My Psychosis

It's late and I'm reviewing the day with a certain sense of satisfaction. After a very emotional and difficult week, I feel equilibrium return like a welcome friend. So of course, being me, I have to program in some music to cut my brain loose and let it roam. Because of the reflective tone my life has taken of late, I chose the recordings of piano days. There aren't that many, perhaps 5 altogether, though to people who hate classical music I'm sure they would seem like an entire CD in themselves. And as I listen to myself circa 1984, I realize what large chunk of me has been missing.

Passion. Not conviction, not anger, not enjoyment, not whimsy, love, or commitment. Pure emotional passion.

The music is a testament to the fact that, once upon a time, I felt with every nerve ending in my body. And poured it out through my fingertips. I could buy a piano tomorrow, practice 5 hours every day for the next 2 decades and never produce the music I produced then. Back then, music was such a psychotic experience for me. I still transcend everything when I sing, but I don't lose touch with reality. Then, I was gone--in Neverland, in a world created by the emotion and the keyboard and the sound of notes cascading through my brain. I didn't belong to the space-time continuum. And if I close my eyes as I listen, I can still see the lushly surreal, fantasmagorical worlds I visited when I played.

Music may be the most powerful communication tool ever created. It provides a direct patch from the emotional center to the subconscious. It's visceral in a way no other medium or art form is. It requires no interpretation, no conscious or logical facility to be experienced and understood.

Kirk, if you are reading this, I love you so much for dubbing this stuff over into digital for me. I rediscover myself every time I play it.