Anhedonia

No, Anhedonia is not a failed state bordering Patagonia.  Not a kind of flower that attracts ants.  This is not an affliction that a mix of sulfur and extra virgin olive oil will cure.   Anhedonia, more specifically musical anhedonia, is the absolute inability to find pleasure in music.

Some people simply do not like music.  They will not buy the next Miley Cyrus album—no matter how naked she gets.  The sounds leave them cold at best and annoy the hell out them at the worst.  That is musical anhedonia.  Research conducted at the University of Barcelona and published in Current Biology just this week identified this condition in people who are otherwise quite normal.    

Musical anhedonia appears to be very much a physical thing—a lack of response, if you will.  People who enjoy music (most people) display certain physiological responses as they listen to songs.  They will exhibit a slight increase in heart rate when hearing music they like.  Music lovers will sweat a little at the sound of a well-placed drum solo or an exciting guitar riff.    People with musical anhedonia have no such physiological response, whether hearing the National Anthem played by a full orchestra or Bruce Springsteen performing live at their neighbor’s yard party.

The idea of musical anhedonia is difficult for me to grasp.  I am somewhat addicted to listening to music.  I crank up the music before I brew my coffee in the morning.  I am listening to the Afghan Whigs as I write this!

I guess we are all hard-wired in different fashions.  Some of us hear the sound of a different drummer drumming and some of us are simply annoyed by the drums.

--Mitchell Hegman

Political Statement

Political Statement:

An empty can is a far better noisemaker than one full.

--Mitchell Hegman

The Admission

I must come clean.  I hereby admit that I spent several minutes yesterday afternoon standing outside my house watching snow melt.

I did.

The event was way more exciting than you would expect.  The warm sun felt like someone hugging me with cotton arms as I stood there watching giant rafts of snow slip from my metal roof and crash into my front yard.  The sheets of snow landed in heaps in my yard with a sound that was like an ugly shotgun marriage between a thud and a plop.

Inside, my cats ran off to hide under chairs fearing that the sky was falling.

Outside, a rather drunken moth fluttered up right in front of me, having emerged from someplace unknown.  The moth looped once at my face and then tumbled out over the all-snow landscape as I stood there watching.

Also, hey, is it spring here or is it just me?

--Mitchell Hegman

Photo taken with my smarter-than-me phone.

In Your White Dress

I am certain about your white dress

on that day you were dancing.

Fresh snow lay upon the earth.

You told me that someone good is born

every time it snows.

Then I gave you a stalk of wheat

from your dead flower arrangement,

which is so much prettier than it sounds

and I danced with you.

We were young and loopy and in love.

“Sheep,” you whispered as I swayed near,

“I want to raise sheep—lambs white and perfect

as new snow.”

You told me we could name each one.

“Blinky,” I suggested for the first.

And you shed your white dress,

you shed your white dress

and someone good was born.

--Mitchell Hegman

A Dark and Not Particularly Meaningful Fable

One afternoon a man and a lion were walking together in the woods, when, suddenly, the lion flopped on his side and began to cry while examining one of his massive front paws.

“What’s wrong?” asked the man, stopping to kneel near the creature.

“I’ve stepped on a thorn,” the lion roared, “and I cannot pull it out from my pads.  Perhaps if you helped me, I won’t eat your children in the dark of night.”

The man considered for a moment.  “I have a better idea,” he said.  The man grabbed a large stick from nearby and clubbed the lion to death.

Later, the man ran into a black bear walking the other direction in the darkest part of the woods.  The bear stopped the man.  “I have been looking for my friend the lion, have you seen him?” asked the bear.

“Yes,” answered the man, “but only for a moment.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Note:  This is something I wrote quite a few years back.  I thought I may have posted this previously, but did not see it on a quick search back through my blogs.  My apologies if the blog is back there someplace and you have had to read this for a second time.

One Answer Changes Everything

These are, at present, the two most powerful answers: “yes” and “no.”

What if we changed just one of those two answers?

Imagine how different everything might become if we changed to “yes” and “know.”

--Mitchell Hegman

Dark Patterns and Fresh Snow

Posted today are two more photographs I snapped a couple of days ago after the snow stopped falling.

Note: We are getting snow again…a lot more snow…

 

 

--Mitchell Hegman