Music is my drug.

I have to admit it: I must be hopelessly addicted. Some people say I have a problem, but they just don’t see what good comes from it. It gets expensive, in its own way, me spending all this time and energy on varied musical nonsense almost seems…counter-productive. People want me to do something useful with my life. But don’t you see? This is my little wormhole out of reality; to a place where time falls into my control. If it so calls for allegro con brio, then let the clock ticks quicken with my heartbeat; but if we’re humming a nice dolce andante, time will bend and slow to my whims.

How does one stay sane? Let me ask you this then, why do we dream? Our minds working ever tirelessly when we’re supposedly at rest; it is our way of staying productive, staying active. Once we lose that, then and only then, is when insanity sets in. The same can be said about the connection between music and me. This is how I “stay productive,” how I refresh myself after a long, tiring day at work. This is how time flies by. Now this may seem contradictory to the old proverb, “slow down and smell the roses,” but just because our minds stay active doesn’t mean they’re sprinting; as runners may know, slowly jogging for an extended period of time is less tiring and taxing on the body than sprinting and stopping in short bursts.

It used to sound like a chore, when my dad told me to stop playing video games and practice piano; of course my then childish desires were to stay glued to the television screen, guiding an Italian plumber wearing a red cap I’ve never met before jump through obstacles of a dream world. Little did I know that my dad was, in reality, giving me the set of keys that allows me to traverse through a dream world of my own.

I can’t imagine a world without music, a world where everything is silent. It may help me concentrate or focus on something in the short run, but if I had to give up my hearing, life wouldn’t be peaceful; rather, it’d be quiet…too quiet…suffocating.

What’s your drug?