How tall is your wall?

 

I have written many times about the power of music and its importance to me.   Music has been a major part of my life since I was able to pick my own stations on the radio and I got my first turn table.

I love all kinds of music from hard rock to love ballads, to country oldies and everything in between.

Yes, I love music and the power it has over our emotions and our thoughts.

Of course, I have my favorites . 

Recently I became reacquainted with my all-time favorite album.  I purchased the album when it first came out in 1979. 

I wore out two sets listening to it over and over again in the basement of my childhood home as I wore a set of clunky headphones. 

Hours and hours were spent with the turntable spinning and the needle capturing the sound only vinyl can produce. 

 Than, I moved to Cassettes in my car and finally CD’s.

Now I have the entire thing downloaded on my phone and have it available anytime I want it.

 I would say I listen to the full 80 minutes of this album at least once a week since It came back into my radar

To me it is clearly the best collection of music ever written. From the first song through all 4 sides, till the final song, it’s a true work of art and a musical achievement that has never been duplicated since.

 I doubt it ever will be.

I am talking about Pink Floyds album “The Wall”.  

I have listened to this album literally thousands of times since it was released in Nov of 1979. I know every word, every note and when one song finishes I know what is coming next.

Its called a “Rock Opera” because the entire album tells a story. Each song leads to the next. Each song a chapter in the life of a fictional character “Pink”. 

Pink is a jaded rock star who creates a fictional wall around himself as he moves deeper into Isolation from society and everyone around him. 

It’s the brainchild of Roger Waters, lead vocalist and creative genesis for Pink Floyd at the time. 

Waters came up with the  idea when he was so burned out at touring, that he fantasized about having a wall between the band and the audience, so he didn’t have to see or interact with them while they played.

The concept led to Waters taking actual traumatic events from his childhood and life and combined them with the events of fellow band member Syd Barret. Syd suffered from Schizophrenia and ultimately had to leave the band .  

Waters created the storyline that is  laid out within the songs of the album.  

The story line takes Pink from childhood to insanity.

The concept is a simple one and one that I believe is true.

 As we all go through life bad things happen to us.  Parents die young, we get abandoned, we feel  alone when there should be someone there to help . We get jilted by lovers, betrayed by friends and though bad choices we make, we do many things we look back on and regret. Guilt builds into our life.

Each event we go through as our lives march forward, are either cast aside and forgotten, or they are turned into bricks and put in place to help build a wall that protects us from the world. 

I believe we all have a self-preservation mechanism that attempts to shield us from the bad things that happened and tries to ensure they don’t happen again. 

The wall symbolizes the removal of the vulnerability we all have when dealing with others. Remove the vulnerability, remove the potential to get hurt again. 

Build up the wall !

I think we all have a wall around us that we have built over time. 

Some walls are every tall and few people ever get in. They have built high walls to protect themselves from things in their past and ensure they do  not happen again.

Some walls are short as some can cope with what life has thrown at them and the need for a wall is minimal.

To some degree I think our wall keeps people from seeing the real us . At least not 100%

We let people see what we want them to see, the wall helps protect what we wish others not see.

I believe everyone has a wall. How tall? How short? Who we let in? Who we keep out? 

How and why, it protects us from pain, embarrassment or rejection depends on how we use the wall.

Pinks wall ultimately drove him insane as the total isolation he created allowed his mind to finally take over with the depravity that we are all capable of, yet keep at bay. 

How big is your wall? Who do you let in and who do you keep out? 

 What pain, rejection or embarrassment is your wall hoping to protect you from?

The great thing about walls is they can be built tall and strong to ensure they do their job of protecting us.

They can also be taken down.  

The self-preservation mechanism that unconsciously begins the wall building process in us all at a young age ,can be overridden and brick by brick you can take down the wall. 

For years the wall that surrounded me was tall and few entered.  I had stacked a lifetime of bricks. 

The walls is shorter now but it’s still there.

All I can do is work at removing one brick at a time, slowly taking down the wall and allowing more people inside .

How tall is your wall? 

Are you building? 

Or, I hope,   

you are taking down?