Sapiens is an apt book to quote for this.

There is also a chapter on brain chemicals:

"Some air-conditioning systems are set at twenty-five degrees Celsius. Others are set at twenty degrees. Human happiness conditioning systems also differ from person to person. On a scale from one to ten, some people are born with a cheerful biochemical system that allows their mood to swing between levels six and ten, stabilising with time at eight. Such a person is quite happy even if she lives in an alienating big city, loses all her money in a stock-exchange crash and is diagnosed with diabetes. Other people are cursed with a gloomy biochemistry that swings between three and seven and stabilises at five. Such an unhappy person remains depressed even if she enjoys the support of a tight-knit community, wins millions in the lottery and is as healthy as an Olympic athlete. Indeed, even if our gloomy friend wins $50,000,000 in the morning, discovers the cure for both AIDS and cancer by noon, makes peace between Israelis and Palestinians that afternoon, and then in the evening reunites with her long-lost child who disappeared years ago – she would still be incapable of experiencing anything beyond level seven happiness. Her brain is simply not built for exhilaration, come what may." https://erenow.net/common/sapiensbriefhistory/102.php

Is this the link to the actual book text, or a summary? Thanks.

I wonder if that is why we like music. We can experience emotions without worrying that they are permanent or need to be resolved.

If there's something sacred to me it's music (or harmony). It's weird because it's not as foundational as smell or vision but it revives my soul like nothing else. That's the closest substitute to drug I know of.

I have no idea why our emotions are so tangled with it and how comes it can untie knots in our minds like this.

> it revives my soul like nothing else.

Beautifully said.

I have numerous sayings about music, for example I used to do 20 mile runs every Saturday and Sunday and 10 miles every weekday. No David goggins but people always ask question, I tend to tell them I don’t run, I listen to music and the miles run themselves.

And I used to tell people that the music allows me to feel every single cell in my body and the music makes them happy. And truthfully I think there is something to that down to the quantum level, where the music causes your atoms to vibrate putting them in higher states of energy.

I don't subscribe to quantum / soul connection but I guess the abstract relationships between notes and rhythm tickles the brain very very deep.

I rely on music for emotional regulation. Not only does it help push me towards moods/states i want, like focus, energy, calm, etc - but it helps me manage moods i don't want. If i'm feeling sad, embracing the sadness with music can be enriching in a unique way. Almost like "having a good cry", but far easier to achieve, and with application for almost all moods and circumstances.

Music really is the center of my life, even though i don't play it. .. though i do dabble, and am currently learning Piano, so /shrug.

I dabbled and everybody should dabble, smoothly just for the thrill of hearing notes in time.

I wish I had a piano, weighted keys are so sweet. Another fun thing is large congas.. the depth of the sound is surprising.

> The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.

Schopenhauer, the father of philosophical pessimism, would agree with you: he thought of music as one of the few pure respites from the suffering of the world.

That’s exactly why the Pythagoreans were obsessed with music!

An arcane text which I highly recommend for those curious is The Manual of Harmonics by Nichomacus the Pythagorean. It’s a series of ancient lectures which dives into why the Pythagoreans were obsessed with how numerical the musical scales are.

Did pythagoreans have notions of chromatic scales ? I worry that without it you're losing a huge emotional space. I'll look your book at once.

He speaks profusely about tetrachords. I believe his best examination of the chromatic scale is in chapter 12.

I have a version translated and commentated upon by Flora R. Levin which provides exquisite anthropological background of how the ancient Greeks thought of music and provides context for what amounts to as lectures given by Nichomachus.

You said that perfectly. From beginning to end, it's amazingly spot on.

This touched a chord. For me it's a combination of both music and dance.

It's amazing to feel emotions I'd normally not want to express in everyday life and just let them flow out. Rage, jealousy, lust. The music is such a great trigger to tap into these primal feelings, and then expressing them through movement just feels incredible. It feels real and amazingly cathartic, but the transience of the experience leaves no consequences.

I guess that's why there's the saying dance like nobody's watching. Because for many people, that expression of feeling strips us down and leaves our feelings exposed and vulnerable .

This is along the lines of how I've come to think of music; music is a temporary emotional stimulant.

This resonates with me. A mistake I often made when I was younger was to try my hardest to make the anxiety go away. I'd employ all sorts of tricks to make it happen, but they never worked. If anything, I'd feel even more anxious.

At some point I got tired of this and just decided to allow myself to be anxious. To let the feeling completely envelope me, and basically say to myself "yes, I'm anxious, and I'm going to give the presentation anyway". Something about letting it happen takes its power away.

In the context of the article, perhaps this is a way of "closing the loop" on the initial anxiety response, because you're essentially choosing to fight the external object instead of looking for some other way out.

I’m too ignorant to know the origins of some of these ideas but this reminds me of a segment from a podcast with Joscha Bach. I’ve posted it here before, apologies for that, but i just like the way he describes it.

https://youtu.be/8mixT5_U0hk

This is profound and exactly what Jiddu Krishnamurti often talks about. When you do put a word to that emotion i.e., sad, angry, happy etc., you no longer suffer it. What's left is just the joy of life.

Great quote, thank you for sharing.

I had a friend who rather enjoyed being sad. He would purposely watch sad movies just to experience the tear jerker moments.

He was otherwise a generally happy person.