People who listen to music are more depressed than those who read

I've ranted about this not being true even though the evidence might vageuly suggest so in another blog post.

But let me criticise myself for failing to see something obvious. Books take two forms: fiction and non-fiction. Music is of the latter type. It engages dreamers. Science can also but academia usually extinguishes any free thinking, the greatest high in science.

Music creates hopes, ideals and imagined perfection. Things which are unattainable goals in their purest form. Story books do the same. But science books usually don't.

Having hopes, dreams and desires which are unfullfilled is part of unhappiness.

An automoton would think to get rid of those things. Like I have. I tried to live by the wiser rule: those things come with pain.

It is easier to have never loved but it is richer to have loved and lost. It is easier but that doesn't make it right. Happiness usually means the absence of suffering...because that's easier. I just think that having tried hedonic escapism it's not as fulfilling. A different kind of happiness.

It's futile regardless. No plaster for the wound in the human condition lasts long. No solution fixes the condition but...