music: Grateful Dead- 6/10/73, Washington, D.C.
Life is an uphill struggle against the degradation of the universe. This plane of existence, the ancients tell us, began in chaos, and ever since the Great Clock was wound, this universe has been busy falling to pieces. On a more human scale this unfortunate phenomenon shakes out in various familiar and unpleasant ways: various batteries need charging, the dishes need to be washed, email sorted and replied to, boxes in the basement need to be pushed into newer and better piles, bike brakes need to be tightened, food needs to be purchased and consumed. The list goes on and on. We are constantly creating out order out of a rapidly unraveling existence. Do not be fooled: we are Sisyphus hauling his rock uphill for an eternity. We will never reach the point of equilibrium with the forces of entropy. The best we can do is hope that our efforts hold entropy at bay for a while, possibly delay the inevitable unravelling for just a little longer.
I consider it a mark of good mental health for myself when I have things organized and put away. I’ve been working on paring down my material possessions (save books and music) in order to make my personal labor debt with the universe as small as I can. Still, I find myself cleaning, sorting, and organizing on a weekly basis. I don’t have time or energy enough to tackle the tasks during the week these days, so usually things get backed up to the weekend. The weekend is the time, then, to straighten out my life. I couldn’t even list what I did today, but I felt like I spent the entire day checking errands and small tasks off my list. It shouldn’t be surprising that the list is still impossibly long at the end of the day.
This weekend, though, was easier on the soul than others. I think that the extra hour helped in some way. But more than that, I think that the secret to my success this weekend had a lot to do with my new Gibson. I played a healthy amount of music this weekend, and with others. And it made all the difference.
Saturday was a day of friends and parties. I split early from a really nice party in JP (full of teachers and Outward Bound types) to rendezvous with Duncan and work some stuff out on the guitar. We’d been talking abstractly about playing music and finally got the chance to sit down and make it happen. Out to Arlington, then, late night on Saturday, to let some of the crap holding us back during the week work itself out in the form of sound. It was our first go-round, but it was good. We hit a nice tone of conversation, at points we even hit flow. Save some gear upgrades, this little collaboration can go places. I’m psyched to start playing more with Duncan, possibly bringing two or three more into the mix and making a legitimate band out of it. Then earlier tonight, a quick acoustic jam with roommate Matt. We’re coming at the guitar from slightly different directions, but we can still dig in and get something out of the experience. In both cases the music did more than hold entropy off, the act of plucking and picking that slab of wood and metal created order where there was none, made something out of nothing. I suppose that is the task of an instrument-to allow a human to exceed the limits of his own innate capabilities.
It’s Sunday night now, the end of another long week and another climb up over the weekend. I’ve cleaned, cooked, ordered, sorted, and (most importantly) created enough to feel settled. Monday will bring its accelerated rate of decline to my world, and entropy will once again gain the upper hand by the end of the week. We are Sisyphus, yes, but the creative art of making music will somehow lighten our load.
Posted by davidtaus at October 31, 2004 11:59 PM