Posts in category "Thoughts"

Thrice = Love: The Journey

I see the parts but not the whole
I study saints and schol­ars both
No per­fect plan unfurls
Do I trust my heart or just my mind
Why is truth so hard to find in this world
Yeah in this world

‘Cause I am due for a mir­a­cle
I’m wait­ing for a sign
I’ll stare straight into the sun
And I won’t close my eyes
Till I under­stand or go blind

—Thrice, Stare At The Sun

Even at my age, whether oth­ers may con­sid­er it young or old, I haven’t decid­ed on a spe­cif­ic set of beliefs, whether they be reli­gious, philo­soph­i­cal, or psy­cho­log­i­cal.

In try­ing times I find myself wish­ing that I had some­thing, some form of struc­ture that would make sense of the things that hap­pen. The most serene peo­ple I know are also the most pious, as they seem to have an answer for the seem­ing­ly unex­plained or unde­served. I’ve often asked the­ists, the ones whose intel­li­gence I respect, what has made them believe in one or sev­er­al gods. Most com­mon­ly the answer is that they have enough evi­dence for such an exis­tence. Even though I’ve had a few serendip­i­tous expe­ri­ences myself, things which I can’t explain by chance alone, it has­n’t been enough to give me a defin­i­tive answer.

Sometimes it feels like I’m wait­ing for a mir­a­cle to give me an answer or show me a path.

I used to be an athe­ist, then an agnos­tic, until I became com­plete­ly unde­cid­ed. It’s rare to find oth­er peo­ple who are open-mind­ed enough to admit that they are still learn­ing, or have yet to dis­cov­er what so many oth­er peo­ple already have. What I know for sure is that I still have the rest of my life to find out, to walk that path and make that jour­ney.

Gimmie a girl who isn’t afraid to stare at the sun with me.

The Thrice = Love Series

  1. Introduction
  2. The Journey
  3. As The Crucible
  4. Rock It
  5. The Rush
  6. Far From The End

Thrice = Love: Introduction

Thumbnail: Thrice ticket

It’s been more than two years since Thrice has released a new album, until Vheissu, just five days ago. I’m still explor­ing the tracks, approach­ing each song with an open mind, but nev­er dis­sect­ing too much through analy­sis. Due to the uncer­tain­tiy of what to expect, lis­ten­ing to some­thing for the first time is always a lit­tle dif­fer­ent.

It can be eas­i­ly observed that they’ve grown through all of their full-length albums. It’s dif­fi­cult to lis­ten to Identity Crisis (2000), because of how rough and unde­vel­oped it is. The Illusion of Safety (2002) was much improved, intro­duc­ing a unique, exper­i­men­tal style, though heav­i­ly influ­enced by punk and met­al­core. The Artist In The Ambulance (2003) took things a step fur­ther, achiev­ing tracks that were both esthet­ic and intel­li­gent.

Ever since I stopped smok­ing weed on a dai­ly basis, of which a great deal of time was spent lis­ten­ing to music, I’ve been ener­vat­ed by the fact that songs would nev­er sound as good, until this album.

Vheissu has renewed my hope. Saved my life.

It goes beyond every­thing else to a com­plete­ly spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence, from the album art­work to the chords and the key sig­na­tures. Thrice has reached out with music that is haunt­ing, mov­ing, emo­tion­al, try­ing things that they’ve nev­er tried before. Dustin Kensrue sings more than he screams, even goes falset­to(!), only occas­sion­al­ly call­ing on his hard­core roots. Electronic sounds, piano, acoustic gui­tar have been worked into the tracks them­selves, instead of being rel­e­gat­ed to the intro­duc­tions. The mixed meters are less obtru­sive, but still inter­est­ing enough for prog-rock fans. Even with all of this, they con­tin­ue to defy gen­res, as they’ve done in their pre­vi­ous albums. It all works.

Thrice is com­ing to town, and the con­cert is just six days away.

I was only intro­duced to Thrice in the last two years, but I’ve been through a lot with them. Different apart­ments, room­mates, girl­friends, breakups. Even the lyrics speak to me, lift­ing, mov­ing, nev­er crash­ing. I only ask one thing.

Gimme a girl who loves Thrice.

The Thrice = Love Series

  1. Introduction
  2. The Journey
  3. As The Crucible
  4. Rock It
  5. The Rush
  6. Far From The End

Oh, The Humanity

Although not in any nar­ra­tive Herbert Morrison sense.

I had a dif­fer­ent entry half-writ­ten, but the dark­ness was debil­i­tat­ing. All I want­ed was a sec­ond sun; it felt like a case of SAD because the night was mak­ing me both anx­ious and uneasy. It’s noth­ing close to a pan­ic attack, but it was bad enough that I felt com­pelled to called Pat to help talk me out of it. He’s one of the only peo­ple I can count on 24/7, and just talk­ing to him for an hour helps me fig­ure out more about the world than three months of writ­ing here. I know my eye­s’ll feel like lead weights tomor­row for stay­ing up this late, but I need to get this entry down before I lose it. Hopefully, know­ing that it’s Friday will be enough to keep me alive through the day.

Self-improve­ment has dri­ven me for most of my life, a nev­er-end­ing goal that’s guid­ed me through my actions and beliefs. This is usu­al­ly based on com­par­i­son, since improve­ment is always rel­a­tive. Those who can accom­plish what I have dif­fi­cul­ty doing always have my respect, and give me some­thing to work towards.

Before I com­plain about get­ting six hours of sleep the pre­vi­ous night, I think of Navy SEALs who get four hours total dur­ing Hell Week, a five day under­wa­ter train­ing exer­cise dur­ing the first phase of the BUD/S. That’s when I real­ize that I should be able to sur­vive an extra hour of work with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty. When I feel like throw­ing my hands in the air after work­ing on an ad for four hours, blind­ed by the depth with which I’ve star­ing at the mate­r­i­al, I think of my boss who can work through count­less inter­rup­tions and dis­trac­tions. That’s when I real­ize that I should keep at my work, because per­se­ver­ance will almost always yield results.

If I can sur­vive it, any­thing can make me stronger.

But as I dis­cov­ered tonight, every­one has their weak­ness­es. Even Pat. He’s always seemed as sol­id as a rock, com­plete­ly unfal­ter­ing, but he admit­ted that there are also moments of weak­ness, how­ev­er brief. Times when he can’t get any work done because some­thing is both­er­ing him that he can’t let go. Times when he just does­n’t feel like going out or social­iz­ing. To find this out about Pat, was to dis­cov­er that the most cheer­ful, friend­ly, con­fi­dent, and men­tal­ly strong per­son I know has his off days. Even the hard­est work­ing, most pro­duc­tive per­son I know occa­sion­al­ly falls vic­tim to a case of the Mondays or the 9–5 grind. There must be some sem­blance of bal­ance, in how much to push one­self, and how much to accept.

To strive for per­fec­tion is fine, but to lose sleep over imper­fec­tion is fool­ish.

Being a dom­i­nant, respon­si­ble for anoth­er per­son, means that one should be sol­id as often as pos­si­ble, but even this extreme case should allow for some lee­way. This does­n’t mean that I won’t try as hard in my attempt at dom­i­nance, but know­ing this cer­tain­ly makes the approach, and even self-improve­ment in gen­er­al, much eas­i­er.

Some may say that it’s a fal­la­cy to com­pare one­self to oth­er peo­ple. After all, every­one has dif­fer­ent abil­i­ties and tol­er­ance lev­els, and it’s no fault to born bet­ter at some things than oth­ers.

But even then, every­body’s human.

Transitway Six

Thumbnail: Transitway

On days like this, it’s bet­ter to wear light cloth­ing, and throw on a hood­ed wind­break­er. The rain out­side is just a driz­zle, so it’s com­fort­ably cool. Pay no atten­tion to the hydraulic hiss of the wind­shield wipers, or you won’t be able to help hear­ing them through the qui­et parts of every song. Window seats are prime. There are few­er dis­trac­tions from peo­ple walk­ing down the aisle.

The 95 goes from one end of the city to the oth­er, straight through the heart of Ottawa. Every stop is a mem­o­ry. Old haunts. Past lives.

Here was your first apart­ment. Sometimes you’d find Christie wait­ing for you here on the bench­es between class­es. How long ago those days seem, how imma­ture and rel­a­tive­ly inno­cent. The next two stops are on the edge of the uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus, four years of scat­tered tru­an­cy. Two stops lat­er is where you use to buy a medi­um caramel cor­ret­to every morn­ing after an exhaust­ing night with Louise. Your old gov­ern­ment office is anoth­er two on. The con­crete build­ing looks so for­eign now, and you won­der if the same peo­ple are still inside. Another few stops is your last apart­ment, before buy­ing the house, the end of bus rides home every day.

Music nev­er meant so much.

You pass by con­struc­tion sites, fin­ished build­ings, see the evo­lu­tion of the city.

Every stop can be traced to a dif­fer­ent point, a dif­fer­ent girl­friend, a dif­fer­ent path in your life.

Six years of expe­ri­ence, six years of shift­ing, ever-chang­ing ani­ma.

Six years passed.

Six years lived.

Six years grown.

Awakening: The Reborn Dreamer

I wake up every day look­ing at Death, and you know what? He ain’t half bad.

—Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp

Its not until you lose every­thing that you are free to do any­thing.

—Tyler Durden, Fight Club

I used to take pride in the fact that I felt like I could die sat­is­fied any day. I was at a place in my life where I could­n’t ask for more, and there was a tremen­dous sense of over­all sat­is­fac­tion. I had every­thing that I deserved. After that, all I had left to expe­ri­ence, every fall morn­ing caught or tear shed, was a bonus. Of course, the clos­est I had ever come to death was a minor case of pneu­moth­o­rax, which I imag­ine is as fatal as pinch­ing one’s skin between two Lego pieces while build­ing the Death Star, so this feel­ing was nev­er actu­al­ly put to the test. I’m sure I’d feel dif­fer­ent­ly if I ever came fright­en­ing­ly close to the end of my life, although just how much remains a mys­tery.

Perhaps this grew from a cogent sense of frailty, per­pet­u­at­ed by all the sto­ries of freak acci­dents echoed through­out the media. The stu­dent who impaled his heart on a num­ber 2 pen­cil while try­ing to catch a foot­ball in the mid­dle of class. The gen­er­al who drowned in a pool of his own blood from a nose­bleed on his wed­ding night. Even the pres­i­dent of the United States almost choked to death on a pret­zel. To dis­tance myself was the only way I could deal with it.

The prob­lem, I’ve only recent­ly dis­cov­ered, was that this left me alien­at­ed and unat­tached. I have no dreams, noth­ing to live for. Not even a goal to work towards. During high-school, the goal was to get into a uni­ver­si­ty. After uni­ver­si­ty, the goal was to get a ful­fill­ing job. After the job was the house. Now that I own a house, it feels like the rest of my life has been laid out in front of me. No risks, no sur­pris­es. I appre­ci­ate every­thing that I’ve been giv­en, but it feels like it’s been a lit­tle too easy. Even my most sig­nif­i­cant goal was rather sud­den­ly accom­plished this year. As Logan Pearsall Smith once wrote in his book Afterthoughts, “How many of our day­dreams would dark­en into night­mares if there seemed any dan­ger of their com­ing true!”. A simul­ta­ne­ous ful­fill­ment and dis­sat­is­fac­tion.

I pre­sent­ed this prob­lem to Pat, and from his infi­nite wis­dom (at 24, no less) I real­ized that one should nev­er live for what might hap­pen. Otherwise, a per­son would go crazy. Of course, to tru­ly live this way, it does­n’t hurt to be a bit of a fatal­ist. Having this belief means that one can only do the best that they can, and to go means that it was meant to be.

For now, I’ve been keep­ing myself occu­pied, until I can fig­ure out what I want in the last rest of my life. Blessed is the per­son who is too busy to wor­ry in the day­time and too sleepy to wor­ry at night. It’s only now that I’ve dis­cov­ered that I need a few dreams to sur­vive.

And I can only hope to nev­er reach them.

The Awakening Series

  1. Introduction
  2. Cause
  3. The Reborn Dreamer