Opening up to new things

I'm trying a little experiment today.  Usually, I listen to country music, or classic rock, or classic pop, or 40's, 50's and 60's music.  I like what I like, and music is a comfort.  But today, I decided that I would pick the Top Pop station on Amazon Prime to listen to while I work on this blog and on my book.  I'm giving up the comfort of the familiar to find out if there is music out there that I like that I haven't discovered yet.

And isn't that just life in a nutshell.  In order to discover new things that we like, we have to leave the comfort of the familiar and try them.  And it is way too easy to stay comfortable in the things we like.

This is a relatively painless experiment.  I'm not losing anything.  And I have plenty of time to listen to familiar music on another day.

But choosing to leave the familiar and grow can be a very painful experiment.  A new job may not work out.  A new place to live may never feel like home.  And sometimes the familiar is snatched away from us, without our consent.  And then it is no experiment, it is a painful experience.

I'm discovering through this experience that familiar music is background, and new music forces me to listen.  It forces me to feel more.  More joy, more wonder, more pain, more sorrow.

And I think new experiences force more feeling as well.  And in the same way the music is opening up both positive and negative pathways, so do the new experiences.

I think that we can participate in the color leaching away from our world by staying stuck and safe in the familiar.  And as the color fades, so does our hunger for bright colors.  So in this drab world we allow to evolve, our brains lose familiarity with the pathways to brightness.

I'm realizing I need to make myself seek out new experiences and new stimuli, just to keep my brain familiar with how to respond to it.

When I was working there was constant change and new stimuli.  Since I have retired, I pick the stimuli.  And when I allow the news cycle to be my stimuli for new, most of the pathways in my brain are reinforced towards darkness.

Choosing new music has my brain reinforcing pathways to pleasure.  I'm chair dancing as I type.  I'm finding new joy in new music.

It is so easy to get lost in the dark.  There are so many unavoidable influences that push us toward the dark.  It takes a conscious choice to find the light.  Find a way to reinforce the pathways in your brain to the light.

Choose something new, and through that newness, experience creating new pathways in your brain towards the light.

Keep the pathways in your brain that find the joy well traveled and easy to get on.  There will always be sadness and darkness, we all need brains well trained to find the pathway to joy.