Play Hurt

I have almost always been connected to music; not as an artist, but as a listener. “What a shit statement," you might say. "Everyone listens to music." And yeah, sure, of course that’s true. Where I draw the distinction is the place where needing music around me at all times becomes a compulsion. Without music, something feels off. Something’s wrong. Silence is a slight odor of smoke in my apartment when nothing should be burning. A humming sound from my car’s engine which only presents when I’m driving fast enough to know that a sudden issue would be catastrophic.

Silence is uncomfortable. Turn down the volume, and take away my security blanket.

A neurologist named Oliver Sacks researched a condition and called it Musicophilia. Usually it happens to people who have suffered some kind of brain injury, but I don’t remember one. Well – there was that one time a television landed on my forehead, but I think my compulsion started before then. Maybe? Whatever.

What I do remember is one of the first presents I got from my parents: headphones. There was a stereo in the dining room, and I would use it constantly because it had the best speakers in the house. From my earliest memories until I was through college the most common phrase I heard was “turn it down.” Yeah, it doesn’t just have to be on. It usually has to be loud. The headphones weren’t so much for me as they were to protect the rest of the family.

That’s a trend which continues to this day. Everywhere I go the music is playing, and it’s only gotten more convenient and more constant. My phone connects to a Bluetooth speaker when I’m getting ready to leave the house, to my headphones as I walk to the car, and to the car stereo as soon as I crank the engine. The song never breaks, and the playlist never ceases.

Music keeps me on track. Without it I stop moving, can’t complete a task. I operate at my best when I connect a particular album to a particular chore. American Idiot gets me through the grocery store. Turn the Radio Off folds laundry with me. The discography of Stone Temple Pilots up to 2008 cleans my apartment, and the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack holds my hand while I write something. Pavlov wasn’t wrong.

When I mention this, someone will point out that some people just can’t handle silence. This is usually accompanied by a superior tone fueled by a self-perceived strength of character. Their ability to sit quietly with nothing but their own thoughts must be some kind of superpower. Well you know what fucko, some people don’t have legs; no reason to get haughty just because your brain isn’t tied in knots and you have toenails to trim.

Okay sure, so I’m bitter about the fact that some people don’t need it. In addition to being easily distracted, I’m also regularly anxious or depressed. A quiet environment is a still one. The more still my body is, the faster my mind moves in useless swirls. Repeated fragments of half-developed sentences, ancient arguments with people I never talk to anymore, my obelisk of a to-do list, they’re all warring for my attention at the same time and all of them are winning.

Putting on music is like putting out the bumpers on a bowling alley. My thoughts can’t stray too far because music keeps them bordered, and my focus on a particular task remains until the task is complete. If I’m doing something simple like walking or driving, music fills in the dark places where uncomfortable thoughts would otherwise breed.

Somewhere in there is a lesson about my overall mental health. I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as I have a way to keep it under control.