[AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you don't follow the links and listen to the music, it will be your loss, not mine. I'm listening to every song as I check the links in preview mode. There is a point being made with each song selection.] A friend of mine likes to wish me a happy birthday with the encouragement to have another pleasant journey around the sun. Thank you, Sir Charles, I believe that I will celebrate my birthday. But today I'd like to plan a very different kind of celebration. When I was young and foolish, I appreciated the cynical perspective of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd, expressed with a faintly similar ring in their classic song Time: So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, Shorter of breath and one day closer to death. Unfortunately, it seems the older I get, the better I was. And now that I'm getting a little shorter of breath and closer to death myself, I don't play that song nearly as often as I once did. The lyrics remain brilliant, but they are also depressing as hell. Thanks for that reminder! On the other hand, death is...natural. The end of life is part of the life experience. There's no need to get all worked up about something that is guaranteed to happen. While I'm fully cognizant of my own mortality, I personally don't like to dwell on negative thoughts. I want to enjoy life to the best of my ability as long as there is quality, and I have been blessed with extraordinary genetics. But I have no desire to prolong the … [Read more...]