One's Own Damn Musical Self

I think I may have been selfish in my early years.  Selfishness stems from American society, where capitalism breeds an attitude of self preservation.  Although primarily we are a socialist country (over 70% of American jobs are provided by the government), capitalism instills a sense that we must get for ourselves or be eaten.  When American ideals still were vigorous, this need didn't usurp Christianity.  Because Christianity has been on the chopping block for over a decade, widespread evil as replaced good as the major tenant of American society.  Maybe it is survival instinct.  Maybe it merely is ignorance.  Ignorant people, devoid of real life experiences within the construct of Christianity, may not know good.  Once a mother's altruistic love was instrumental in shaping moral lives.  While I may have been selfish in my early years, only was it a plea to have the same things others did.  (or so it seemed) I learned if you wanted to be successful take no prisoners.  There was no time for gratuitousness.  Your desires were primary in your own life.  I have changed only because, I have been lucky enough to have had some good things.  I have not accumulated wealth, but what I do have is important to me.  They are things, but also they are tools.  I have learned to invest in tools which will serve a greater purpose for the future.  Because I am a musician often these things have been musical tools.  Not many can afford a Yamaha C7 grand piano, but we can afford small music-making tools offered via electricity.  Electricity has been a contentious element in the history of music.  When Bob Dylan "went electric" anarchy to a small degree ensued.  As an aficionado of jazz music I learned to appreciate acoustic music.  Jazz largely was acoustic music, until it too "went electric."  Electricity effectively has bridged the gap between purist acoustic music and utilitarian product.  While two acoustic pianos sit downstairs, neither of them is used.  They are not used, because no longer can their acoustic tones compete with local industrial pollution.  I am not speaking of audible pollution.  I am speaking of the much more powerful and destructive infrasonic frequencies.  These are rampant in our modern industrial society ignored by most.  Still they rain down havoc on our citizens.  When I try to verbalize why swing music is difficult today, few can understand that a large powerful sound wave defeats the good rhythm of swing.  Society has adapted, and now we have the genre of "pop," a style of non-music which requires none of the traditional skills or talents of educated music.  A classical education isn't necessary.  One only has to learn how to strum a guitar to develop a stunted sense of what how time should feel.  Real time or feeling is much more complicated, diverse, and powerful.  Possibly it is this diversity we lack in the world today.  While racial diversity is a desired goal in America, few remember that music is what allowed it to happen.  Music was an example of the good of man and God via Christianity.  Musicians made real music, and real music transcended reality.  I have enough electronic tools to make music, but it increasingly is difficult.  I don't feel the inspiration or the support music diversity once merited.  It does not exist, or it does not seem to exist in modern America.  If it did it would be setting an example for diversity instead of reveling in its own self worth.