To be Moved

Ever felt you had to hold back tears? Choked on trying to get words out to express something? Well you are not alone. Everyone is moved emotionally somewhere sometime or the other. There are obviously situations of extreme sadness that bring this on, I would stay away for those instances and rather look at instances where the tear falls automatically and one gets choked without even knowing it. 

I experience this when I read something that I find is profound and very often listening to music. It surprises me that the music generally is from the 70s and 80s (it also doesn’t matter what language it’s the same reaction in English or Hindi or Marathi or Marwadi… the decades don’t change. I wonder why). Poems fall in the space of the written word and there are two that always bing a tear to my eye. One of them is now a personal ritual to recite mentally. Invictus  and Stopping by the woods. One of them I did as part of my english language course almost 35 years ago in school. While thinking about the written word I have been moved by some words written by Osho, Marcus Aurelius , Ayn Rand , Jostein Gaarder , Richard Bach, John Milton and a few more obscure authors. reading some paragraphs always has a lump in my throat and a tear in my eyes. Music has the same effect there are some songs and compositions that invoke the same reaction in me. The surprise may be that the compositions cover classical, metal, pop, rock, rhythm and blues , adult contemporary and possibly every genre one can think of. I choke when I listen to Ode to Europe and I choke when I listen to a couple of songs from ac/dc, Engelbert Humperdinck, iron maiden, led zeppelin, Kishor Kumar, manna de, Bhupen Hazarika etc…the list is endless and is in no particular order. 

To be moved is to know one is human. The tear and the choke just reminds us that emotions and our response is what makes us unique. 

C