Qualms

It is hard work to study Social and Cultural Anthropology and to a job. There are seminars to teach students the basics and academic levels of quantitative and qualitative research- they last one semster. Students have to learn how to write in scientific / academic style, plus there is a seminar about how to work scientifically. Professors insist, that students should acquire additional skills. Be it, as it may, studies are hard and lots of knowledge have to be compiled and managed by students, themselves, and I am not the type of person who is satisfied with good lecture notes and one must-read book. I got to delve into what I study to fully experience my interest and subject.

Each book is like a little universe opening the mind. It does good to have a comfortable couch, tea and a soft blanket. Listening to music, like Mozart´s piano concerts, or to Mahler´s romantic compositions, or some Jazz. By now, I mean music, that is not new to my ear, so that I do not have to listen closely, like The Beatles, or Jazz by Louis Armstrong or Errol Garner. Many Jazz musicians - from the beginnings on - have adpated classical music for instance by Bach. More and more I consider the functions of music in the world. Well, there are many, and the entertainment factor is only one. Music accompanies various situations, like birth(-days) or other rites. So it is with every piece of music - it opens a little universe.

I listen to the Approximately Infinite Universe music, over and over. Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band present thoughts and critique on society with music. Yoko Ono writes about the Feminization of Society and what I think of nowadays society is written in this text, which was published in 1972: "This society is driven by neurotic speed and force accelerated by greed, and frustration of not being able to live up to the image of men and women we have created for ourselves: the image, which has nothing to do with the reality of people."