Can you teach me to swim? Because, I am drowning……….

I am interested in the subtext of news stories and even the choice of which news story finds its way onto the TV, radio and now social media there are distinct patterns of what is acceptable, what is to be ridiculed and what is to be ignored. There is a strict code to what is deemed acceptable and not accept regarding other regimes and other forms of thinking. At the moment science is the new religion and seems not to be able to do any wrong even though many of the statements made by the media scientists are more a form of scientism than science.

One of the things I find interesting as I get older is that over time you notice a pattern of things that are so-called disproved or unscientific but seem to be very relevant as time goes on in some cases they even get approved what seems to go missing is the acceptance that the conventional rational aspect and it’s black swan event goes unchallenged.

As an example of this and I can quote many, is that of the health benefits of butter and margarine. For years we have been told margarine was better than butter we were barraged through the media about various margarine products that had health giving benefits by scientific research, all of this of course has been proven not to be true and the research was skewed somehow. People however have known for years that there was nothing wrong with butter or fats because if there was then the Inuit who eat large quantities of fish fat and whale blubber would not be as fit as were are the same goes for the French who cooked everything in butter and lard.

Now I see the same pompous attitude permeating other aspects of media reporting into the abstract and grey areas of the mind. Sometimes they can be health benefits from something that on the surface does not seem to work or certainly not in the lab but in the real world creates real change, one of those things may be homeopathy I have certainly seen some beneficial effects of homeopathy including the treatment of horses which were very successful.

I like to use the NLP phrase epithet ‘it’s not a case of whether it is true but more a case of if it works’ sometimes simply changing a link in the chain can make real progress and again we see this very clearly in the world of music that changing a few words can transform a lyric, just changing a few notes can transform melody even changing the way we look can transform somebody’s ability onstage to make an impact. When we deal with the arts ambiguity and abstractness can transform an idea into something very powerful.

Another observation that I would like to make is that often these non-scientific abstract forms of thinking coming into play far too late to have a real effect and then in turn seems to prove themselves inefficient because it is too late in the day, like learning to swim while you are drowning. Such as alternative treatments being used for cancer patients when it is the last resort. Even though there are instances of cures for supposedly incurable conditions, like somebody who has serious stress condition suddenly deciding that they needed to learn how to meditate. Yes meditation will work but it is better if you learn to meditate before you have the stress condition and then of course you would never know how effective meditation is because you might never get the condition.

So much better to learn to swim before you are drowning, much better to think about your health before your unhealthy.

Explore that way of thinking with regard to music, make sure that you are using concepts that develop your ability to be a musician beyond the technicalities before you need those skills; make those skills infuse your technical abilities.

Vic

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