Cultural Anhedonia

It’s either that or another surprise late-in-life mental shift coming over me.

From the Google search page results for “anhedonia,” in case you needed the definition but were too embarrassed to ask.

Standing before the music library in my office I nearly had a panic attack trying to decide on a compact disc to listen to while driving to pick my son up from work. It was taking too much time to decide, and not in the sense that I have so much good stuff. I wasn’t in the mood for any of it.

I wasn’t in the mood to spend any time with Aerosmith. The Beatles? I’d had a crisis the month before when I realized I was skipping their tracks when they came up on shuffle. I’ve heard all of their songs a million times over. I didn’t want to hear them anymore. 

So how about anything from my complete Cocteau Twins catalog? David Bowie? Bob Dylan? That’s just the first of three racks of compact disc racks I own. 

I ended up making the 20 minute drive to Alamosa listening to the rusty distributor bearing chirping irritably under the hood of my Jeep. Unless you’re into pop country, modern basic girly-pop, or Mexican music, Colorado’s semi-remote San Luis Valley isn’t known for the quality of its radio stations. (I’d tried, though. Again.)

“Alas, has my heart grown so cold in my old age?” Oh, hush. This is me leaning out of my upstairs bathroom window at dawn last Friday taking art shots of the icicles and hoarfrosted trees. It’s -3°F/ -19°C out here. Is that youthful-edgy enough for ya, or just old man crazy?

This would astonish anyone who knew me growing up, when I couldn’t get enough of the same two or three bands, especially The Beatles, Stones, and Who. I know some who would say, “About time. You’ve been listening to this same old stuff for half a century already. You should listen to—”

Stop right there. I’m not only uninterested in the music I used to listen to, I have absolutely no interest in any new music you’re trying to sell me. I’ve heard some stuff in the last couple of years that I like (see my Jukebox category in the black taskbar above), but I have no pressing need to seek out the Next Coolest Thing by way of feeling au courant and totally with it, man. 

I’ve got all the cool I need right here. As for being au courant, well, this is now, isn’t it?

I knew I’d suffer some changes in attitudes towards things with the removal of my cancerous prostate in June, but my growing disdain for the music I’ve been listening to for years and years and years and years was something that was simmering before I came to Monte Vista in 2016. 

Working in relative silence can be more distracting than anything, because you get all kinds of random noises from the house and whatever’s going on outside. As Stephen King noted in his book On Writing, one plays music and plays it loud to make a sonic shell to keep those distractions out. My obvious solution is to fill a track list with instrumentals and deep cuts from some of my lesser-played discs.

This is what I mean when I say I play discs. At left is a 1GB MiniDisc, a miniature primitive hard drive that goes into Sony’s failed, one-season-only 2003 Walkman model at right. I’ve always liked the sound the proprietary software coaxed from its proprietary digital files, so I’ve held on to it. The discs, like my January one pictured, are starting to break down after ten or more years of use. I’ve yet to find an MP3 player that comes close to the fullness of sound I get from this, so I expect I’ll soon be playing these files from a dedicated all-in-one computer.

Who knows, maybe this is the year I’ll discover classical music. At least I won’t be bragging about listening to “Miles” or Ornette Coleman, ad tedium, in the future in this or any given parallel universe. People who claim to like jazz are the most insufferably pretentious smuggos on the planet, so I won’t be joining that fraternity. No worries there.

I’m 57 years old and I need some new anthems to keep me marching forward, that’s all.

Until I reach that faraway range.

I smile to consider the irony that in this whiz-bang, blockbuster-of-the-week pseudo-culture, my life is about as quiet as anyone’s from 100 years ago. It’s not just music that fails to capture my passion anymore. The only reason I can be fussed to watch the one and only television show I watch anymore is to spend time with my wife. The blatant social agenda I see on too many shows, even the one I enjoy with my wife, turns me away.

I may yet do a post on how the film 2016 Arrival insulted my intelligence to such a degree I hate modern movies and the hateful people who make them. Or not. I’m actually at peace with not being excited in any way whatsoever for the latest remake, re-imagining, franchise installment, comic book maladaptation, or, in the case of Arrival, a trite Mary Sue story masquerading as thoughtful speculative fiction.

Honestly, I’m not even angry about it. I luxuriate in my apathy towards modern pop culture. I celebrate being too old to have to pretend to care about the Latest Greatest Whammo-Blammo CGI cartoon. It frees me up for so many things.

If you’re into this, fine. No one’s judging. I’m just happy looking outside my picture windows at the cats on my porch. Yeah, I’m old. What was your first clue, Buttercup? I don’t expect anyone to believe this but it really is quite a relief in so many ways. Pray you make this level. You’ll know what I mean.

I do need to find some new music, though.

The Blue Porch Wild Kitty Committee. My favorite reality show.