Nostalgia... but better.

I wrote this entry back in September when I played a concert of John Williams Music. Figured I should document the chicken scratch before I lose it, or spill something on it...

In this concert, I've had several emotional reactions to the music, or to the memory of when it was first heard. There have been three times when performing, that a specific musical moment (in Star Wars and Harry Potter) has caused an internal pull, like someone's grabbed my insides and twisted (to steal a line from Rowling)--A swelling in my throat that teases tears. Why is there such a reaction to this "commercial music"-- it always has such a negative connotation, but it's quite good. It has an emotional substance that is magnified by the memory of its early hearing. The personal connection I've had with the Stars Wars films, the Harry Potter books, and, though not as magical, the subsequent films is one that was made in my childhood. This hindsight is bitter sweet.

Sweet in the innocence and happiness of childhood--truly wishing to be a Luke or Harry. This is one of the most impressive type of art, perhaps the most pure: to change completely one's sense of reality, where we may forget (though temporarily) our obligations to a hungry society. How great that these stories were fabricated and brought to life by humans that at one point harbored our same potential energy.

Bitter because we are eventually brought back to the very real truth that:

1) We can't live the life that as a child we fantasized was possible, and

2) we can no longer live as freely and without care as we did in youth (though perhaps it didn't seem that way then).

Sweet again. Our big troubles then, don't seem so now. Which means, our big troubles now won't seem so soon enough.