Good morning! It’s 7:00 a.m. on Monday, October 20th, 2025, and it’s coffee time.
I have a saying I came up with: “To all things, there is a rhythm.” When I think of rhythm, I go all the way back to primitive man – the sound of drums, the sound of patterns. In my personal world of study, I see it as a comforting sound, a form of communication, a friendly rhythm. a warning rhythm. Rhythm is everywhere: in our heartbeat, our breathing, the wind, and in nature, like the repetitive quack of a mallard. This, combined with all the patterns in nature, is truly fascinating to me.
Then there’s the music-
Why do human beings – most of us, anyway – like music? I’ve looked into it a little, and it’s totally for emotional and psychological reasons. A friend who passed away many years ago once told me, “Music won’t kill you, and music definitely won’t send you to hell, if there is such a thing.” That was very powerful to me, and I latched onto it because I’ve always enjoyed music of many different genres.
But here’s the ticket: instead of wondering why human beings like music, I have to sit back and wonder why I like music. This answers the question for myself and also helps explain others. For example, I grew up in a house with classical music; my dad played it. My mom liked pop music, but she only listened to it on the car radio – soft rock things. As I grew older, I found that I liked pretty much any genre out there, except for country music. When rap started showing up, I enjoyed it, but it just wasn’t creating that emotional or psychological release of dopamine for me.
It’s all about feeling good, which brings to mind this: when I was a teenager, I’d associate songs with certain crushes. I’d listen to the song over and over because it locked me into a certain emotion, and that emotion felt good – thinking, daydreaming, releasing those feel-good chemicals in the brain. A good example of this, in my humble opinion, is when the Beatles came to America and we saw all the girls going crazy, screaming and yelling, to the point where Ringo Starr could be quoted as saying something similar to, “I couldn’t hear the other three…I just moved with everything.”
We human beings like to feel good. Feeling good is our reward for feeling bad in some cases. Music changes our chemistry, according to everything I’ve seen. It changes the way endorphins and dopamine work in our brain, giving us a moment of pleasure. Concerts give us an emotional and psychological sense of belonging amongst people like us. When we have crushes on rockstars, it releases that feeling inside of us of wanting to be with that person, for whatever biological or psychological reason.
And then that brings us to the not-so-feel-good side. I have several songs that I call my “forbidden songs.” These are songs I really liked at one time, but they’re linked to heartbreak or a bad memory, and I really cringe when they come on the radio or a random stream. However, I also heard that if you like a song, listen to it regardless of what it might remind you of or trigger…which is harder than one might think! You don’t go back to that time; you just go back to that memory, and each memory fades, distorts, and changes over time anyway. For example, there’s this one song I really like, but I can’t play it because it reminds me of real-life heartbreak. Oh, well, enough of that!
So, to wrap it up, why do we like music and rhythm? It’s warm, it’s familiar. It wakes up chemicals inside our brain that are designed to help us feel good, feel comfortable, feel emotionally and physically well. We like moving to the rhythm and the beat because it is natural, and it makes us feel good when we do it. It is a true natural high. So there you have it, if you don’t know why you like music.
Aerobics anyone?
Have a happy Monday out there. It’s not as bad as you ever think it is, is it? Be good to each other, be kind to each other, try to love one another, and may you see only the things that are true to your heart. I will talk to you tomorrow. Peace and love, as Ringo would say.
Mark