Music Masochism

Have you ever felt numb - in your soul?

The kind of lack-of-tingling feeling that comes from having spent the entire night trying to get the tears to flow, or having jogged till the pain just refuses to register in your shins, or realising that you are not meant to succeed in all your roles.

It's in seeing people talk and hearing the sounds of silence in your own life. It's like working on auto-pilot, the chores helping to ease the dull ache. It is in realising that even perpetrators can be in pain. In knowing that being able to make a choice and making it are two very different things.

One of the only antidotes to numbness, is music. It can fill the right holes, massage the right ache. It can heal, or it can fester, depending on what you're looking for. And just that's why, as someone I knew once said, 'there's no hospital better than a song.' Want to cry, want to sleep, want to vent anger, want a shoulder that's wet with the same kind of tears? These days, the bestfriends, guides, philosophers and lovers - can all be found on youtube.

Here's my song for today, for this current numbness: Comfortably numb by Pink Floyd. The lyrics suit every pain - and every reason for it - age, destiny, love or the lack of it.

'I need some information first. Just the basic facts. Where does it hurt?' That, my friends, is my problem.