When You Crave Someone's Story | Reading Like Music
For long-time rock fans, 2023 felt like having Christmas and New Year's arrive at the same time, with the Beatles releasing their final new song, "Now and Then," and the Rolling Stones releasing their first album in 18 years.
Because of this, I spent this year listening to music as enthusiastically as I did when I was a student, and I found myself thinking about music all over again.
After entering the workforce, I could no longer participate in the band activities I had during my student days, and my hobbies shifted from music to reading—moving from something done with others to something I could do alone.
However, having experienced being deeply immersed in multiple hobbies, I was able to realize that both music and reading are arts that influence individuals in different ways.
In an age where we have access to a wide variety of content, I hope this can serve as an opportunity for you to think about what kind of art suits you best.
Music as an "Earworm" | Melodies That Won't Leave Your Head
There are many aspects of music's appeal that cannot be put into words, and it is quite difficult to explain why that appeal is necessary for human existence.
Even Darwin described those who compose music as belonging to a "most mysterious class of talent," and Freud apparently disliked music because he felt there were "too many things that cannot be explained."
Neither reading nor exercise possesses the same kind of "mysterious appeal" as music. When I try to think about why we are so obsessed with music, I find it quite difficult to explain.
Even so, many people must have had the experience of a melody they heard once refusing to leave their head. The melody, the timbre of the instruments, and the rhythm create a sense of addiction.
Neurologist and author Oliver Sacks refers to these melodies that get stuck in your head as "earworms" in his books.
Because of this tendency, we end up listening to the music we like over and over again, eventually humming along, and it gradually becomes embedded in our brains.
Then, after many years have passed, we sometimes suddenly remember that melody.
It is very often the case that only when we listen to that music again, now revived in our minds, do we finally interpret the true meaning that the song was expressing.
"So that's what that song was trying to say."
The addictive nature of music that becomes an "earworm" exerts a powerful influence on us in this way.
Living Someone Else's Story | Reading We Instinctively Crave
On the other hand, let's consider the appeal that reading brings.
Whether it's business books or academic texts, the act of reading allows us to gain knowledge that is useful for living our lives. It is a very straightforward appeal.
Sometimes we read books to accumulate knowledge, and other times we read to grow as human beings.
In this way, many people read books for their future selves, holding the belief that "reading is a self-investment."
However, through personal experience, I have felt that the necessity of reading is not just an investment in the future, but also a more intuitive act, much like music.
As I wrote in my profile, I had the experience of suffering from cancer in my early twenties. At that time, I spent my days in a state of extreme physical weakness, clearly conscious of "death."
Back then, as I was weakening in the face of death, I could not bring myself to listen to the music I had once been passionate about. The act of listening to music requires energy, and I simply didn't have the vitality for it at the time.
What I needed at such a time was reading. I needed to turn my thoughts toward the stories of people other than myself and live through someone else's narrative.
In Michel Houellebecq's novel "Annihilation," published in 2023, there was a description close to my state of mind at that time. Illness and death are incorporated as themes in this novel, and when the protagonist, who is conscious of death, finds the complete works of Sherlock Holmes on his bookshelf at home, his detailed state of mind is described.
What else but books could produce such an effect? Not movies, and music is something else entirely. Music is for healthy people. But philosophy is not appropriate, and poetry is not for someone who is dying. A narrative work is needed at all costs. The life of someone other than oneself must be told.
Although no scientific basis is explained for this statement, it seems I was not the only one who craved narrative works when conscious of death in this way.
When you are truly weak, you know very clearly what you want. It seems that sometimes, that thing is reading—the "stories of others."
Thinking about it this way, reading may not just be something to do as a self-investment for the future; it might also possess an artistic quality that we instinctively crave, much like music that you cannot get out of your head.