music is a drug. That being said, so are antibiotics. do are antidepressents. there are a lot of great drugs that really help heal humanity! It all depends on which ones you take (I'm sure theres a metaphore involving dose too, but I'm not feeling up for that challenge. anyone who wants feel free).
Before my return to Judaism you could probably say music was my faith. Listening, writing and playing. I had songs of praise, songs or anger, songs of sorrow, etc. To be exact I had around 60 gigabytes of music, each song with its own purpose and creator, mood etc. I continued to use all of them in my initial stages of return and saw nothing wrong. This included female, male, all genres, everything. Then there came a point where I had to acknowledge what I knew. The angry songs made me feel angry, the songs of sorrow made me depressed, etc. Further, many of the songs had antifaith/nihilistic connatations that made me feel really weird. The females made me feel in love. All the songs were linked to memories, and these memories were worse than any triggers (not just with addiction, with everything). Once I realized this I knew I had to stop. I was high on music,abusing drugs. That being said, I have a very limited library now which is frusterating but it is what it is. One day IYH I'll be able to afford to revamp my collection so that it might compete with what it once was. I'm not going to say all music does this, and I still listen to "Secular" music, I just have to know where the artist is coming from with their writing. I'd advise to do similar, dont be any means abstain from music, just be careful what you put in your ears.
A interesting tangent: A few months ago I was looking through my writing from one of my lowest points in life, where my goals, ideals and expected means of achievement of such were COMPLETELY different from mine now. I was very surprised to see that almost everything I wrote translated or interpretted into my current values, and still felt like it came from me, despite the radically different packaging. Further, my knowledge of music theory is completely different from now yet some of my favorite chord progressions (namely minor i VI III VII) were all there.
This leads me to the conclusion that music, lyrically and composition, can come from a level higher than regular conciousness, and listening to someone who has blocked out the G-dly connection could potentially be dangerous.
my two cents...
keep on rocking!
