Insular worries
Quite recently I met up with a new group of Christians - we're supposed to have a sort of Bible study once a month. We were all strangers before this Bible study thing brought us together. It's a one-year programme organised by the Graduates Christian Fellowship - supposed to help young graduates transition from student life to working life.
Since we only meet once a month, we try to organise informal outings in between, to keep in touch with each other and get to know each other better.
At the first meeting, the topic got to music and the various artistes. This guy called Edmund asked me which singers or groups I particularly like.
The thing is, I hardly ever tune in to radio stations. For one thing, there's too much talking going on between the songs. And I like to control what I listen to. So I usually pop in CDs or cassettes - and they're always songs with Christian themes. (NB.: We don't have Christian radio stations here in Malaysia, and Christian songs are never played on air, except occasionally those "secular-sounding" ones by Creed, Jars of Clay, or Sixpence None The Richer.)
To me, it's the lyrics that give a song meaning, and so hearing Toni Braxton sing, "Unbreak my heart, say you'll love me again" really does nothing for me. I more or less know the names of the more popular singers, and sometimes know the titles of their songs, but that's about it. I might recognise the chorus if you sang it to me, though. *grin*
When I told Edmund I don't really listen to secular music, he said, "How insular!"
Two weeks ago, the group went out again, and this time they were talking about the Oscars, and discussing who/which movie would win in the various categories.
Edmund asked me what I thought, and I smiled and said, "I don't watch enough movies to be able to form an opinion." Actually, I didn't care about the Oscars at all.
Then they started talking about the Malaysian Formula One Grand Prix, and how Schumacher had already won five times, and they hoped so-and-so would win instead.
Edmund asked me who I thought would win, and I told him I don't really follow Formula One stuff.
He looked at me and asked, "What DO you follow?!"
Good question. The only thing I could come up with was, "Um... God?!", and it sounded so holy-moly that I winced as I said it.
But it's true! The only thing, or rather Person, that I'm really interested in is God and all the stuff that's related to Him.
Apart from that, I'm interested in people. Individuals. Human beings with names and faces and emotions and a story to tell.
All the other stuff is, to me, incidental and pointless, except in as much as it's important to the people I know and care about. For example, I can never understand why males are mad about football, but if I know their team had an important match the night before, I will ask my friends who won, because it's important them - even if not to me.
Now I'm worrying that I might be too insular...