Greetings and welcome to Musing Interruptus.  Thank you for clicking, thank you for listening. Today, it's all about fidelity after 30. Join me.
High Fidelity is a movie I’ve watched a few times over the years. John Cusack’s character is infuriating and adorable. His top five lists are endearing and his love of music relatable. But it’s the title I want to focus on. Words and phrases change meaning, become fuller and heavier, as time goes by. Words like: love, friendship, freedom, happiness, sadness, orgasm, speed limit, breaks, life insurance, glucose, will. It seems they accumulate gravity, or the force with which they are said and fall are all the more real and heavy.
For example, believing in change or an alternate way of doing things. When I heard my favorite hippies had sold out, I was a bit devastated. I think that Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream represented so much more than a desert. It was the possibility of a business that seemed fair, sustainable, a dream of doing things differently, that connected generations. They sold out because everyone has their price. Then again, don’t they deserve their payday? Don’t we all have a price? This happened in the year 2000, I am just now learning this. Talk about being dazed and confused. They still retain their own board of directors who decide on social matters. Whatever that means.
Fidelity. It has to do with loyalty. Normally associated with loyalty to a partner, this word has gravitas. Especially when the context is self.  Fidelity to one’s values, ideals, desires… Listening to high-fidelity music requires the right equipment to reproduce it. Being true, faithful to one’s self requires an immaterial thing, an internal apparatus of inner strength, motivation, and the willingness to accept the opportunity cost of being faithful to one’s self. Depending on the social context, this could include social ostracism. Reliance on one’s self is not readily learned by the masses, nor taught in schools. We are taught to adapt, adjust, and tolerate the heat. Is that the only way to do it? No, that is their way. Only through questioning can one achieve an understanding of whatever is before you. The scientific method starts with questions, the Socratic method revolves around questions… asking the right questions is crucial. How many questions were you asked at school? Not as many as you were asking. It is in a child’s nature to ask questions. They are natural instigators of resistance and rebellion in a system that would have them be socialized to take part in the systematic depletion of the planet and ultimately, humanity, an ill excuse for survival of the fittest. Slap that on a t-shirt and get back to work.
I was watching the first installment of Get Back, a miniseries on the Beatles. I was appalled at the situation in the band, the external pressure exerted on the band to produce greatness in no time at all. The show must go on because economic interests dictate it. I’m not advocating for a completely laissez-faire approach, nor would I have them working at a Starbucks, however, they were financially in a place that would allow them to create at leisure. What type of work would we have been exposed to had they not been pressured? Would Paul have been so dismissive of George? It’s economic interests you stupid hippie, it wasn’t Yoko. You are told that everyone is replaceable. That is just not true. There is no other George, they tried replacing Paul, and that has been a fiasco, and they didn’t even try with John. There is no replacing the Beatles. Just as there is no other weirdo writing for Musing Interruptus. When I am gone, Musing Interruptus will be gone.


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