Have you ever opened your eyes in the morning having a song instantly filling your mind? Have you carried a song around all day after someone mentioned the title or lyric? Have you ever had it go on and on and on for days? According to Wikipedia, this phenomenon is referred to as “sticky music” or “stuck song syndrome.
Whatever you want to call it, I have experienced this, and I am definitely feeling like it’s stuck!
I can’t find the exact commercial that is guilty of planting this phrase in my brain. I don’t remember that part. I just did a youtube search with the sticky phrase and came up with a recording by The Faces and then again by Rod Stewart. I didn’t remember any of the other words, just the one line/phrase from the chorus. I don’t remember listening to it in my youth. I didn’t know the title at all. If you had talked about the song and its title without mentioning my stuck phrase, I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about. (I remember Rod Stewart, but not The Faces.)
Have you guessed the phrase yet? Here it is: “I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger.” If you want to hear the whole song you can search the phrase, or the title, “Ooh La La.”
Here’s the thing: it’s stuck in my brain, on a loop that rarely goes away. So when I woke up this morning to this phrase—which by the way I then have to sing in my head several times to get the phrase rhythmically exact, not sure why by now it doesn’t just appear correctly—I decided to reflect on it in writing here. Not sure where this is going to come out, since I’m doing some live sorting, reflecting, and recording. Here goes…
I have friends and acquaintances who say they live with no regrets. I sometimes think I must be living in a different world than them, or just done more awful and hurtful stuff because I have many regrets. I recently participated in a cool poem creating thing that was the accumulation of the things people would tell their younger self if they got the chance. It made me think of the things I would tell myself “when I was younger.”
I wonder what the people I know, who say they have no regrets, would do with my brain-phrase. When I’ve asked how it can be that they have no regrets, they respond by telling me that everything they’ve done has made them who they are. They like who they are. They learned from all their experiences and wouldn’t change anything.
Really? (Imagine me shaking my head once again in disbelief.)
I kinda sorta get that who I am today is the product of my decisions/choices in the past. Yes, I’m in a pretty good place, and I know that to “go back” and change any ONE thing would mean NOW would or could be quite different.
Here’s another thought that occurred to me on one of the days when I couldn’t shake this perpetual earworm. Could our younger self handle this mature knowledge and perspective we’ve acquired? Would they listen to us any better than their parents, teacher, or mentors when they attempt to speak wisdom into their young lives?
Having deep sorrow for my wrong and hurtful choices makes me a more sensitive and kinder me now. There is no way to go back and undo what has been done. And I’m somewhat familiar with who I was, and I seriously doubt I would have listened. I would have justified or rationalized my choices. So perhaps I should spend my time becoming the best me, the me who I want to live with for whatever time I have left.
Whenever that sticky phrase crowds back into my head, I’m going to sing it like this: I wish I lived what I have learned, it makes me much better.
Yep, that works and I’ve got that rhythm down pat.
Pot of Manna 