Processing grief through music

It's Saturday, January 24th, 2026. I'm on a walk with my son Herbert. I'm feeling good. I had quite a good night's sleep. I was something like nine hours in bed. I'm not saying I slept nine hours, but there were some mild eruptions from Herbert. But it was quite all right. I didn't manage to work that much this week because I was feeling very tired. I think I a little bit overdid work last week, which itself wouldn't be that bad. But I think it invited some illness, which was trying at me. I wasn't feeling that bad, but I was just very tired. And also, I think I made some progress this week on processing the grief. The last bit of progress happened the night before. And what happened was that I woke up at something like 3 or 4 a.m. And I was trying to fall back asleep, but I couldn't. There was some anxious tendency, but it wasn't the classical thoughts spiraling into the anxious feedback loop. And after some time, I decided to play some music because I remembered the grief. The grief reminded me that it was still there. And I was like, yeah, when is the last time that I just listened to some beautiful, soothing music without having any other goal with it than just experience something beautiful? And I think it's really long. Last time I was listening to beautiful songs, it was to help me process and let go of some difficult emotions. And this wasn't the case. It was just, yeah. And I didn't even, yeah, usually when I'm using music for processing some difficult emotions, I know quite clearly what

piece of music or at least what kind of music I feel like listening to. But yesterday I didn't have that, so I was going through my saved playlists and nothing was really clicking with me, but then I remembered the Cherry Blossom by Matthew Halsall and so I put my headphones on and started listening and it was really beautiful and soothing. And after I listened to this piece of seven minutes, I think I was considering to give it another try at falling asleep, but then I remembered the Largo from the New World by Antonín Dvořák, which earlier that day I was playing on the viola and I deeply loved this piece and it was reminded to me by this me playing the day before. So I played it and at one point I just started crying, tears started rolling down my cheeks because of how beautiful and deeply moving it was to me. You see a goose, you see a goose, and there is a dog. So yeah, it was deeply moving and I was crying because of how beautiful it is, but also the grief was releasing because of how much beauty there is in the world versus how little we are experiencing it. Me and my wife and probably mostly me, but the more time I have with just being with the grief, the more I'm realizing that yes, the grief is about

Dolu, teďka děláme brm brm. Teďka děláme brm brm. Nemáme asi papání v těleči. Není papání. Kouknu se, jestli tady není nějaký zbyteček. Není papání herbí. Teďka jsme nevzali papání. Není papání. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round all day long. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round all day long. The babies on the bus bounce up and down, up and down, up and down. The babies on the bus bounce up and down all day long. The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish. The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish all day long. The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep all day long. The more time I have with the grief or like the more time I spend being with the grief, the more I'm realizing it's not exclusively or maybe even mainly about the life that I could be living and I'm not. But it might be related to the third path of the Theravada four stages of awakening model. I think from the Theravada point of view it's most likely that I am the second path. The attachment to sensory pleasure has been weakened significantly in me, but it's not completely gone. And I think the grief might be stemming from the fact that some parts of me are already accepting that the sensory pleasure is not satisfactory and that I will have to let it go. But some other parts still haven't had enough.

I perceive that there is something important to learn from sensory pleasure, and they are not willing to let it go, and I think part of the grief is related to this discrepancy. Basically, I know I eventually have to let it go, but I'm not ready. So, that's a grief.