We live in the age of distraction. Face the facts. 

This sucks for many reasons. It takes time and concentration to complete nearly any worthwhile goal. And social media and everything else are doing their best to steal our attention for the shareholders’ profits. And we’re generally happy to comply.

This struck me from another angle recently when one of my songwriting students at the college told me the she has almost never actually listened to music. Sure, she’s spent hundreds of hours with the earbuds lodged into her brain while she bikes to work. There’s music in the background when she goes to the grocery store or uses her fake ID to buy beer. But she confessed to me that she never really listens. WFT? And she’s a music student!

Back in the day, my teen self would lay on my bed and crank up my piece of shit Radio Shack stereo until my mom screamed at me to turn it down. Parents just don’t understand. But the Clash and Styx and Journey and Billy Idol understood. And rocked my face off. I went deep into the music. There were no distractions (until my mom screamed).

I literally assigned my student the task of listening to her favorite album loud, in the dark, with her phone off. 

When she came back to her lesson the next week, she wept as she explained her experience. Of course she loved music. But she hadn’t ever really experienced it without distraction.

Go deep, SuperStars. Crank it up. Crack it open. Love it like you did at fifteen, whatever it is— music, books, art, fashion. You can only know the secrets, the nuances and the great mysteries if you really listen.

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What have you discovered when you listen and/ or live without distractions?

Email me. Let’s share. We’re in this together, ya know;)