I spent an hour or so today, listening to music from when I was young(ish). I didn’t really have much of a life until I got to town when I was 15 but from that point on; most definitely once I hit 17 and 18 and 19 into my 20’s, I was a very happy person. I was serious-minded and all. I was deep and what not, but also very happy and the music I listened to reflected this.
Outside of my obsession with Leonard Cohen at 15, I liked funny music, yang music, upbeat music as opposed to pine and cry in your beer stuff. I liked music where people were going to prevail, land on their feet, come out on top and have a good time. I liked clever music with a trick in it, snappy music, happy music and just in general, music for winners. ::blushes::
So now I am old and I can go back and listen to that music and feel what I felt then which was basically, exhilaration. I didn’t know what was going to happen in my life but I was bursting with hope and happiness and I compare it to people my age today.
“It doesn’t go their way and so they’re going to kill themselves.” Someone said that to me today and I thought about it. People are so pissed. Young people I mean.
Don’t get me wrong. I think they have a lot to be pissed off about but I wonder what is in store for them when they get older and look back the way I did today. Will they think, boy was I angry? That was despair?
The Moon is in Cancer today. If you consider your roots or your childhood, what was the prevailing feeling of that time?
“So now I am old and I can go back and listen to that music and feel what I felt then which was basically, exhilaration.”
I find it amazing how music can do just that..bring back what you were feeling at the time. When I was a little kid..around elementary school age, I had these records that were the soundtracks (not just the music but like the movie without the visual stuff) of complete Disney Movies specifically Dumbo, Jungle Book, Lady and the Tramp, the Aristocats. I would listen to one every night as I fell asleep. Now, when I watch the movies with my grandson (and when i watched them with my kids) I get that same little girl feel of comfort. of course this was a time where my innocence was still intact..before abuse, before heartbreak, before the divorce of my parents. its nice to know that i can still conjure that feeling. One day I’m going to capture that secure feeling from that age and hold onto it like hell..
Teen years..that’s a different story. Some of the stuff I listened too was music you could dance to. but because i had become a little jaded by then, a lot of it was “screw the system” sort of stuff with a darker side or bite to it. and same applies there, when I hear the stuff I’m right back there.
Great topic! Thanks for bringing it up 🙂
Strength. Get on with things. Speak your mind and then carry on. Walk away from things/people who lack integrity/a backbone. We were held up against a high standard of behaviour. I have Pluto/Mars/Venus on the 10th/4th axis, in aspect to my Moon.
How interesting. Boy, I just couldn’t wait for the day to start. I was so rarin’ to go live it was ridiculous. HAPPY. 🙂
I grew up pissed off. My family was a train wreck and I just KNEW I had to be adopted or put there by aliens. It was a small redneck town and I didn’t belong there, either. I tried to run away from home when I was FOUR YEARS OLD.
I find I’m more open to music I didn’t think was “cool enough” to like at the time. ::cough::(music snob)::cough::
“Don’t stop… believin’….. oooooooOOOAAAAH!”
Had a roomie in my 20’s and she’d shoot me dirty looks in the morning cuz I’d wake up so cheerful. I’m like hey Good Day Sunshine and she needed to wake up more slowly. I miss that feeling and working on getting it back.
I made a lot of sweet memories between the ages of 15 thru 27 and that has sustained me thru many a dark time. And of course the music lives forever!!
@Elsa:) I also discovered Leonard Cohen at age 15. Nowadays, gotta be in a certain mood to listen.
I asked my husband about this and he said he felt the same way I did. Just couldn’t wait to be out in life. I asked him if he thought people felt anything like that today..
“No! They feel **** (unintelligible)
“Did you say they feel impaired?”
“No! The think someone should take care of them.”
“Oh. Well then they are impaired. Someone has to take care of them because they are impaired and can’t take care of themselves?”
“They think they need help to take care of themselves. There is no freedom. You can’t smoke, you can’t eat this, you can’t have salt, you can’t go out and ride a bike without a peanut looking thing on your head, you can’t have any trans fat, you’ve got to have someone else pay for you, you can’t do a damned thing on your own…”
Then my kid got off the bus and I asked him what his prevailing feeling was.
“Indifference,” he answered.
It’s heart-breaking. Where the hell is the human spirit; the American spirit. WTH???????
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Vroom vroom! When I was REALLY little (like, 7 and under) I was raring to go. I was always running off on my parents, or getting on a school bus somewhere else–Saggie. The other stuff (Saturn stuff) came later.
Well, lessee. I was singing Paranoid by Black Sabbath at 14.
It definitely reflected my childhood.
Things were happier for me when I got out of the house. The music improved, too!
It’s a totally different world. My bff and I were taking public transportation (Chicago) from the age of 9 without adults. We’d meet her Mom downtown at her job and she’d take us shopping or to dinner. On saturdays we’d take our younger siblings to the movies via bus and we always felt safe.
Nowadays, if someone saw 6 kids ranging from 2 to 9 years old riding a Chicago bus without parents I’m sure the police would be called.
And while I wouldn’t ride a motorcycle without a helmet, there is no way I’m wearing a helmet to ride my bicycle. I Just Can’t.
I feel sorry for the young ones. They have so much more and at the same time so much less than my generation. Would not want to be in my 20’s these days.
When I was around three, I would wake up singing. I made up all kinds of songs about animals. I remember singing about puppies playing. Wow how much happier can a kid get? But looking back I think it was to cover up a little anxiety I had. I was an only child and was alone a lot (Mars on the cusp of the 12th conj. and South Node in Taurus, I think music was my greatest friend until I made some.
I was never happy-go-lucky; always serious, always with so much responsibility (I raised my younger siblings from birth when I was just a kid myself). I always found escape in books and music (I especially liked to listen to the radio late at night after everyone was asleep; I would put my little radio right under the covers by my head…it took me outside of myself and my circumstances). I was always certain I would one day be free to do as I pleased, when I pleased…..and I have been, since I was 16.
The song that brings it all back: Late Night Radio by John Denver 🙂
Today I heard of a 15 year old who made a suicide attempt. Last week I heard of a 16 year old who made a suicide attempt.
Jeez Louise.
Another person told me, “It doesn’t go the way the want it to so they kill themselves…”
There are so many better ideas.
Another person told me, “It doesn’t go the way the want it to so they kill themselves…”
You know, I figured that if your life was so bad that you wanted to kill yourself, you may as well do that thing that you always wanted to do but were too scared to do. You know, that thing that scared the bejeezers out of you, and no way could you bring yourself to do that (pack your bag and walk out the door and start walking around the world … parachute out of an aeroplane … tell that person what you have always been too scared to tell them … leave that miserable relationship … whatever!) Because, what is the worst thing that can happen?? You’re ready to kill yourself, so what else could be that bad?? So don’t kill yourself. Do the thing that scares you most. You never know; you might just discover life.
Just a thought.
Brooding and pontificating. I’m mostly comfortable revisiting.
Hard to say what is going on with the teen suicide attempt. I may get blasted for this but some of these kids do it for attention. They see how much attention it gets / manipulate their parents this way (single mothers, usually).
Of course it is taboo to say this but y’all know this happens and it happens a lot.
All I know is you’re not going to get ahead spending your 15th year in a psych hospital but the hospitals are chock full aren’t they?
We really have to address this crisis in parenting but people just aren’t ready. I try to bring it up on the blog but I am sick of being the only voice. I am to a point where I no longer want to try to interfere with the trend as there are so many going in the one direction, I can do nothing but get trampled and so my husband and I put on our parachutes as mentioned on the boards and we’re just going to jump.
Joy in its most simplest form. There is a Richard Bach quote that goes, “Anyone desperate enough for suicide…should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try…”
I am as joyful for life now as I was when I was rolling around on the grass at the age of five. When I think of myself at my happiest, I picture digging my hands into the sand at the beach and squeezing it…sitting on the sand, not caring if it gets on my white pants. I was a kid in the 90’s and cellphones and computers were barely becoming mainstream…I’m a techie, but I think they have made things very hectic and quick, and sometimes you just need to stop, say thanks, and think “I’m alive!”
I was a very angry and unhappy teenager, and this definitely shows in my choices of music at the time. Dark dark dark. Mostly frustrated and bored at school, with life, with my parents, everything.
I like to think I’ve mellowed & improved a lot since then. Still working on it, but making progress.
“Indifference.”
Ouch.
But I see it, it is the feeling that comes from being beaten down, getting your hopes up only to having them beaten down again. I see it alot in young people, especially those with Saturn contacts or t-squares or other tough aspects. Indifference is a measure of self protection.
Me, when I was young, was a strange mixture. Some exhilaration, some fearlessness for sure. I left home as soon as I turned 16, in a give-it-all up strange crazy sort of way, with nothing and went 3000 miles away – and stayed away from where I grew up for 3 years. I had what you might call faith, though not in a religious way, in a hopeful way, like there is a destiny, a purpose, just trusting. But I also had angst, despair at times too, and burdens to shoulder and tough shit to go through and get toughened up from.
The music? Well it depends on the age. I liked all sorts of music, in my teens I like music from past generations cause I thought most music out there in the 80’s sucked, or so I though at the ttime – still do in some cases! So in my early 20’s went on a media fast that lasted a decade. Didn’t have TV or radio, just a few worn cassettes. Missed a lot of cool stuff that came out in the 90’s and I rediscovered it a few years ago.
As a teenager who attempted suicide I say YES ABSOLUTELY some do it for attention. Yes, yes, yes. I just hope the adults DO pay attention. Maybe I’LL catch hell for saying this, but–a little love and attention can go a long way for a teenager. Just that: paying attention.
A life long (since birth) family friend committed suicide when he was about to turn 15. He took a gun and went into the woods. It took until spring to find him. He definitely wanted to go. I didn’t want to go, I just looked to the future and saw a wall of black.
Now–I see directions everywhere–I’m very happy with my life. Pluto transit on the Sun when I was a teen, it wasn’t easy.
Oh, and like others here, I left home at 16. I don’t like that it caused my parents grief but it was the best thing that ever happened to me (taking the reigns/responsibility for my own life).
“Indifference.”
I think now, he was being dramatic when he said that but he still does not feel anything even remotely like I did when I was a kid. So much of the joy and fun has been sucked out of like, it’s astonishing. 🙂
(the smile is because that is what I do when I am astonished)
Maybe Vid was being dramatic when he said indifference, but I’ll agree with him anyway. It’s what I’ve been seeing for at least 15 years.
On the music front, I’ve always listened to dark, broody, and angry music, but for some reason it makes me feel happy. *dimples* I chalk this up to my dad, who was a metalhead before there were metalheads. 😉
But I also listen to silly, upbeat shit for the hell of it (like Weird Al, They Might Be Giants, Presidents, Cake, Weebl).
Most people I knew hated me. Dear god, did I ever love going to college where people didn’t do that any more.
@ Elsa you are right about the attention thing. But I also think it would be a good idea to teach our children to deal with their emotions and problems versus shoving pills down their throats from the time they learn to talk.
Josi, I agree re: the drugs off all kinds but don’t think there is interest in turning that around.
The only upside I take from this trend is that it’s certainly waking the rest of us up.
When I was younger my prevailing feeling was optimism combined with playful mischief. I just knew the world was magical, and I felt so connected.
Now, though I am still young (23), it’s completely different. I feel…just sad. A bit hopeless, a bit desperate, but mostly simple sadness. Life lost its fun a long time ago, for me and everyone else I know in my peer group. There’s not a lot to celebrate. We’re largely powerless in this climate, and most attempts to improve things result in another crushing defeat. It’s almost not worth it.
((midara)) I completely feel l you girl.