jung, 22). The woman's husband collapses, and is brought home close to death, but (shocker!) a flock of birds beats him home and settles on his roof. The man dies soon after.

Jung continues: "If one considers, however, that in the Babylonian Hades the souls wore a 'feather dress,' and that in ancient Egypt the ba, or soul, was though of as a bird, it is not too far-fetched to suppose that there may be some archetypal symbolism at work" (23).

Intriguing. I've a connection to this phenomenon (albeit in fiction) through H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror. He describes the behavior of whippoorwills, birds that gather when death is near.

"Then too, the natives are mortally afraid of the numerous whippoorwills which grow vocal on warm nights. It is vowed that the birds are psychopomps lying in wait for the souls of the dying, and that they time their eerie cries in unison with the sufferer’s struggling breath. If they can catch the fleeing soul when it leaves the body, they instantly flutter away chittering in daemoniac laughter; but if they fail, they subside gradually into a disappointed silence."

You get the feeling that these birds are evil, although by definition, a pyschopomp (yes, I looked it up) comes from Greek mythology and means a guide for the soul to the afterlife. So I guess it depends on perspective. Same as with Hell Girl.

From Wikipedia:

"Due to its haunting, ethereal song, the eastern whip-poor-will is the topic of numerous legends. One New England legend says the whip-poor-will can sense a soul departing, and can capture it as it flees. This is used as a plot device in H. P. Lovecraft's story The Dunwich Horror. Lovecraft based this idea on information of local legends given to him by Edith Miniter of North Wilbraham, Massachusetts when he visited her in 1928. This is likely related to an earlier Native American and general American folk belief that the singing of the birds is a death omen. This is also referred by Whip-poor-will, a short story by James Thurber, in which the constant nighttime singing of a whip-poor-will results in maddening insomnia of the protagonist Mr. Kinstrey who eventually loses his mind and kills everyone in his house, including himself."

Hmm. So what does a whip-poor-will sound like?

Uh, yeah. That's definitely creepy. Could be a little bit maddening. Maybe we shouldn't be listening.

Just ... once ... more.

Again.

Someone ... help.

More to come. I'm not done with this topic.

J. L. Dodd

"Then came a halt in the gasping, ... A change came over the yellow, goatish face of the prostrate thing, and the great black eyes fell in appallingly. Outside the window the shrilling of the whippoorwills had suddenly ceased, and above the murmurs of the gathering crowd there came the sound of a panic-struck whirring and fluttering. Against the moon vast clouds of feathery watchers rose and raced from sight, frantic at that which they had sought for prey."

- The Dunwich Horror, H.P. Lovecraft

Work Cited:

Jung, C.G. Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Bollingen Foundation, 1960.

Links:

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/dh.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_whip-poor-will