Beginnings, Endings, and the Songs in Between
A special New Year’s Eve edition.
• For you, dear friends, rolling into 2025! •
Beginning with two minutes of New Year's Eve wisdom.
My new piece about music in 2024.
From My Ears To Yours. The Old Hippie’s Jukebox Update 2024 | by aleXander hirka | Dec, 2024 | Medium
The Old Hippie’s Jukebox Update 2024
“One must learn to love. — This is what happens to us in music: first one has to learn to hear a figure and melody at all, to detect and distinguish it, to isolate it and delimit it as a separate life; then it requires some exertion and good will to tolerate it in spite of its strangeness, to be patient with its appearance and expression, and kindhearted about its oddity: — finally there comes a moment when we are used to it, when we wait for it, when we sense that we should miss it if it were missing: and now it continues to compel and enchant us relentlessly until we have become its humble and enraptured lovers who desire nothing better from the world than it and only it. — But that is what happens to us not only in music: that is how we have learned to love all things that we now love. In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fairmindedness, and gentleness with what is strange; gradually, it sheds its veil and turns out to be a new and indescribable beauty: — that is its thanks for our hospitality. Even those who love themselves will have learned it in this way: for there is no other way. Love, too, has to be learned.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
You can buy me new bloomin’ book of short stories as one of them weirdass screen things called an ebook now at Barnes & Noble. Click on book cover below to order . . .
But I hope to have the real paperback book version out before the end of January.
While thought of as dark, nihilistic, I find the philosophy of Emil Cioran inspiring — his truths liberating, his perspective helpful in living life in the present, beyond the distractions.
These six minutes may help you in maneuvering your way through 2025 and beyond. Or not.
[If you’d like, click HERE for a beautifully put together short reading of some of his aphorisms.]
"Old age, after all, is merely the punishment for having lived." – Emile M. Cioran
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
All Good Children Got To Die – Daniel Johnstone (1961-2019)
A truly unique musical voice. Read about him >HERE< . . .
Listen to the song . . .
HEALTH TIP for 2025. From one who has been there.
Norovirus outbreaks surging across the US. Read HERE.
The best prevention is for people to wash their hands well with soap and water; hand sanitizer alone does not work well against norovirus.
Express your Distaste for the Species!
Click on image (designed by HirkArt) to shop!
THANK YOU FOR READING!
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light!”
— Edna St. Vincent Millay
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(With great big ♥ thanks ♥ to those who have!)
