How to Exist in a Feeling

FEATURE | ISSUE TEN | ISOLATION

Written by Freddie Sang (she/her) | @freddiesang.art | Contributing Writer

In loneliness, you can experience the world anonymously, untethered to identity, and with space to experience a moment in an all-encompassing way, instances very worth seeking. Now, when most people fill their rare and frequently interrupted alone time with music, it becomes obvious how solitary an experience sound can be. On the other hand, live music totally counters this isolation with collective feeling, getting to be one person in a crowd of others who feel the same thing. 

Going to a gig by yourself, you'll probably anticipate loneliness that never quite arrives; you are anonymous and can open yourself completely to a moment, to fill yourself, void of expectation, with a feeling that connects you to others. Being a passing figure concert-goers won't remember, you can experience everything with a singularity that is yours alone while surrounded by people. The vitality of music fills people with the humanity of the sound and creates a new sense of being in the communal response to the strains and chords. This experience extinguishes the surface-level, leaving an inner freedom to be part of the music, unconditioned and unhindered by perceptions of strangers in the darkened room. The sound has an identity that becomes part of you when you're alone in a crowd and listening; it awakens a newness that is feeling, that is response, and that is connection. The music becomes the voice of every person in the jumbled, seeking congregation. 

Facing forward in a sea of people on rafts of crushed cans, you are concerned only with the immediate. Existing in that moment is eternity, soundwaves moving through your skin and bones like dominoes. In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, this experience is described as feeling 'infinite'. The music makes you feel free from the endlessness of pasts and futures, you are simply existing in the moment, unconstrained and knowing that somewhere another person has and will experience this same moment. Being a link in that chain and immersing yourself in what others are feeling there at the concert right beside you makes isolation impossible. 

To hear live music is transformative; you get to be encompassed by sounds and emotions that exist in their own right. In this, you learn to exist just in feeling and in sense, becoming connected to the others who share this moment with you, ignoring external commands, and listening to emotion. You become transitory, existing in the feeling of the sound and made for this moment; it is a mind and a reality that every person in the crowd gets to be a part of. 

By navigating a concert alone, you can discover a version of you that exists in the collective experience and in your understanding of someone else’s world. In this shared feeling, you are unattached from yourself and perceptions, and despite being a solitary individual in a crowd, you are not homeless; as a member of this group experience, all voices become one, connecting and responding to the music, feeling the sound, and never being isolated. Each lone person becomes unified in experiencing and filling themselves with music in its rawest, most human form so completely, and suddenly, you are far from isolation.