Mother's Day

Music saves my soul

I really could just stop at the title, but I won't.

Music saves my soul,literally. Tonight I was feeling blah, depressed,despaired. I'm sure ya'll can relate. You know that feeling that makes you want lie down on the floor in a little ball and let the day just crawl over you. The pit in your stomach that make you feel nauseated. The dizziness that washes over you every time you move. You know that feeling. 

During this evening's mists of despair, my friend YouTube rescued me with it's myriad of music videos. I Googled my way through my soul's trial, conviction and it's glorious acquittal. Tonight it was set free by the drug induced beat of the 60's.

The eerie voice of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, Hendrix's Voodoo Child, Queen's Somebody to love. Songs like All Along the Watchtower and House of the Rising Son bathed me in melodic therapy. The kind of therapy that feeds the fire until it burns to oblivion.  

Music is the only thing with that kind of power. Melody, rhythm, lyrics can consume all the hate, love and loathing you're feeling in a day. Music understands, inspires, and comforts all your hurts, thoughts and dreams. Music gives you redemption, recognition, and resurrection to conquer tomorrow. Music speaks when you can't find the words. It feels when you can't find emotion. It touches when you can't move inside yourself. 

Music saves my soul from torture when my oded wants to destroy it. 

Here's a few samples from tonight's saving:(click then close your eyes and be saved)

       

Reason behind hating the FB timeline

It's to personal. The new timeline shows every little thing you do when you are on your Facebook account. If you read a questionable article, play a silly game, or like a strange page, your whole Facebook world can see it if they visit your timeline. You no longer can set automatic censorship, creating a personified 'this is me' page. Sure, you can go to your own timeline to remove things, but you don't know who has already seen it. It's that knowledge that makes you feel like you have egg on your face when you click 'remove'. Facebook's timeline has taken out the ambiguity of creating the type of social network persona you want to be. It has made it's site a digital version of who you really are. Not in the physical sense which can be cool in a video game, but in the internal sense. That digital wall between who we are and who we show has been torn down. The social network world isn't ready for something that real.We like a place that we can control to show only the parts of our personality we want to share. Timeline has take away the 'tough' guy, the 'mean' girl. It's ripped open the 'nice' guy, the 'sweet' girl. It's made us real, flawed ,inconstant, hypocritical,curiously human in a world that gave us a way to ignore those undesirable parts. 

It makes us angry when the mask gets stripped away before we are ready. The timeline gives literal meaning to the word Facebook. The timeline is a book version of your personality, you true personality, not the one you wanted others to see. Everyone will know you read that social reader article about a subject contrary to what said you believed. Everyone will know you played social Sims or some other equally ridiculous game. Everyone will know you liked weird guy who sells weird things. Facebook timeline is exposing traits about ourselves we aren't ready to share with some of our social networkees we've accepted has digital friends. It is doing all this in the measurement of time. So not only are you exposed, but it tells when you were exposed. It has evaded the sanctity of when you do what you do. In a world where time is everything and everyone is to busy, this timeline lets all your friends see just how much of your busy time you have wasted. The hate of timeline is not so simple an explanation of 'people don't like change'. It runs much deeper and much to personal. Timeline has ripped off a social band aide revealing a still raw sore that has not even begin to heal. 

Timeline could be considered the next natural step in the social network phenomenon that has weaved it's way into our very human need to interact with each other. It's ahead of it's time. We are still to emotionally young to have our digital world reveal our true personalities. I'm sure the next generation will be more excepting. It probably has already started to happen. Social networks are a huge part of a teenagers social life. It's part of their world and who they are, so the timeline is the extension of their neighbors watching them mow the lawn or what store packages they are bringing in the house. It's their friends in there room looking at all their stuff. It's sharing who they are on a intimate way and solidifying the friendship. This digital network is real to them. Those over 30 probably will never understand this viewpoint. I know I don't most of the time. 

Timeline is here to stay. So is the hate until the wounds heal and we accept that our lives now have a very real digital component. 

I'll go first, here's my timeline in all it's human glory: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1514217643 and yes I'm a bit embarrassed, so I hope you enjoy it.  

The power of the app

I never new how dull my life had been till I had the ability to down load phone applications. It truly is amazing how technology has grown. The even more amazing thing is that most often this tech is a huge time sync. My husband and I are laying side by side haven't said two words to each other for twenty minutes. So that says one of two things. 1. We are so totally comfortable with each other,we can sit in silence. 2. We have succumb to the temptation that is the smartphone. I think a little of both. Bottom line is new tech is great as long as you don't spend hours uselessly playing angry birds or fruit ninja

Pomp and Circum..What?

You walk into the gymnasium and look around. The decorations are beautiful, gold stars,balloons, black table cloth laded with trophies. On the wall, all the students pictures artfully done with a reflection essay placed next to each one. Six benches on the right taped off for the up coming ceremony.
You sit down a few minutes before filled with anticipation, remembering your school days.
The music begins and in walk young smiling faces. You look , pondering, so young, very young, wait where am I? Sudden realization hits, you're not at some collage or high school, your at an ELEMENTARY school! The students walking to the honored and hollowed graduation march are SIXTH GRADERS!
You think to yourself as you watch them stand in front of the once taped benches, REALLY? Your mind races to find some sort of meaning and understanding to this completely over done celebration. Why are we taking time, resources and money to celebrate in a tradition that should be saved for high school and college? The mind is completely blown away as you listen to five sixth graders giving reflection speeches about a time in their lives that consisted of recess, lunchtime, and setting up play dates as soon as the bell rings. You mouth drops in astonishment as five teachers award four trophies(publicly) to a few select student who probably don't understand what it means to be a humanitarian, spirit leader, academic, and class leader.
(Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure these kids are bright enough to know the definition of these roles, but to understand the part they play in them should really be left to the young adults that have truly stepped up and found something to believe in, not unlike what happens in high school and college.)
If the music,speeches and trophies weren't enough to make you gasp, you get to hear each students name read while watching them receive a faux leather bound certificate with adjoining picture of them in a cap n gown.(Much nicer and way more inappropriate then a high school diploma) Topping the ridiculous cake that you have witnessed be made, the principal stands up to give a 'this is your future and remember you past' pep talk.
As you get up in a speechless stumble, you slowly realize how sad our lives have become to feel the need to celebrate moving from sixth grade to seventh grade with such vertebra-to. What happened to the days of the small classroom party where you could laugh with your friends and be a kid? What happened to munching on cupcakes and popcorn, playing music or a movie and signing each others shirts? What happened to your teacher handing out funny specialty certificates made just for you and your classmates?
Numbness comes over as you walk to your car because there is nothing you can say that will stop this foolishness, especially in front of the poor unsuspecting students, one being your son, who had no choice or understanding to protest. All you can do is fake a smile and try not to get into any conversations, because you know you won't be able to keep your mouth shut for long.
The drive home is a quiet one. You know tomorrow will be another day for someone else to waste everything overcompensating in the name of the children because of their inadequate feelings of self.