fly the spirit unfettered

Some days the spirit sinks; some, the spirit soars.  Today was in between; like most days considered objectively, it had its good and its bad points.  However, even some days that are bad all over can be salvaged through one particularly excellent moment, and nothing delivers those moments quite like excellent music.


I can find my day lifted from the darkest gloom by music that pulls me out of myself and into something wonderful.  If you haven't had that experience, what the heck are you doing with your time?  While it's not always appropriate, that sort of music can bring about a really positive change in your life; it can help you see a situation in a better way.  It can make you happy in the long term.

It helps that I tend to take on the mood of whatever I listen to.  This works across all media, too; if I watch a TV show or movie, I tend to modify my behaviors and attitude to match the protagonist.  This means I have to be really careful about what I watch, because I'm naturally Machiavellian enough on my own.  If you add on another heaping helping, I usually snap and see the world through a Manichaean lens for the next day or so.

Manichaeism was a Persian religion back in the day, for those of you not in-the-know.  It went extinct in the 8th century, and was completely replaced by Islam.  In the centuries leading up to that, many people converted out of it, apparently deciding that they knew better.

In my high school sociology class one day, some of my fellow students decided to get off their chests the problems they were having picking a religion.  I was entirely unsympathetic to their plight, and one girl in particular became absolutely livid with me that I wouldn't take seriously her theological struggles.  But to me, the very idea of "shopping around" for a religion was laughable.  It rejected the very notion of theological truth that religion is supposed to grant you.  If you accord yourself the wisdom to correctly perceive the very shape of the metaphysical, then what the heck are you doing picking a religion?  You should be starting one!  And if you don't think you have all the answers, you're really going to entrust your entire framework of beliefs to something you're not sure about, especially when you think there are other options??

What that girl and her ilk were looking for was a philosophy, not a religion; religious doctrine and belief would never be anything more than a set of pleasing stories for her, and I think the concept of faith was utterly inaccessible to someone who approached religion so cynically.  But it's not really her fault; she had obviously never been educated on the difference between theology and philosophy.  She was just looking for the right way to live her life.  I only wish I had been articulate enough at the time to explain why I disagreed.