Ryanware

Sleep in. Check.

Get on the computer. Check.

Make weird noises for no apparent reason. Check.

I’ve recently decided that I have a soundtrack going on in my head at all times. Sometimes, it comes out. Say, for example, that I’m walking down the street on a crowded sidewalk at night. The likelihood of a crowded sidewalk in Eagle Mountain, Utah is about as probable as a seeing a nuclear submarine surface in my living room; however, it’s just an example, okay? So I say I’m walking down a crowded sidewalk at night. If someone tripped and fell and I had to either jump over them or kick them in the face, I would probably kick them in face. No, not really. What I would do is yell out “do doo doo!” and jump. The “do doo doo!” is the soundtrack in my head. It would decide “whoa! something exciting is happening, this music must be made known to the world!” and I’d have no choice—the music would escape.

Write a blog post. Check.

Do laundry.

Eat.

Get oil changed in my truck.

Decide what I’m going to do with my truck when I move.

Get in a really scary situation involving large amounts of cheesecake so the soundtrack in my head can tell the world how scared I am (dun dun dun!).

1.5 years ago I came across an article in the Washington Post describing, in great detail, a musical experiment. The article is called Pearls Before Breakfast, the experiment was to see if one of the greatest musician’s could distract people from their rush to work in a D.C. Metro station.

The musician behind the experiment was Joshua Bell, an utterly amazing violinist. I read the article (it’s long) in amazement. I wondered what I would have done in the same situation: you’re in a hurry to get to work and hear some amazing music. Do you stop and listen or plow on?

I’ve often wondered “what would I do?” or “what would I have done?”, not only with simple things like this, but with bigger things. What would I have done during the American Revolution? What would I have done if I’d lived in Jerusalem 2000 years ago? What would I have done if I had been the one to discover how to make donuts?

I took this photo on Nov. 1st, underground in the New York City subway. It was late Saturday night, I wasn’t in a hurry, and it wasn’t very crowded. Still, I almost walked right on past. I caught myself and thought about the Washington Post experiment. I stopped and listened for a few minutes. She was good—not as good as Joshua Bell, but good. I’m glad I stopped to listen.

I had a lot of opportunities to stop and listen in New York. Sometimes I stopped, sometimes not. When I didn’t I was either in a hurry or the musician wasn’t that great. I wanted to stop whenever the musician was good, and tried to listen as long as possible even if I didn’t feel like I could stop.

While questions like “what would I have done?” are important, they’re much less important than the here and now. I believe that one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is “what will I do?” I’ll never know how I would have acted had I been in that D.C. Metro station that day, but I can decide what to do in similar situations. The key is remembering what we’ve decided when the moment arrives.

The problem with an epidemic is that just because it’s gone doesn’t mean it will stay gone forever. Unless you developed an immunity in the first pass, you’ll probably die the second time. When it comes to epidemics, the glass isn’t half empty: it’s broken. Unless, of course, you use a glass that isn’t made of glass. I recommend plastic.

What would be better than a plastic drinking cup, though, is some sort of shield to go on my head that keeps certain things out, and alters my brainwaves, making it impossible to think specific things or sing certain songs.

The first thing I would filter out of my brain is a certain song that has long haunted not only my dreams, but every waking hour as well.

Yes, it’s true. It’s back. With vengeance. My permanent head song.