Why I write music

If there is one thing that defines human existence — something that colours each and every one of our lives — I believe it is loneliness. Or, to be specific, alienation — the persistent sensation of being different from those around us; the awareness of our other-ness in relation to another.

The reality is that you and I will never be able to completely understand each other. Our neural architectures process the world through filters coloured by our unique concatenation of memories, experiences, and inherited predispositions. We can never feel emotions the same way or see things through the same lens or think about the world in identical terms, because you have never lived my life, had my experiences, made my memories, and nor I yours. Our particular ways of experiencing and perceiving the world are trapped, quite literally, within the walls of our skulls. The light that reaches each of us is refracted through distinct prisms of being. Every human is an island.

Yet, it is this very separateness that defines our individuality. The distinctness of our being, the fact that we see through different eyes and feel with different hearts, is the price — and the gift — of existing as ourselves. Alienation, painful as it is, is not an anomaly but an intrinsic feature of the human condition and of life.

Some might attempt to overcome the pain of this separateness by becoming more like those around them — by doing their best to erase their individuality and to conceive of themselves only in terms of others, as a member of some herd in which they decide they belong. The irreconcilable parts of themselves are ostracised as unsightly tumours on an otherwise smooth and polished veneer, and as a result, they are alienated from themselves too.

Alternatively, we may take that which separates us and transmute it into ineffable beauty. Knowing the inevitable imperfection of it all, we might desperately and courageously reach out, hands fumbling and fingers outstretched, into the void between us. We may try despite the fact that, like Schopenhauer’s porcupines whose quills wound each other even as they huddle for warmth, we hurt and are hurt in the act of drawing close. We might express ourselves, hoping that someone will understand — if not perfectly, then maybe at least a little.

This leap of faith is present in all authentic art. What is art but an attempt at love; an attempt to put a part of yourself out there in the hopes that it is understood? It is always imperfect, sometimes clumsy, often beautiful. It is the cry of one soul to another, a declaration: This is what I see. Do you see it too?

… What is love but the culmination of art?

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Music illustrates this well: it is, in ways, more nebulous and open to interpretation than words or visual art, yet is able to express specific feelings that often can’t be simply translated into words.

Perhaps no one will know exactly what Beethoven, Rachmaninov or Debussy “meant” with their pieces; no one will feel exactly how they felt. But I like to think that most of it was able to reach us. Miraculously, the notes they penned are being played even centuries later, transformed into sound waves at certain frequencies that travel through the air and into our ears before being translated into emotions by our minds. It’s a Chinese-whispers sort of process — the music inevitably transformed by the unique interpretation of musicians and listeners — but is this flawed and oddly beautiful dance not the point of it all?

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Nietszche once developed his idea of the “Will to Power”: a fundamental drive that compels self-expression and the creation and assertion of values. But self-expression in a vacuum is a hollow endeavour. What worth is great art, what worth are great values, without people who recognise or understand them? The true fulfillment of one’s creative self-expression is forged in the blazing moment of human connection, when it is received, understood, and cherished by another. It is not only the act of creation itself, but also the moment of recognition, that imbues art with meaning. For this reason, perhaps this force at the heart of human existence could be better conceived as a Will to Love: a compulsion to reach beyond oneself, to share, to connect, to be seen and understood.

A common theory is that the universe began from a singularity before expanding outward. We all continue to be a part of this same unity — particles in a particle soup, inextricably linked to everything in an infinite web of cause and effect. And perhaps, this Will to Love is just the universe tracing the lines of this web, playing connect-the-dots, rediscovering itself anew. Like us, it struggles to get closer despite drifting further apart.

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Julie Delpy puts it beautifully in Before Sunrise:

“I believe if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know it’s almost impossible to succeed… but who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.”

Indeed, there is a kind of absurdist nature to this paradox of connection. The Sisyphean way our desire for meaning is thwarted by the benign indifference of the universe parallels the unattainable yet coveted nature of complete understanding. And the answer is the same as Camus’; the struggle itself is enough to fill one’s heart. The answer must be in the attempt.

It is not that life is lived and love is loved in spite of their imperfections; rather, life and love would not exist without them. The bridge would not exist without the river. And I would not exist without you.

This is why I write music.