Having sampled life, I have a taste of, if not for, many lifestyles.

My freshman year at Georgia Tech, I mentioned at least once before I was part of a fundamentalist Christian organisation that insisted young coeds should not mingle except in group situations, in order to prevent immoral thinking or become seduced into devilish acts.

The organisation was run by a nice, married couple, who taught that music could be uplifting and right for the mind as long as it didn’t contain heavy, thumping beats or reached a climax, both of which implied sexual acts which are private matters in the bedroom between two people married to each other to procreate children as a blessing of God.

Otherwise, music should be calming, meditative and glorifying God.

In the same year when I participated in that group, I went to dance clubs, listened to my roommate playing in a jazz trio, marched in the Georgia Tech band, played baritone horn in the Ga. Tech Navy ROTC band (enjoying an enlightening week at Mardi Gras with them) and attended fraternity parties.

Thirty-two years later, I see myself agreeing with the one statement of that nice couple, that if one is going to feel one with the universe (or connect with one’s religious teachings), one should listen to calming, meditative music.

The changing of the guard in religious music, the transition from choirs and organs to rock bands and electric guitars, indicates the church of my youth is not the church of the youth of today.

Of course, I don’t step inside churches very often but that’s a horse of a different colour crossing a creek that it won’t drink water from.

Regardless of one’s belief in or practice of origin stories, one finds a way to affirm one’s self image.

My self image is that of a funhouse mirror, a multisided magnifying glass or crystal ball, which reflects and distorts photons and other particles/states of energy.

Meditating on the self image is, for me, the sounds of nature, a Bach cantata or an E. Power Biggs organ recital.

To go into a church and listen to loud electric guitars and thumping drumbeats is pure entertainment, not meditation.

I still enjoy jazz.  I listen to punk rock.

But they are my concentration on the affirmation of others’ expression of their self images.

It is interesting, sitting here putting these words and sentences together, rereading their implications and asking myself why I wrote this blog entry.

Why?

Because the block of time that defined the subculture of my youth is a museum of sounds and images, a museum I can visit only in my thoughts and can share most easily with the peers of my youth who understand oblique, obscure subculture references without explanation or looking up on the Internet.

The next generation decides what the definition of self image affirmation will be, taking into account the previous generation’s input but creating their own mix of sounds and images.

In my museum, quiet meditation is a basic part of who I am at 50 years of age.

Or, to repeat the maxim, “if the music is too loud, I am too old.”