Or maybe I just see what I see and take more notice of cherished peeves when I should be accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative. It could be... But am I the only one who thinks there are more people interested in improving their selfies than themselves? Am I? Am I alone in sensing the hollow in the happiness of the kids out there today?
Maybe it's just age but I find myself holding back just a bit on the dance floor when I share it with the cathartic flailings of the youth of today. Put me out there with my generation and I'll scare people! It's only in part to do with the music. Maybe it's crap or maybe I haven't given it time enough to associate as many good memories with it, but I sense a sadness in more than the simplistic predictability of today's music. I am reading a reason for catharsis that is unique to our youngsters. Anyone else getting this?
When I'm at a function or an establishment where there is a dancefloor and someone's jam comes on I reckon I see in the younger crowd just a little bit more "FTW!" and a little bit less "aw, WTF?!" in their joyful gyrations. Now, I don't think this is to say that the younger generation is more socially conscious and less escapist than someone of my, um, vintage. But maybe a little angrier. And a bit less connected.
If this is the case or not, I'd have to say they have every right to be angrier at a long list of things that people get angry about. Politics, education, employment, cost of living, corporatism, corruption, the environment, society... again, maybe I'm old but I see pretty much every one of these things as worse than when I was a youngster. But that can't be said without qualification. What does one mean when, for example, one says that society has worsened? There are a thousand tangents this narrative could shoot off at from here! But let's stick with the music for a bit, shall we? I've heard that music is the only thing that opens up our entire brains. And unless you're doing the Macarena or copying a Korean back-up dancer and counting the poses carefully, dancing comes from the heart too. So it's a spiritual vs. secular thing and I think that is the direction I'm heading with this.
Was it just the melody, beat, lyrics and musical skill that made our favourite songs our favourite songs? How big a role does setting play in our love of certain songs? I mean if I were listening to the song while drinking an extra tasty underage beer by a campfire with good friends, or while kissing my first love for the first time, or while experiencing the freedom of cruising with a couple friends fully licenced and unsupervised in my very own piece of junk car, would I love that song more than if I had just heard it in my room all the time? In my opinion, yes. No, in my opinion, abso-frickin-lutely! I guess what I'm offering is a musical "Nature vs. Nurture" argument here. And I am of the opinion that we don't just like a song the same from its birth until the thousandth time we've heard it. Unless it's "Let It Go" and we are a 7-year-old girl.
A LOT of my favourite songs, even singers and groups, had to grow on me. I didn't like Rush for the longest time! I thought Bohemian Rhapsody was a random, disorganized cacophony of musical mistakes when I first heard it. Yeah, I know! Crazy! I don't think Bohemian Rhapsody became one of my all time favourite songs ONLY because I heard it in memorable situations. My musical taste refined as well. I don't even remember the first time I saw a woman's breast. Probably the first hundred times or thousand times it was pretty much, "Meh." Boy did THAT change with age and (im?)maturity! I think that happens with music too. But I also speculate that there is some positive association that figures largely in which songs make us want to cut a rug and which ones make us want to put that rug into a blender and turn it up to 11.
I can list memory and song pairings till the cows come home. Some of the memories are good, some bad. Some noteworthy, some only noteworthy to me. I remember one song I kept hearing at the funeral of one of my favourite people. It's still makes me want to rend my garments at the injustice of the world every time I hear it. But it's a favourite. Then there's another that makes me think of just sitting in the sun with one of my favourite people. Not doing anything special but just sitting there being together. Then there are entire albums that make me think of summer in Penticton or smoking pot in a friend's car. There's no doubt these experiences add to the tunes' dance-ability. And I am pretty sure I think of some memories associated with those really great songs when I get up and WAYIND ME BODDEE to them.
Maybe what I'm asking is, what memories run through the minds of the youth of today when they dance to their favourite songs? Again, being old, I guess I have more memories and experiences attached to the various songs I dig. Just by pure opportunity to do things over the years! I think of the bus ride back from a rugby game on the road when I hear certain ZZ Top songs, for instance. Ahhh I can almost smell the A5-35... What do the youngsters think about when they get up and get their freak on to, I dunno, Coldplay? I could be reading the youngsters all wrong but I just don't think there's as much of a variety or, dog-gone-it, a flair in what's going through their heads when they dance. And I think they know this and it makes them feel a bit gypped.
We're robbing young folks of all kinds of memory making opportunities that we had. Sports are not as popular; clubs are going out of style, in fact the word just means a place where people dance now; scouts and guides - dangerous; summer camp - dangerous, church - dangerous, outdoor activities - dangerous; swimming - dangerous; just hanging out with friends - unstructured and unsupervised - dangerous; fishing - could fall in; golfing - could get struck by lightning; driving around - could crash and besides with the price of gas these days... No I think you should just stay in the house. Then when we get older and out of the house, we're too busy obeying our NEW masters: bosses and employers. "I can't enjoy some freedom with you or make a memory because I have to work late tonight or get up early for work tomorrow."
This is just my opinion but I think a lot of our favourite songs have to do with two things: freedom and togetherness. That's what opens up our minds when we hear them and when we get funky TO them. Freedom from parental supervision and structure when we're very young, and enjoyment of our freedom from parental and other social structure and limitations when we're older. Freedom ain't worth nothin' but it's free. Freedom it was easier when Bobby sang the blues. Freedom it was good enough for me. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee. Freedom ain't any fun if you don't share it.
Take a look around you sometime and see if it isn't true what Joe Rogan says, "We're nerfin' the world!" How many things are done for our protection whether we want it or not? And we need to be paranoid of damn near everything for the people who want to nerf the world to get away with it. So we have people scaring us about everything from terrorists to tooth decay. The thing is, if anything, the world is much safer today than it has ever been! But we're allowing ourselves to get scared so that people can add to the freedom-sucking structuring of our world. Someday this message will probably be erased as our internet freedoms are further limited "for our protection." I don't know about you but this doesn't make ME feel like dancing that much. And the memories associated with modern songs aren't all that great. But occasionally, when I hear a song that brings me back to younger and freeeeer times, look out on the dance floor!
But how can we stop them from taking our internet, (freedom)? Who is "them" and who is "our" in that question? As all problems do, it eventually relates to money, greed, capitalism, competition and individualistic thinking. I don't believe there is any question that the younger generation has been more successfully trained to be sort of glass half empty. That's not the right metaphor. More like ocean almost totally empty. Because they're not as pessimistic as individualistic. Our youth are "educated" to see individual drops as more important and powerful than the giant oceans that billions and billions of them can create together. They spend far more time alone; they are encouraged NOT to share because sharing limits upward mobility; humility is not as respected a virtue but is now viewed as a weakness; kindness is stupidity; giving is wasting; and the corporate training of the younger generation continues unabated so that they will grow up, consume, contribute, succeed, and go to their graves with the impression that they have enriched the very planet that they have impoverished by their actions.
I believe "them" includes only a few people. The few who really run the show on this planet with their mentally unstable, spiritually bankrupt manipulation, secularization, and de-unification of everything that used to make up our societies and cultures. The "our" includes me, probably you and those herky-jerky dancers of the younger generation. You will notice one other commonality to all the examples I've cited and that is none are done alone. This is another thing I've noticed that has scared me. Some kids get out on that dancefloor and get down ALL BY THEMSELVES! That's a tragedy to me! Dancing is meant to be a shared joy. So many things are that these sorry youngsters now do all alone! Chatting online is not the same as hanging out with friends. Calling Gramma is not the same as visiting her. Virtual football is not the same as REAL football. Nowadays a good little human can probably live an entire life without doing a single thing unregulated or unsupervised. Can you imagine the kind of disjointed dance moves THAT poor sucker would have?
It is our responsibility, nay, our DUTY to go out right now and hug a teen. High five a youth. Make eye contact with a youngster. Encourage some togetherness. Share! I have no doubt any more, having seen it first hand in what I erroneously consider to be "poor" countries, that the happiness that surpasses anything we can find in the "developed" countries is almost entirely because they spend more quality social time with other people. And MAN can these people dance!!!
Having already admitted to living a finger and thumb existence here, I have to take my own advice! Though my moves are pretty solid, they could always use a little tweaking...
“You must have chaos within you, to give birth to a dancing star.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche.
No comments:
Post a Comment