I have been like this all my life (39 years). When I was a kid my dad used to play us some children LPs. My brother and I sat down to listen to those stories.

I have been like this all my life (39 years). When I was a kid my dad used to play us some children LPs. My brother and I sat down to listen to those stories. As I grew up, I kept actively listening to music, (both classica/baroque that my dad played on CDs or heavy metal music I loved). Same thing happened with TV/movies. Nowadays, my wife loves to turn on the TV when we are eating just as "background noise" but darn I find it difficult to focus on eaeting/table-conversation vs whatever is in the TV. For me music and TV have always been mindful activities. >It's actually kind of bizarre that such a rich artform is so often relegated to background accompaniment for some other task This is so true, and also sad. I used to go to the Gewandhaus Leipzig in Germany to listen to live classical music concert. The appreciation of richness of a lot of music is being lost.