Today’s topic is “something I love about myself.” My first response is a sad and bitter “nothing,” but I’m not letting myself get away with that! Sometimes I do believe that there is nothing about me worth loving, but most of the time I enjoy several aspects of myself.

One is my love of music. I’ve written before about how important music is to me and how it has shaped my life as far back as I can remember. My obsession with the soundtrack of “The Sound of Music” at a very young age set the stage for what was to come.

Many times I have taken music and lyrics to heart, viewing them as realistic descriptors of the world rather than artistic perspectives on life that aren’t meant to be taken literally. Children do tend to take everything literally, so it isn’t surprising that I did so as a child. But even today I unconsciously believe words of some songs and I have to consciously remember that they are just songs.

For example, I have written before about Supertramp’s The Logical Song. Here are some of the lyrics:

Now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical,
liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re
acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!

Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.

I remember walking into the counseling center at grad school and saying, “I want you to tell

I took the Rorschach test, among others

me who I am.” Naturally, they were a bit confused, so I elaborated, saying that I would like to take a battery of psychological tests to find out what the “real me” was like. (as it turned out later, part of my confusion about my identity came from having Dissociative Identity Disorder, i.e. multiple personalities)

I did feel that I was unacceptable and that “they” wanted me to change so I would be ‘presentable.’ But most of this was in my mind, not created by the song, but reinforced by it.

Even though music sometimes gets too deeply into my brain, I still love it and need it. When I’ve gone without music for awhile I feel the loss keenly. Music stimulates a part of my brain that can bypass my poor thinking habits and reach me at a more visceral level. And I love this about myself!