“Music is very therapeutic, it’s a fix, and it helps get a lot of things out of you, it helps you bleed,” Shannon Hoon.  When you know what it means to feel like you need to bleed to let something out, you understand what it can mean to hear words spoken that feel like they say exactly what you’ve been trying to say all along.  Trying to say the words that feel like they won’t come out any other way than to see them on your skin.  Music is noted as the highest form of communication and hearing any form of music, reading poetry, the artistry behind these forms of communication, the way words paint a picture of the things we feel but can’t see or can’t always express, is something beautiful.  I can say in my time that I’ve often struggled to say what exactly it is I’m feeling.  Sometimes words fail to capture the depth and breadth of what’s happening inside.  But hearing one particular melody, a string of sound/notes put together in a certain way seems to be a key to a lock that says, “This is the right place, that’s what it is.”

At my lowest point, the words that have always been my life source suddenly fell flat.  I couldn’t seem to speak in a way that made sense—not even to myself.  All of that turned inward and brewed and stewed and churned inside me and there was nowhere for it to go.  I became the proverbial powder keg—waiting to blow.  And it wouldn’t have taken much for it blow.  I was able to bring that down to a small trickle when I found the music that screamed what it was inside of me.  No, it wasn’t a perfect system, but it helped me to know that there were other people who clearly understood what it was that went through my brain.  If this is something another person can speak to, perhaps I wasn’t so crazy after all.  Now, I actually didn’t take Shannon’s words about music helping you bleed literally.  I like to look at it as the music was what led to that small trickle so he didn’t explode.  He needed something to speak for him, another way to know someone understood him too.

The human animal seeks recognition, not for honor or attention’s sake, but to be understood.  We need recognition to find our place, to find what it is that courses through us.  We seek that recognition to know we aren’t alone, that someone sees things as we do.  The desire for attention comes with the desire for power or a desire to be seen a certain way—that’s manipulative.  Sure, animals can use that as a tactic to survive, making other creatures believe we are a certain way, bigger/stronger than we are.  But the truth is, it’s the soul that seeks the most recognition and that has nothing to do with ego.  When our soul is understood, we feel seen in a way that nothing/no one else can describe.  Sometimes we get feelings we don’t know how to work through because we don’t know exactly what they are and all we need is a familiar melody and suddenly we are home.