News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by agumonkey on Sunday April 11, 2021 @09:43PM (#26775364)
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.

Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by throwaway_kufu on Sunday April 11, 2021 @10:53PM (#26775684)
> 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.

Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by agumonkey on Sunday April 11, 2021 @11:05PM (#26775734)
I don't subscribe to quantum / soul connection but I guess the abstract relationships between notes and rhythm tickles the brain very very deep.
Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by adkadskhj on Sunday April 11, 2021 @11:26PM (#26775817)
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.

Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by agumonkey on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @08:26AM (#26791259)
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.

Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Monday April 12, 2021 @05:11PM (#26785245)
> 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.

Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by achillesheels on Monday April 12, 2021 @09:47AM (#26779367)
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.

Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by agumonkey on Monday April 12, 2021 @04:30PM (#26784764)
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.
Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by achillesheels on Monday April 12, 2021 @07:07PM (#26786273)
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.

Re:Anxiety is in your body, not your mind by Fern_Blossom on Monday April 12, 2021 @07:49AM (#26778314)
You said that perfectly. From beginning to end, it's amazingly spot on.