The Music of Your Future
This article was originally published in German. The English version is an automatic translation and may contain errors. The German original is authoritative.
Music has existed for a very long time. Exactly how long is unknown. The philosopher Democritus wrote around 400 BC that humans probably tried at some point to imitate the song of songbirds. They used reeds as instruments and their voices. In this way, they began to make music as a mirror of nature.
Today we know music of the past and of the present. The music of the future, however, will remain forever foreign and uncertain to us. People write books, make films, have visions of the future. But as soon as the so-called "future" happens, it is already the present. And even this usually only becomes truly conscious to us when it already belongs to the past.
We will never have the possibility of hearing future music as such. We can chase the future as much as we want – it will always inevitably be one step ahead of us. The course of time with its events is far too complex, foreign and unknown for us to be able to see through it.
In our lives, music has always been there. From the beginning. Before we were even born, most people have already heard music. Even after their death, many will still have music played at their funeral.
One thing is certain: everyone has grown up with music in some form. Many people associate certain special moments of their lives with specific music. Usually the song or melody itself is not the centrally important thing. What matters above all is what emotions we link the music to. What matters above all is what happens in our hearts.
There is this saying: "Music is the universal language and does not need to be translated, as the soul speaks." Music is made all over the world. No matter how people there are doing. Even when people are doing terribly, there is music that connects them or moves them forward. Sometimes this music is also a conscious expression of their life situation. I am convinced that music in a certain way connects all people with one another. It is an invisible bond of humanity. We cannot let go of music or give it up for a lifetime. It is simply something that is within us. Music accompanies us throughout our lives. It is hard to say what we would be without music, after all we do not know it any other way. That is why I also believe that something essential would be missing from us.
If you imagine you were a melody. Our entire life would be a melody. No one can say exactly when it began. We normally do not remember the earliest things we have experienced. But in the course of life this melody becomes conscious to us. Then you feel it. This music that carries you and accompanies you and does not let go. You drift on this melody like a paper boat on a river. Without choice. The melody of your life is simply there: sometimes cheerful, sometimes melancholic, sometimes very fast and wild, sometimes slow and calm, sometimes completely still. Your life music is completely individual. It seems impossible to you to express it in words and deeds. Only you yourself hear it. Perhaps you can represent parts, sections or a certain mood for the moment. But all together – that is impossible. Everything is subject to far too great a change for that. Suddenly the melody changes and takes a new, unknown direction. Only the base notes will probably remain woven into the melody throughout your life. Possibly there is no chance of ever getting rid of them. It is simply your melody. You are the melody.
In our lives, much more music will come our way. Some of it will please us, others we will abhor, and still others we will quickly forget. But we don't really have a choice. We don't even know how much longer we are allowed to and can listen to music. Equally, we don't know what kind of music, if any, will come after that.
The question that arises here is as follows: Do we want to know the future? Our future music? Is that really what we want to achieve in life? Always looking ahead, always knowing what happens, never being surprised, in the positive as in the negative. Wouldn't life be boring if we knew everything? So we are silent. Many of us dream of the future, hope for certain things from the future. But in the end it remains foreign and unknown, hidden. Our life is not a life of the future. It is your life of the present.