Just Beyond the Light: Making Peace with the Wars Inside Our Head

by D. Randall Blythe

I am a firm believer in science, and as such I believe in the law of conservation of energy, also known as the first law of thermodynamics. Albert Einstein famously summarized this principle by stating, “Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another.” Music is composed of sound waves, which move through solids, liquids, and gases, thereby causing objects and substances to vibrate. (This is how we hear—sound waves vibrate our eardrums, and the brain processes the vibrations via the auditory nerve.) Those sound waves are called kinetic mechanical energy. In short, music is an externally and purposefully organized collection of kinetic energy (the energy of motion), and because energy can neither be created nor destroyed, music is, in a very real way, eternal. From the moment of their creation (or rather organization, I should say), songs travel endlessly outward through the universe, ever moving and changing form as they pass through the cosmos.