I wish to lose myself.

I wish to free myself from the constant push and pull of my brain – the never ending flow of thoughts, ideas and reflections.

For so often – especially at night – it is so loud. So overbearing. Like as if my brain wishes to scream itself into silence.

If that so happen through the medium of creativity, I am lucky. Then I might just have fun with it, until I bore myself. But often enough, its is random thoughts, bits and bobs, flotsam and jetsam. Sometimes painful, often irrelevant.

It never stops. It flows and flows. No wonder that I crave things which can staunch the bleed and give me some peace and quiet.

I wonder if this is one of the reasons why I am so vulnerable to addictions. The short, hard hit of a substance or the long, drawn-out workings on a screen, which promise to cleanly wipe away my thoughts.

Or strong, physical sensations. Like self-hurt. Or better yet, sparring. One cannot think if a piece of steel is about to hit your face.

And there is another way. Late at night, in a dark room surrounded by people I barely know, I stand before the altar of underground music. I position and reposition myself, trying to increase its volume to the maximum, and to burden my ears equally. I feel the beat going through me, feel it move my body. Eyes closed, all movement. Lines and clours appearing before my closed eyes, dancing through my mind. Dipping in and out of the moment, losing and finding my thoughts. For a few seconds, I find blessed quiet in my brain, when everything is tethered to the here and now.

And yet, like a true addict, I wish for more. A memory, then: Doggy, dancing in front of a speaker. Her thin, well-trained body close to touching it, her face inches away from the centre of the speaker cone. I follow her example, looking around and finding the sources of the most powerful waves: the subwoofer. A dark, squat, massive war drum, calling out to me. Right next to the DJ, as it should be. The black tabernacle of this room.

I kneel down in front of it as if in supplication. Steadying myself against it with my free hand. Dimly, I am aware that the whole room can see me. No matter. Let them see what a true apostle of the loud looks like.

And here, finally, I find it: beats so loud and overwhelming that my entire body shakes. I do not hear with my ears alone any more, no – my entire body turns into an eardrum.

Thinking here is not possible. Somehow, I dimly register that I am enjoying myself. This is so purely physical, so utterly felt. The beat fills me, pushing out everything else. My mind shuts up.

Here, in this loudness, I find quiet.