I stumbled upon this peace of work not through Carlos’ writings but through Kelly Cutrone’s memoir. Once I let this quote digest, I realized the power it had and I hope you can find the same power it gave me.

“We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.” – Carlos Castaneda

At about 15 years old, I was sitting in the car with my dad and a song came on the radio with the most moving, aggressive soulful guitar melodies that I have ever heard, what song is this I asked? My dad simple replied, “You don’t know? Voodoo Child.” At this point I was a tweenage girl that was hyped up on the once was Disney Stars now soon turned “singers” like, Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. Unfortunately for my parents, I was turning into the growing member of the media brainwashing family, which thought I needed everything that I saw the people in the little box had. Something about Voodoo Child affected me more than the other songs, I actually couldn’t get the beginning part of the song out of my head just after hearing it once and better yet I almost started to feel my inner “bad ass” rise inside of me.

When I got home that day, I went straight to Rhapsody, where I prompted to listen to every Jimmi Hendrix song, As I searched, I learned about the era from which Jimmi came from. That day I was educated about Woodstock, Janis Joplin, Jeffersons Airplane, acid, Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton and pot. As the week progressed, my father helped me in my search with Led Zeppelin, Journey, The Eagles and Pink Flyod. That week, I figured that I was a lot cooler than every one else because I listened to “better music”. None of my peers knew the songs my ears ever so desired, nor, did they get it.

From that day on, I thought, “every song on the radio” sucked, ironic. I also refused to subdue myself with the pop culture and ironically resorted to become a member of the “scene” fan club by listening to bands such as Taking Back Sunday, Yellowcard, Dashboard Confessional, Funeral For a Friend, the whole shebang. By the time of 18, I thought I had significantly, matured my brain from the “scene bands” to more “complex” bands like Animal Collective, Metric, Rilo Kiley, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The White Stripes. At this point, every phase I went through, meant the last one wasn’t good enough anymore and everyone who was listening to that, well, was simply not good enough, in my books at least.

So what phase am I in now? You can see me eagerly replay a variety of music such as Rx Bandits, Atmosphere, Lady Gaga, Wolf Parade, Passion Pit, John Mayer, The Dave Matthews Band, No Doubt, Portishead, Radiohead, Paramore, LIGHTS, Taylor Swift and Jay- Z. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I hope that this helps convinces people to stop, judging others as I did for the longest time. I am a 20-year-old, college graduate with a Music Business degree and the last thing I ever want someone to do, is to degrade me for my music choice. Quite frankly, you can think I am not “intellectual” or “value my opinion” or think I am “close minded” based upon my music choice. In all respect, could it be that you are those things when you refuse to explore and listen to other music. Isn’t knowing all to mean to have explored all?

How factual is it that, just because it is not  “commercialized” and “marketed” it’s supposed to be better music? I have heard of plenty of underground, unknown bands that, well, should simply stay unknown. When did it become that once you made it big, you are no longer worth listening to, because you are “pop” and “sold out” cough*cough* falloutboykingsofleon cough*cough* Who are you to say, “this song sucks” just because it is from Taylor Swift, it doesn’t make you better. In all other words, I think it may be crucial, to step back and let the music come to you and not label it before you even hear it. If you decide the music is not for you, than at least learn to respect the product, for goodness sake, it’s all entertainment at the end of the day. It might be hard to do, but there is something said, if this “pop” act can sell over a million copies of your so called label of “shitty music” and you’ve sold only 500 of your self recorded EP that you made in your basement. Whether your music sounds better or not and despite the ripped off amount of royalties the signed acts may endure, at least these cats can live a stable life, doing what they love, why hate?