The same music sounds different

10/22/2019

The Same Music Sounds Different

I turn on my computer, start up google chrome, go on Youtube and click on a link

I hear your voice, your singing voice, your lovely singing voice,

which I haven't heard in so long, since we've said so long.

I can hear my beginner guitar plucking, in my amateurish polo, trying to fit in your presence

I see that I closed my eyes, to see the beauty in your voice, your subtle movements,

to play along, in tune, attuned to your vocal cues.

Music and Interpretation

Music and Interpretation

The most humbling take away from listening to music is its unique interaction with language. It is unlike regular language in that it can utilize it (as in vocal music) or imply it (as in instrumental music). While there are many metaphors saying that 'music is a language', I would like to offer a different approach to thinking about music. For there are many who say music is a language and that it 'speaks' to you but this metaphor, I hope to show, only scratches the surface. I will argue that music is a kind of 'skillful coping', a term coined by philosopher Hubert Dreyfus to describe Heidegger's philosophy of authentically being-in-the-world. 

To "be in the world", for Heidegger, is a concept in his description of human being's existence that primarily posits that the human being and the world are connected and inseparable. To be in the world is to be born into a culture, this is the history of all human beings. To be in the world is to always be projecting oneself forward towards a "for the sake of which"– I build a house for the sake of sheltering myself. To be in the world is to care about the world and those that one lives amongst in the world. To be in the world is to interpret one's world so that there is always meaning.

This brings me to music– how does music showcase a unique form of being-in-the-world? Music is a humbling phenomenon; while we hear these sounds, we interpret them, and, in doing so, evoke different feelings about them, most of the time without the explicit use of language. And music is this organized form of sounds, presented with intention by an composer, himself an interpreter, for the listener to make sense of what may as well be noise without context. It is of no surprise that context delineates whether sound becomes music or noise, for the greatest piece of music ever made being played on the elevator will still be elevator music. 

The context of music is key to showcasing its privilege as a unique form of "being-in-the-world", as a kind of skillful coping. When the context fits the music appropriately, we do not assume anything else. We do not question whether the music is appropriate because we have already made space for it in our world. When we welcome music, we feel at home in the world and engage in it. This is why unfamiliar music to us, especially those that do not match our taste, feels uncanny and sometimes unlistenable. 

The Trap of Philosophy is All the Same, No Matter the School of Thought or An Apology to My Best Friend for Being an Ass

10/19/2019

The Trap of Philosophy is All the Same, 

No Matter the School of Thought

or

An Apology to my Best Friend for Being an Ass

It has been brought to my attention that I've been living in a cult, with a philosophical framework so esoteric that only the true-blooded followers could appreciate what I'm trying to do (or worse, even they don't know what the hell I'm talking about). It is as if I were speaking Klingon but more flowery, its poetry only making sense within the language it was constructed for. This is what is called "Heidegerrese". Its main proponent was none other than the philosopher Martin Heidegger himself, who tasked himself with providing a description of human nature. He felt that language, at the time, didn't have the words for his interpretation– so he made up his own (kind of). What arises from the kind of word-building games he comes up with boasts a high barrier to entry to understand him. When I first read Heidegger, I had no idea what he was talking about, but such a challenge was so intriguing that when I finally got to understanding a bit of his thinking, I began to speak the language itself. The appeal of Heidegger's philosophy has made me apathetic to being comprehensible to others. 

Many of my written compositions regularly feature the word "disclose", "unveil", "unconceal", "Dasein", "being-in-the-world", "being-towards-death", "being-x-y-z" (insert words in variables), and many more. I've come to reflect on how language in this way has affected my thinking. Because insofar as I have gleaned upon numerous insights into what it means to be a human being, I have impoverished myself with communicating them. Perhaps only the illusion of knowing what I'm talking about is what I have going for me. Or maybe even just laziness.  I imagine that back then I would think: 'If I could figure out what the hell Heidegger was saying then others should be able to as well!'. 

And so I've written numerous reflections, many of them in this blog, engaging with Heidegger or using his philosophy as a medium to express my feelings in poetry or journal writing. What I found ironic in all this is that while Heidegger's major work, "Being and Time", rails against Cartesian solipsism, he leaves this one guy who followed him, all alone– effectively solipsistic, but perhaps not by radical choice.

I write now not to describe the state of Heideggerian scholarship. There is already a great deal of philosophers now making Heidegger's thought much more accessible. I am instead talking about how my writing has been self-inflicted with obscurity. Rather than finding my own voice, I tried to embody that of Heidegger's. While it is the task of many philosophers to think more about reality than we take granted for, the task of making it intelligible for your average educated mind may take the back seat. 

This kind of self-indulgence is a parallel to my own. I have largely ignored ethics, afraid of taking a stance on anything. It's hard. Whereas, the reading of Heidegger's lack of any explicit ethics gives me an excuse to work through the "descriptive" writing of everyday existence without any kind of value judgments. This leads to a mild form of egocentrism in the form of idealism (thinking to myself: 'with all this knowledge, I must be able to embody the "authentic" human being'). And when this kind of pretentiousness seeps into personal conversations, I tend to become incapable of even being aware that I've grown defensive or stand-offish. And that feeling after the misunderstanding is over, after the dust settles, is a feeling of stupidity. On the onset of reflection, a quick defensive turn would be to make the excuse of being "unaware", saying to myself "I didn't know". But ignorance and stupidity have a fine line between each other. The former is permissible when it is appropriate and excusable (i.e. experiencing doing a wrong deed for the first time, or being a child who didn't know any better), while the latter connotes an active resistance to making up for and improving on the former. 

There is a difference between Socrates' famous statement "wisest is he who knows that he knows nothing" and the cliché that "ignorance is bliss". Socrates embodied humility and a passionate commitment to the truth. Those that equate ignorance with the joy of innocence are committing the sin of hindsight, conflating lacking knowledge with the lack of desire for knowledge. And I cast the stone only to myself, for I have been wrong, especially to my best friend. 

I have been wrong along these veins many times and the frequency of this occurrence has been swept under the rug in efforts to save my ego, excusing a mere 'lapse of judgment' and a promise to 'do better next time' without any action arising from these passive intentions. And now I think that it has something to do with this tendency of mine to speak in "Heideggerese". It leads to a flight from accountability, for there is nothing wrong in providing descriptions for phenomena; but neither is there anything right in doing so either. 

To take on the reformed task of integrating Heidegger's philosophy with common discourse is to make explicit the fact that I am making an interpretation, translating his very specific word-building to make a point. This calls for speaking for myself based on engaging with his thought (as an interpreter) instead of trying to revive Heidegger in speech (as a rhapsode). The distinction here is subtle, but I think it has a lot to do with the distinction between Socrates and that cliché. I think it best that I acknowledge my viewpoint instead of remain a happy ignoramus who merely appreciates reading Heidegger. And I posit this particular to be universal as well. No matter the school of thought, it is unwise to fall into the trap of hubris clad in brutish armor and thick skin.

The change is to be active rather than passive: in listening, in speaking, in living. It is the switch from the mere speculative to the contemplative– and that means to import the political, ethical, logical, existential, rhetorical, etc. The task of active interpretation is to engage with the world (to be-in-the-world, as Heidegger would put it!), and to be aware of the assumptions that I take wherever I go, to live up to this heritage and to gain insight from it; and, if appropriate, transcend it, branch off of it, and reveal what has remain hidden in plain sight. I put myself up to this as an ethical imperative, to do so with the task of virtue in mind, and to put it in practice (I have been reading the Nicomachean ethics but have yet to put it into practice, and thus have been wasting my time). 

And to you, my best friend, I am sincerely sorry and hope to make amends. I am also grateful to have learned this from you, I would have been blind if it were any other. Thank you for your patience and your straight up honesty with me.