Let’s talk about why we love music, with reference to the book, Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.
“This thing called “music,” they (highly cerebral alien beings, the Overlords, in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End) would have to concede, is in some way efficacious to humans, central to human life. Yet it has no concepts, makes no propositions; it lacks images, symbols, the stuff of language. It has no power of representation. It has no necessary relation to the world.”
Then, the book starts with a real story of Tony Cicoria who “was forty-two, very fit and robust, a former college football player who had become a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon in a small city in upstate New York.” He got struck with lightning. He recovered with an “insatiable desire to listen to piano music.”
“Was he having musical hallucinations? No, Dr. Cicoria said, they were not hallucinations—“inspiration” was a more apt word.”
“Some years passed, and Cicoria’s new life, his inspiration, never deserted him. He continued to work full-time as a surgeon, but his heart and mind now centered on music. He got divorced in 2004, and the same year had a fearful motorcycle accident. He had no memory of this, but his Harley was struck by another vehicle, and he was found in a ditch, unconscious and badly injured, with broken bones, a ruptured spleen, a perforated lung, cardiac contusions, and, despite his helmet, head injuries. In spite of all this, he made a complete recovery and was back at work in two months. Neither the accident nor his head injury nor his divorce seemed to have made any difference to his passion for playing and composing music.”
Then, what is this “lightning” that enkindles the devotion to music for the rest of the music lovers of the world? Is it ceaseless pain at some corner of the heart? Does music provide social immunity (not to Omicron of course)?
