The Music & The Consciousness

Consciousness is a weird thing. It’s such a strange idea that each one of us is just this small, humanoid creature, with a consciousness that SEEMS enormous, but only because it’s all we know in the whole world. If we had any way to compare or experience a comparison between our individual consciousnesses and, say, all of them put together, or the consciousness of what many of us would call “God,” we would, I’m sure, regard the playgrounds of our individual minds as small. As it stands, though, these playgrounds are the only place each of us will ever exist, and all we take in, all we experience and all we think/feel in reaction thereto will be the entire makeup of that playground.

This is the kind of thing that I think about, or more than likely, quasi-freak out about, when I wake up in the morning these days. I have these moments in the night and in the morning, when I wake up from sleep, where I realize how small I am (this has been happening to me since I was a teenager, but the experience has evolved a bit…it used to just result in abject fear…now, for some reason, it just makes me kind of sad). I realize that all these crazy thoughts I have, all these weird ideas, or opinions, or feelings are mine only, and no one will ever know they’re there unless I express them somehow.

I said not too long ago on Twitter that art was “the only sensible reaction to the human condition.” When I say “human condition,” I mean exactly what I have just been describing here. This is where music comes in for me…it is by far the art form I relate to the most, and so it has always been my first choice in terms of some way I might communicate to the world.

So, I can’t help but do it. If I want to somehow communicate some of these things, I must make music. Maybe the music I make won’t impact you in the way this blog entry has…maybe you’ll listen to the upcoming Dr. Pants EPs and think, “this doesn’t really sound like it’s about human consciousness at all.” That’s fine. I hope to get around to tackling some of these ideas more directly as time goes on. But I do hope you’ll listen. I’ll keep making music even if you don’t, though. I’m pretty sure my sanity depends on it.