Life's Song

Have you observed what happens to you when a song plays on the radio? If you listen to the lyrics as carefully as I do, you probably experience a mix of feelings that the tune arouses as well as the personal meaning that you associate with its lyrics. You will also remember situations you were in, or people you were interacting with, when the song was playing; often all of this happens subconsciously.

That's pretty much the meaning of memes: they are little mental programs that get activated inside of you. Just as you are pumped up - or deflated - by a song, you will probably transfer this energy back to others until this mood is either exhausted or a new meme shows up. You can try to surround yourself with "good" memes to the best of your abilities, but you can't completely shut out the dark ones. Don't bother to try, they too serve a purpose.

Frankie Ballard sings in Helluva Life, "Bad times make good times better". That's how life works. Life is a symphony with ups and downs carefully planted to make the overall experience meaningful to you. So if you hear an Adele song on the radio today and she reminds you with her out-of-this-world voice of the pain, disappointment and resentment that slumbers deep inside of you, then stand ready to experience that too.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "no meme is either good or bad, only thinking makes it so." Well, from life's perspective, every message, meme or interaction is just perfectly planted to make the overall experience meaningful and a "helluva ride".