Musical Answers

Descaling Rage Key by Key

19th March 2024

Don’t read this if you have never felt desperate.

Sometimes music is the only answer. I am a writer too, but there is this problem with writing . It can become like a sledgehammer, crushing your skull. And it can fuel the anger.

Why does writing become possession -  like some kind of stupid addiction, keeping you away from food, from going when you need to go, from the very air you need to breathe? Why does it feed only itself while you are starved of the light?  I used to think writing was therapeutic but I got that wrong.  It might be beneficial to write a few swear words instead of smacking yourself, or the nearest punchbag, but if it involves thinking it’s counter-productive.

It’s not the word itself that is the issue.  In the beginning was the word, and that sound becomes increasingly dense until it falls into actual stuff.  That stuff includes me. 

 So I am a word. I kind of know which one as well.  In fact I am three words

 ‘FOR FUCK’S SAKE’.  

That is the trinity and it is why some people think god is within.  God is hell and hell is heaven and its all the same thing.  The more you try and keep the other out, the more it invades until you realise you are ‘the other’ and that’s that whole Christ thing and it’s what the mushroom is telling us.  And also the plant kingdom. You don’t see plants screaming and fighting that often - they don’t lose their temper because they’re not trying to be something they’re not.  As human beings, we have the disadvantage of being born into a cult which uses all forms of media to imprison us. It is so insidious that in actual prison I felt freer than I had ever felt in the outside world ,and I came to understand that it was because there was no choice. Too much choice is a prison in itself. 

The media controls our perception by throwing images and messages at us which are endlessly contradictory and designed to confuse.  That puts you in a ‘double bind’, and just like bad parenting, it screws you.  It is paralysing. It’s all about them.  Have you noticed they tell you all about they themselves and them. All the time.  It’s never about you, or your friends or family, or anything you care about particularly. It’s their interests, their agenda , their news but they sell it as ‘the news’, as if it’s relevant to you.  It’s not.  It’s just the controlling narcissistic parent trying to dominate your whole being till you suffocate.  

You can switch it off. That’s great.  Bye bye.  But then you walk out the door and their agents are everywhere. 

STOP, GO, GREEN, RED, WALK, DON’T WALK, THINK, DON’T THINK, GO SLOW, FAST LANE, NO SMOKING, NO ALCOHOL. DOGS ON LEADS, NO IRISH , NO CHILDREN , KEEP OFF THE GRASS, NO BALL GAMES, NO CAMPING, NO FIRES, NO LOITERING, NO ENTRY, NO RUNNING , NO SWIMMING, DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER - HEY SEE KEEP OUT - CONSUME, OBEY, GET IN LINE … 

There’s an old film called ‘They’.   This guy finds a pair of glasses and when he puts them on he sees reality.  It hits him . It’s all around him in flashing beacon neon lights. Signature marks of the demon cult control system. Those shadow entities that operate on the lower demonic frequencies running the puppet show and sucking out all your energy until they’ve one hundred percent disempowered you.  IF there is anything left of you they will use people around you to trick you so you can’t trust anyone. And when they’ve finished slamming doors, cutting off every lifeline that you might have had left, it leads to social isolation and exclusion.

Isolation is a shortcut to chaos, but chaos comes to us all anyway.  I thought that if I gave into chaos I would be less angry but it requires total letting go. There must be not one single little piece of control left.  If you are hanging onto any tiny thread of your existence it will create fury. You can’t worry that you are living in a pigsty.  You just have to get down and wallow in the mud and spread it further. The demons will be reminding you of the washing up, but you must get comfortable with piles of crap in the sink and over all the work surfaces. Art and cleanliness don’t mix well, so it’s better to just confront what it is about filth that is bugging you in the first place.  It only gets unhealthy if there’s no fresh air, so you can live in a pig sty and open the windows and its okay.  Having an incontinent dog is probably a healthy extra because urine has healing properties when it gets old. 

Every now and then I have made a point of just giving in to chaos but obviously I didn’t give in enough because the rage is infinite.  It’s been exploding out in all directions again lately,  and one thing I know is that it’s better to stick to music in those circumstances but within limits.  I have neighbours.  So I decided yesterday to do an experiment on  frequencies to help dissipate my rage.  I have previously written about how I used certain musical frequencies to help myself here Music As Medicine

Usually I can’t play the piano if I am violently angry because I will break the piano, I have done before.  And banging on the piano leads to neighbour problems.  Guitars are throwable, so if it’s gone past a certain level, that’s not an option and that was the case yesterday.  I had to wait till I had got at least a minimum level of control to sit down and see what I could do with working through anger on the keyboard. I got it down to  gritting my teeth point and the recording I have embedded above is where I went with it. ‘D’ seemed to be the note of anger and ‘F sharp’ featured quite a bit.I have had to edit it down because it was really long and the beginning would have been too drawn out and painful to listen to.  If the beginning grates too much, fast forward to where it begins to resolve and calm.

It worked.  Music is magic. 

I rarely know what I am angry about.  But that is what is great about music therapy.  You don’t need to know.  And nor do you need to apologise for your anger.  It merely means you are alive. As Dylan Thomas put it:

‘Do Not Go Gentle into that good night

Rage Rage against the dying of the light …’