Mystery shelf

Most of the time, when I'm writing for work, I have music on.  I like to play music that I know really well, so that I can tune it out.  I generally need something that will help me tune out background noise, since I'm immensely destractable.  Academic writing can be staggeringly difficult.  Stories of spending entire days to write single paragraphs are not uncommon.  The words must be specific - never a word too many or too few.  The meaning of each word is precise and intended.

So, I'm working on a paper for which I did the analysis more than a year ago.  Other stuff got in the way, so now I'm trying to crank it out.  It's a paper about predictors of risky sexual behavior in adolescence.  Let's say that I'm currently not 100% thrilled with how the paper is turning out and the stress of not having it done is making it much harder to finish.  Cue writer's block.

The album I posted above is one of my go-to albums for writing.  The music is such a huge part of the movie.  It's foreboding and thunderous.  It's tragic and relentless.  It's other pairs of words that sound good together.  It's a collaboration between Clint Mansell, the Kronos Quartet, and Mogwai.  There are a lot of reasons to like it.

I imagine that most everyone hates or is otherwise indifferent to this movie, but I love it immensely.  It questions the nature of love, time, self, loss, energy, maybe even god, but it's most certainly about the cyclic nature of life.  It doesn't tell you anything in a straightforward way - you have to interpret the plot for yourself.  Every person experiences something different.  It's directed by Aronofsky, so that helps explain it.  It's kind of a slow, brutal journey; not something you watch for entertainment or to critique on its realism; it's something to experience and think about afterwards.

Unlike other music that I try to tune out, for me, this music brings me back to the emotional place of the movie.  Ever see Dancer in the Dark?  If yes, then when I say "the last song" you're going to want to cry.  It's the same thing here, but the place the Fountain soundtrack brings me back to is this creative mystery emotion headspace, where everything is questionable and unknown, yet with purpose waiting to be uncovered.  It's the perfect emotional place to put myself so I can write, so I use it sparingly; Especially during times like right now, where I need to get some goddamn words on journal-quality paper and stop writing in a blog to no one.