Something Ratliff emphasized about slowness will always stay with me: slow is the sound of death.
Young musicians play faster than older ones, my old professor tells me,
as I watch life accelerate more each day at a frightening pace.
At 19, I feel myself getting slower. In music, my search for tempo to not drag behind the rest. In life, my bid to punctuality.
Nights pass like hours. I need a night that lasts a week.
At an hour long, this song does not feel long enough. Only eternity would feel long enough to me now.
I do not know boredom. In a world prioritizing instant gratification, I find myself constantly waiting.
Waiting for something boring to begin.
I have heard that time is meaningless on acid. I wonder how time could feel meaningful.
As I begin listening, I struggle to trust this track to tell me what it is expected to by this prompt. However, while listening, I trust the music
to fall wherever it falls. As such, the song easily and comfortably enters and starts to take control over my conciousness.
Then, when it gets its hold in me, it starts to drag me down. [Ratliff described this music as having a downward pull, did he not?]
I feel the gravity holding me to my bed get stronger. I feel the gravity on my eyelids.
Over and over, The song feels like it ends, only to keep going. The breaks are jarring.
This music wants me pulled down. I feel like I am fighting against the current.
I do trust a slow piece of music to be gratifyingly worth the wait.
The only conflict I experience is with my conditioned desire to be faster.
I fight against allowing the tempting slowness to take hold of me, no matter how natural it feels.
To "bring the sound within myself," I seek to succumb to it.
By minding nothing other than my own breath and the sound in my headphones.