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oneweekoneband · 4 years

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i didn’t though

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When I was twenty and tractable I listened to “Treacherous” and I believed Taylor Swift was telling me something, because “I’ll do anything you say / If you say it with your hands”, is not content meant for straight people, even though legally they, too, are allowed to hear it, and they do generally have hands. When Taylor Swift drank beers with Karlie Kloss at a Knicks game in 2014, I believed she was telling me something even more forcefully, because, really, why be at Knicks game if not just to kill time politely before fucking whoever you’re there with. When reputation was released and it contained “Dress”, a song about buying a certain item of clothing to look good for a person you love specifically not “like a best friend” so that after “all the pining and anticipation” they can remove it from your body and you can drink wine together in the bath, I believed Taylor was screaming a confession at me, and I was more than ready to receive it. When I heard from multiple sources just last year, amidst the aggressive rainbow-deluge of the Lover promo cycle, an ultimately false rumor that said Taylor was going to come out in a Rolling Stone cover story I, somehow, incredibly, brain as smooth as a baby’s ass, believed that too.

I have believed a lot of things. And it’s a nice diversion, to believe like that. But, more recently, I’ve found that the detective in me has turned away from this one. The only facts I’ll ever know about Taylor Swift are those she wishes to share, and speculating about what secrets she may or may not be hiding is a distraction from the real, joyful work of appreciating all these already literally, unequivocally, very gay songs. I’ve found, well, that I just don’t care anymore, which sucks, as I detest the squirmy idea that I might be growing as a person. But the truth is one really can write extremely, objectively homoerotic love songs yet be, for all intents and purposes, terminally straight. And like that poignant tweet about Lin Manuel Miranda tells us, you can seem gay, because of, like, your whole deal, and then it turns out you’re just annoying. You can even have a torrid love affair with your one-time supermodel best friend and in the end just want to marry some guy from The Favourite (Allegedly from The Favourite. I have seen that film three times and could not pick that man out of a lineup if my life depended on it.) and maybe there’s nothing to announce to anybody about it at all. Sexuality is complex and personal, and Taylor’s own sexuality doesn’t much matter to me, outside of how I always think it’s nice to know there’s yet another bisexual white woman out here in the world being even more irritating than me. (I say this strictly in terms of labeling; it ought to go without saying that Taylor’s various psychosexual obsessions with things like Amy from Gone Girl, and The Kennedys, and her house in Rhode Island matter to me immensely.) It doesn’t matter because it has no bearing on the fact that she keeps dropping queer classics.

Anyway, yeah, most good Taylor Swift songs are gay, just like most good things, generally, and there’s a number of viable picks on folklore, except not “betty”, no matter what the collective banshee’s wail of the Internet tells you. The gayest thing about “betty” is that it’s Taylor putting herself in the mind of a skateboarding teenage boy, which, yes, admittedly, is a big homo vibe, but nowhere in or around this song are any people of the same gender identity smashing bathing suit parts together, or even thinking about doing so, and when there are so many better options available, I feel it is prudent that we have just the barest hint of standards. As queerness itself is malleable, wonderfully, painfully individual, and comes in no one standard format, so too is determining which song on a Taylor Swift album is the most gay a singular, complicated calculus we all must do for ourselves within our own hearts, and, of course, there are no wrong answers, unless it so happens that your answer is not “the 1”.

“the 1” made me lose my grip for a moment. A cool lament, calmly wrenching, right off it was sucking out my bone marrow and I wasn’t able to name why. (Well, except, obviously, that the twin unit of, “You know the greatest films of all time were never made,” and “You know the greatest loves of all time are over now,” is pure, not from concentrate, peak embarrassing & devastating & all the more embarrassing for being so devastating Swiftian lyricism.) Finally, weeks after the release, out walking the streets of Los Angeles midday, masked and fractious, lower back sticky, brain a little mean, buying a soda at the gas station just to talk to someone, it came to me that “the 1” is a spiritual sequel to Red’s drum-heavy forever banger “Holy Ground”. The Taylor of “Holy Ground” reminisces frantically about a lost love, some near-miss from youth. That drumbeat is a racing heart. The animating nervousness of “Holy Ground”, the way you can almost hear the narrator’s limbs flapping wildly against her body when she says that she’s dancing, has from the beginning marked this song to me as a story of looking back on some sort of formless and magical teenaged queer encounter. “Holy Ground” is looking at a precious memory like it’s a firefly in cupped hands—small and special and easy to lose—being not entirely certain what the memory means, since whatever it was that happened back then, you never really talked it out. “Holy Ground” is about a love that for all its vitality did not work out, but it is appreciative rather than sad. “But sometimes I wonder how you think about it now,” Taylor sings, “and I see your face in every crowd.”

“But we were something, don’t you think so?” asks “the 1”, imploring an ex to confirm her version of events, to agree that she’s remembering it right. Taylor has not ever struggled in her work with place and the self and matching the two against one another on the wriggling timeline of the human life. I was there I was there I was there. The question here is something else. Not was it real, but was it real to you, and do you remember now what that was like. Do you remember who I was then? What we were? The truth as it pertains to the heart of another is guesswork at best, and a troublesome kind. Memories break and bend, or weren’t even recorded right to begin with, every brain a dirty liar, and for two separate, imperfect creatures to share the responsibility of preserving one history together is a disaster. The hard facts then are grounding. Essential. “I thought I saw you at the bus stop / I didn’t though”. Everyone has past romances that they still ask questions about, yes—I am not practicing my virulent heterophobia today—but none of my queer friends are without at least one were-we-or-weren’t-we in their past, a clinch with another that was incandescent and unnameable, long over but dangling forever there loose outside the neat boxes of friend or lover. To be a queer person is to exist already beyond and without the organizing structures of heterosexuality, and this can be difficult, dangerous, but in liminality there is freedom, and in years of painstakingly debating whether I wanted to be or bang so many various somebodys I have, along the way, put the pieces of myself in the order they fit best. So then there are loves where you aren’t sure if that’s technically what it was, if it’s what they’d call it, too. Or loves that were undeniably real, only we were too busy back then with trying to turn into ourselves to keep it. And loves from the very start, from walking together on colt legs, exuberant and unprepared, and the memory is a blessing, and the memory is guilt.

“the 1”, to the ear, is softer and slinkier than “Holy Ground”, but the lyrics are dismantling. “Holy Ground” says, “And darling, it was good / Never looking down”. Full of longing, but cheerful and sure. “the 1” is older, resigned. On “the 1” Taylor mourns a love not only because it has ended, but because she can sense, from the safety of time’s remove, that it was a love which deserved better, could have been better, if things had been only a little different, if they’d felt brave enough to try just a little more. In this version of nostalgia, the golden haze of “Holy Ground” is ribboned by a vaporous shame, a regret. The song relates a story of a love that is farther out of reach and meant more than what the little girl of “Holy Ground” could have dreamt. “In my defense I have none / for digging up the grave another time / but it would’ve been fun / if you would’ve been the one”.

#taylor swift #folklore

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manjuhitorie · 3 years

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tat - Shinoda’s Hitori-Atelier blog posts - REAMP Digest volume 4

Shinoda’s blog post via Hitori-Atelier! Please consider joining Hitori-Atelier and supporting Hitorie’s ventures today. How-to here: https://boatmanju.wixsite.com/hitorietranslations/hitorie-atelier

It’s already been 3 months since REAMP was released, time really flies.

In that short bit of time we’ve already planned a tour ahead of us, and were given the opportunity to do the opening for the anime ‘86′. Let’s fucking go~~~~~ Is everyone faring well? I've recently rekindled my passion for sampling, I haven't felt like this in years. I'm taking free samples I find strewn across the internet and turning them into techno. I kinda remember mentioning my appreciation for techno in vol. 1 of this blog series, and yeah. I'm finally trying it out for myself. I've managed to make a pretty sick song if I do say so myself. You'll find it on Hitori-Atelier soon enough. (＊This is most likely the song titled 'mad candy', found in 'Shinoda's Contents') It's fun 'cause compared to vocal stuff, I use a whole different part of my brain to make techno. I say "This part of this sample has a good beat to it, I bet if I rearranged it like this it would make music~" and do it. Relatively speaking, this kinda music making matches my personality type really well. I feel like I've found a fucking good hobby for myself here. With that said, even though it’s a hobby, work is still work so the collateral damage of music-making is still vividly affecting my body. Like music is still music, and with the way I tunnel vision I'll end up at my desk for an obscene amount of hours. By the time I'm done with it physically and mentally I'm a wreck. Like the fuck do I mean by hobby, is this some kinda shitty joke Shinoda? Anyway let's talk about 'tat'. The question as to what the title means comes first. Initially I wanted to name this song "刺青(meaning tattoo)". Because the song ‘Perfume’ by ‘Eito’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MjAJSoaoSo) was a huge hit at that time so yeah.. But that idea failed ygarshy's inspection so I had no choice but to look around for a word similar to tattoo.

That was when I found photos of tattoos on Instagram with the hashtag #tat. This is it, I said. As a slang tat can mean many other things as well but I forget what they were. I'm sure you can find out if you look it up but, take note that none of it has much to do with the song itself. I considered '#tat' for the title as well, but it was too lame so I pulled back. This song was written when the album was almost finished and most songs ready: I reviewed the album as whole and felt that something was missing. I had wanted something with now tat’s tempo and mood to it to tie the album together. It turned out really well, if I may say so myself. Isn't it a great song though? I feel like all my efforts were worthwhile... It's fun to let the creative juices flow and write with whatever comes to mind. I tried to make the amount of guitar notes concise and solid. The tone was supposed to be graceful too but... ygarshy swooped in with a kick and his bass so heavy it sounds like he's blasting music from a little motorcycle. The melody too has the same makings as the hits these days. It’s about someone of the opposite sex with a bold tattoo who’s stuck in days of ennui, and me who’s gazing from afar wondering what these feelings inside me are. It’s about that sorta thing (?) - I think I managed to express it (????) The beat isn’t made to be far off from modern tuning either. I’m sure I could’ve harmonized it even better but, at the time I found good reason to make it more rock band-y, so I have no regrets. I only wish I made the song name something easier to find via search. It’s so hard to find the people talking about it... Starting with a verse and closing a song with that same verse is great, ain’t it. I’ve always liked songs with a bit of a whacky structure to them, Like November in HOWLS, it goes from verse 2 back to verse 1 then into the instrumental break. If you think it’s just any old number then prepare to be sorely mistaken - Or, that kind of fetishy stuff is important for music if you ask me. I received a fair lot of praise from people in the song-writing industry about tat, I’m happy. Though I’m not sure about the lyrics. Someone from our workplace told me that “Mushy gushy heart-wrenching lyrics would fit well”, so I sought out to do exactly that. The only problem is that my expression of mushy gushy made that person from work go “????” so making people’s heart clench is hard shit. This doesn’t leave here okay.. My dismay over the discontinuation of Chikyuu Monogatari is vented in here a bit as well. Though I don’t think Chikyuu Monogatari is boring. Not really. I saw a few people say that ‘tat’ is like the evolution of cakebox. And it makes sense to me now that y’all say it. cakebox was my solo project I did back in my mid-20’s. I made 3 mini pieces with 7 tracks and 1 EP with 4 tracks before stopping. I’m sure only like 10 people in the whole world ever listened to it. If you look it up you can still get it to listen too. Like an offering of random ass songs to my dead school life, I had a phase between my late teens and my early 20’s wherein I was obsessed with making songs using just my voice and guitar. The question of direction was beyond my consideration, I just sorta let the creative juices flow back then too and promptly set pen to paper. That was my creative process cycle. It was kinda like a diary. There’s barely any proper complete songs. The reason being that I completely lacked the skill necessary to make them proper. My guitar was alright but my singing wasn’t up to par, no one ever praised my voice at all. So I resolved that I just wasn’t cut out for it and strove to be a lead guitarist. Instead of my own songs I chose to go do band stuff, thus devoted myself to guitar. Yet still my desire to make something proper stuck with me, and so soon after that I started a band in which I did guitar and vocals. we mashed stuff together and made song proper. Alas. Between creative differences and my own lack of ability, we were barely able to make something that I was proud of. After shit happened I ended up at home immersed in making my own songs. “Surely I could put all my experiences in bands and my own growth to good use, to turn my backlog of WIPs into something proper as well?” I thought to myself, and thus was the beginning of cakebox. I think that was the first time I ever got involved in making my own music through my own power. But my way of intense creation was too innocent for listeners or something, or like I wasn’t conscious enough of my headfirst personality... So I didn’t even have the sense to match the tuning up with modernity, and ultimately my work wasn’t clicking with society’s needs. That reality was crushing me more and more with every piece I made. I didn’t have absolute confidence in myself or conviction to push through either. After 3 albums the feeling of “Why am I even doing this” grew, and I found more purpose in Hitorie instead. From then on I devoted myself to Hitorie. These past few years in Hitorie have been nothing but learning experiences for me. After years of the four of us together stressing over what makes good music, I think my own work has leveled up as well. One thing I learned that has especially stuck with me, even now, is leader’s unwavering stance on “Believing that I’m just no matter what”. For someone with my relative dispositions it’s a nigh impossible stance, and at often times I felt it was egoistic of him but... It’s what led him to create such powerful music, and it’s something we depended on greatly. The other day I gave Unhappy Refrain a full listen for the first time in a while. It’s perfect in every way, what the hell. Vocaloid as a genre was still establishing itself back then, and without a doubt this album served as a monument for the cause. The same way ‘my bloody valentine’’s ‘loveless’ was the cherry on top for the shoegazer genre. It’s made an immovable unsurpassable mark on music history. I really was in a band with a crazy person. To think that when I was in a band with him I more saw myself as the crazy amazing one. What the fuck was up my ass. I understand why felt the need for a band after making this album - why he brought us together - even more now. The obscene amount of notes in that album with a tone reeking of rock band stuff... It’s really flooded with his innocent yearning for rock music. I think the troubles he faced following Unhappy Refrain were the repercussions of him making such a huge monumental piece. But his stout core belief in himself - that he’s just - has stood equally as tall as that monument all the way. Now, after so many twists of fate.. I never thought I’d be writing AND singing my own songs for Hitorie like this. Except, one difference between the me of now VS. the me of old is that I don’t feel even a smidgen of unconfidence. I’m not worrying that I “don’t stand out” or “don’t suit societies needs” anymore. I feel like ‘tat’ might be the best song in the album (sorry ygarshy and Yumao). To the point that when people praise it I merely agree with them, “No lies detected” I say.

It’s all thanks to my time spent with Hitorie, the musical knowledge we sharpened, and the fact that my bandmates’ amazing performances have my back. If I don’t have something as big as this supporting me then I’ll just be a fucking chicken with no confidence in my music, after all. With that said, Music made by you yourself is an irreplaceable treasure, “If you made something good, then be proud”: this lesson of mindset was taught to me by Leader. It’s a really life-changing way to be so... If I mimic Leader at least this lil’ bit no one would make a bad face at me, right? What do y’all think? With that that said, the actual most pure thing that’s naturally come out of my head in years, with my actttual emotions stuffed in, is... The actttttual best song is “Utsutsu” if you ask me so. Look forward to the next entry of this blog series, y’hear me. Shinoda

#REAMP #SND REAMP Blog #Hitorie #REAMP Digest

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nomoreemails · 5 years

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why aren’t we all talking about how bad it feels to be alive

Sometimes, when I’m on drugs, I have a great time and can watch a whole season of Planet Earth and be totally ecstatic about sloths, or lie on the ground in the dark joyfully listening to a really bad album on repeat. But recently, more often than not, I’ll think one single solitary thought about climate change or mass shootings or U.S. imperialism or the opioid crisis or the state-sanctioned obesity in the Pacific Islands and spiral until I’m thinking about all of those things at once and having a complete fucking meltdown. I’ve also developed pretty bad insomnia since moving to New York. You can probably guess why.

I’ve finally come to accept that I mostly hate living here. There are a lot of reasons, chiefly among them that everyone here is obsessed with developing a brand and also that in most cases I would rather individually pull 30 hairs out of my head than try to get from point A to point B. But living here also forces you to face the reality of the United States, which is that economic and social mobility are a lie. Cities like this are sites of two class tiers, one for the “knowledge class,” college-educated people who work in fields like engineering, writing, business, policy, etc — for whom upwards mobility actually is attainable — and then the other sector that performs service work for them.

Obviously there’s some overlap (if I hear one more Brooklynite who works in publishing and went to an Ivy League lament their second restaurant job they need to pay the bills, I’ll scream), but if you’ve ever lived in a major U.S. city you’ve probably observed this too. Every day I watch my Twitter feed (mostly white, liberal, college-educated folks who also work in journalism) wring their hands over Amazon warehouse conditions and taxi driver suicides and wage theft at the hands of the gig economy, and then we all go home and open packages delivered Amazon workers, take Ubers because they’re cheaper, get food delivered by some guy who almost died five times trying to bike to your place and then gets his tips stolen by his employer. I don’t think it makes you a bad person to use these services. But, personally, every time I think about how boundlessly I have exploited labor invisible to me for the sake of minor conveniences, I want to stab myself in the face. Does everyone else feel like that?

All this to say — I feel suffocated, on a daily basis, by all the ways that I’m complicit no matter what I do. I’m overwhelmed by everything all the time. It’s hard to respond to texts or be present in my relationships when so much of what’s on my mind is so abjectly wretched, especially when the source has little to do with me and my choices (which my friends can advise me upon) and everything to do with the external world (which they can’t).

A few days ago I posted something to my Instagram story in the middle of the night, after hours of staring at my ceiling in the dark. Against a black background, it read: “Do u ever get super stoned and end up on the most depressing rabbit hole imaginable on wikipedia and cry and lie in bed awake thinking that all of human modernity was a mistake and that u wish we could all just die off immediately in a mass extinction? 🌟it’s great🌟”. This seemed to hit a nerve among my friends: within minutes, one responded with that laughing-but-also-crying emoji; another said “tbh yeah,” another said, with utmost sincerity, “every time, which is why I can’t get stoned anymore.”

So, everyone else does feel like this? Is any of this normal? How is anyone expected to be functional under the system of exploitation designed hundreds of years ago by a bunch of megalomaniacal men who created the self-destructing dystopia we live in? Every day I trudge to work, sit at my desk, read the news, wonder why I bothered to get out of bed. Am I actually, I don’t know, clinically depressed and anxious, or am I just experiencing run-of-the-mill side effects of living under the circumstances we do?

For many of my peers and me, it feels especially cursed to be in in our early twenties right now. On top of everything else….. our personal lives suck, by definition, and nothing we care about matters. Why try to improve your work situation (in which you’re likely getting underpaid in a position you’re overqualified for, or being treated like a weasel, or maybe both), pay off your student debt, learn anything about personal finances, figure out what you want to do with your life, have any long-term dreams at all when there’s a very real possibility you’ll die suddenly in a shooting or slowly, excruciatingly, with climate change?

I used to despair over other things, like: whether to choose an easy, comfortable lifestyle by becoming an engineer, or going another route. If working any job at all would inevitably compromise my principles, one way or another. Whether I felt authenticity and fulfillment in my relationships. The yearning for community and belonging. The moral backing of my day-to-day actions, or lack thereof. (And also, obviously: whether to buy those shoes, what to do with my eyebrows, if I was gaining weight, if I was losing weight.)

I still think about most of those things, but now it feels luxurious to agonize over interior minutiae, to ignore the larger existential scarcity of participating in a society and a world in decline.

I find it frankly insane that in the span of one hour I can think such thoughts as “if Tobin Heath and Christen Press aren’t secretly married I’ll kill myself” and “I wonder how much money is in my 401(k)” and also, as I survey the absurd amount of trash my household has generated in two days, “what’s the point of existing if all I do is put permanent garbage on this planet?” I mean, I’m not even going to see whatever’s in my 401(k) until the year 2060 — what am I expecting, to have a totally normal and chill retirement because the world in 2060 will be totally normal and chill? I’m not even really expecting to be alive in 2060. What’s the point of plotting out my trajectory, financial and otherwise, for even the next ten years, much less 40, when pretty soon we’re all probably going to be living in bunkers eating cockroach jelly as we watch artificial projections of polar bears and sequoias?

Being alive right now kind of feels like experiencing the churning annihilation of stability, of beauty, of moral purpose, of all the things I’ve believed since childhood I would live my life pursuing.

On an ethical basis, I want to resist cynicism, keep myself from acclimating to the barrage of atrocities brought upon by the Trump era, stay despairing, stay angry. On a practical basis, I also want to remain functional. It’s an impossible psychological position to straddle, like giving myself a black eye every night to remind myself to feel pain while doing a job that fully depends on my having an unbruised face. When, for example, another mass shooting happens, I almost feel myself having an out-of-body experience, knowing that it never stops being sickening and astonishing but also that it has become common, unremarkable, and that to be able to get out of bed and go to work and blandly say good when someone blandly asks how are you and see my friends and talk about anything other than how awful everything is, I have to be able to raise my own misery bar. But that, of course, only adds to the cycle. It’s almost worse to know you’re capable of adjusting.

Recently I logged back into Tumblr for the first time in years, just to see how things are over here. One post read, no context necessary, “looking for a group of 5 to 7 women who will sit on the floor and wail with me in grief.” Another: “why are we still here? just to suffer? every day i get emails.”

Why are we still here? Just to suffer, beg hot celebrities to dismember us, try our best to ignore the cognitive dissonance of our constant warring desires to live ethically and also to enjoy our lives, both impossible? Every day I get emails; every day I want to reply, just once, I am not going to uphold my responsibilities because we live in a ravaged world. I feel sick with anxiety pretty much all the time. Do you, too?

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sofiaracic · 5 years

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17th June 1pm

You asked me “what about you?” a lifetime ago, which means it was probably around a month ago. I didn’t really know what to say. I’ve been told I’m too much sometimes, that I should quit the honesty crap because it will eventually get the best of me. They’re not wrong, because I’m thinking about it on a Monday in the library with a guy on a Timberland hat sat in front of me, probably silently judging anyone who isn’t as engrossed in their studies as he is in his physics assignment. His judgment is obviously not enough to intimidate me into Actually Working.

But what about me indeed. I don’t know man, what did you want to know, my favourite movie, my favourite song? Because I can’t choose just one for either. I like both movies and music too much. I can tell you that I love Christopher Nolan, for his ability to trick the mind, and for his tendency to use Christian Bale in most of his movies since the first of the Nolanverse trilogy. I could tell you that Scott Cooper is one of the best out there at marrying filmography and outstanding almost-silent performances, that Martin McDonagh and Guy Ritchie crack me up Every Damn Time, and that Tim Burton will forever be a favourite because it doesn’t get much more creative than that. I would probably add that I’m only scratching the surface because, really, American Psycho, Talented Mr. Ripley and Public Enemies weren’t directed by any of them, and they are also some of my Top Fifteen: Movies I Have Seen A Zillion Times. But I like film a lot in general.

I have been told I have an obsessive streak, which shows when I find something I like. I have read Harry Potter, Agatha Christie and the Raven Cycle in loops for months, and I have seen Batman Begins three or four times in a week. It happens with music too, it’s now been three days of just listening to Dominic Fike’s one and only album, which is only six songs, but the way the music moves the lyrics is That Great. He’s more on the alternative side but if you asked my friends, they’d say I’m a Beatles, T-Rex, Bowie kind of person. It comes and goes with my mood, the weather, how many hours I’ve slept.

I like to think I’m more than just one thing, and that I can be all those things without breaking some sort of sacred pact I should have made with myself where I can Only Like One Type of X. I like life too much for that. I think people around you have an influence on it too. Like, I will dress differently depending on whether I’m in Madrid or in Edinburgh or in Germany, I will dress differently depending on who I’m hanging out with, I will dress differently for me, because I like clothes enough that I can’t limit myself to one specific thing.

When you say “tell me about yourself” what are you asking for, really. I don’t think people want to know that I had a rough time in school because other kids didn’t like that I read books in my spare time, or that it only got worse when that guy I didn’t like back when we were thirteen started spreading rumours about me. They’d hardly be interested in that.

I am aware that people do not randomly write a thousand words to someone they don’t know well or at all when they are bored. But you happen to be a better source of creativity than most right now, probably just out of pure curiosity. I have never understood that whole “curiosity killed the cat” thing better than today from the depths of this grave I’m digging for myself. The thing is right, I’ve had enough people bullshit me or my friends in my life that I realised I really hate lies and went on to become Too Honest For My Own Good instead. There’s a Tumblr-made, now published author that wrote something along the lines of: “I’m not going to apologise for feeling something too much or at all” – or something like that. It must have been close to four years since I first read that, and I still think about it on the daily. What I think I’m trying to explain is that I’m not going to shut up just because what I want to say isn’t what I should say. I don’t actually have feelings here, and I could care less if someone doesn’t want to go out with me, but it does seem that people have a need to appear as detached from the world as possible. Maybe my problem is that I voice things too loud, too often.

I used to seriously wonder whether there was something wrong with me, every time a blonde girl from Manchester half-acknowledged me and kept walking when I had already stopped to say hello, even though we’d shared a seminar room for 3 years and I’d helped her with her readings at least twice a month. At some point I reached the conclusion that you will encounter people who care about themselves more than they care about others, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise but alas. For how independent I generally am, I never want to be that person. I want to be the best friend I can be. It seems to me I am generally more too in friendship, probably because I have never had a boyfriend, which means I have had more free time than some. But even if I did date, I’m never becoming the sort of girl that neglects the people that care about her on behalf of some mediocre-looking English boy named Tom who kept cheating on her even after she found out about it when she was doing one of her routinely phone checks.

Dating culture is fucked man.

And still,

I can’t help but really liking the way your face is put together and wanting to ask you again and again if you would Get Me A Beer Please. And I wish I had said as much in November so your answer wouldn’t be “you have poor timing” and so it wouldn’t have left me wondering whether you might have said “yeah go on, I’ll get you as many beers as you’d like”.

#text #imveryboredinthelibrary #chris bale #nolanverse #thoughts #iguess #idk #there are bigger problems than people liking people

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takethepresent · 7 years

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(There’s a song by Chris Tyson on here at first, sorry lol)

Kendrick Lamar releases one of his best albums of all time. The messages, the layers, the content, the flow, the creativity. This is real hip-hop. I won’t be reviewing what I think Kendrick meant in his songs because they are pretty layered. If you want to look into that kind of thing, you can look on Rapgenius. Rapgenius is not 100% correct, but it will at least get you thinking.

Instead, I will leave a lot of this open for your own interpretation. I will be talking about what I believe should be taken from many of these songs.

Kendrick does attempt to penetrate the subconscious of his listeners. Each song targets a certain emotional pattern. The song that you like the most probably says something about you and your subconscious patterns.

Kendrick is becoming a master of his craft. The way he crafts the message, both subliminal and explicit, is perfect for influencing the masses. The production on this album was also great. There is a great variation of sounds while all of the songs could be universally enjoyed. It is a true work of art, something you can put on shuffle.

Here is my take on each song:

BLOOD.

This intro is very interesting. It plays with ideas of duality that are developed further in the album. I’ll let you decipher it for yourself.

DNA.

This song is probably one of the best songs to bump on the album.

Our DNA stores much more than we can possibly imagine. Scientists will say that more than 90% of your DNA is “junk DNA” because they can’t explain what it does. However, how can 90% of your DNA be useless? This song attempts to describe the kinds of energy patterns that may be stored in your DNA. Many things can be passed from generation to generation through DNA.

“ I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA I got hustle though, ambition, flow, inside my DNA “

YAH.

New Kung Fu Kenny! This song has a very chill vibe. I am unsure of the actual purpose of this song in comparison to the others, but it does provide some meaningful commentary. Below are two I’ve picked out. I do believe that “Yah” is a reference to Yahweh.

“ I'm not a politician, I'm not 'bout a religion “

Politics and religion will enslave your mind and breed separation and conflict

“ I know he walks the Earth But it's money to get, bitches to hit, yah Zeroes to flip, temptation is, yah First on my list, I can't resist, yah Everyone together now, know that we forever— “

People choose worldly things over spirituality.

ELEMENT.

This song has a catchy hook that will probably stick for some time. I don’t really have much to say about it.

“ Last LP I tried to lift the black artists But it's a difference between black artists and wack artists “

FEEL.

This song is a collection of many different feelings. Many of these feelings are things other people in society feel. Hopefully, this song allows them to bring up those feelings from their subconscious. Many people feel alone, like “nobody prayin’ for me”.

I encourage you to really listen to the lyrics in this song. Some things may stick out to you. Those things say something about you and your subconscious patterns.

“ I feel like the whole world want me to pray for 'em But who the fuck prayin' for me? “

LOYALTY. (feat. Rihanna)

This song explores the idea of loyalty and trust. Many people have these commitments to money, fame, drugs, sex, power etc as if they were real people.

“ Tell me who you loyal to Is it money? Is it fame? Is it weed? Is it drink? Is it comin' down with the loud pipes and the rain? Big chillin', only for the power in your name Tell me who you loyal to Is it love for the streets when the lights get dark? Is it unconditional when the 'Rari don't start? Tell me when your loyalty is comin' from the heart “

“ Tell me who you loyal to Do it start with your woman or your man? (Mmm) Do it end with your family and friends? (Mmm) Or you're loyal to yourself in advance? I said, tell me who you loyal to Is it anybody that you would lie for? Anybody you would slide for? Anybody you would die for? That's what God for “

PRIDE.

"Love's gonna get you killed But pride’s gonna be the death of you and you and me And you and you and you and me And you and you and you and me And you and you and you and me and—”

“ Hell-raising, wheel-chasing, new worldy possessions Flesh-making, spirit-breaking, which one would you lessen? “

Again, Kendrick talks about problems felt collectively by our society. Pride is a big problem in our society. It breeds this false sense of confidence or superiority due to surface level things. It breeds conflict.

He talks about the impact of these worldly things on your soul.

HUMBLE.

" I'm so fuckin' sick and tired of the Photoshop

Show me somethin' natural like afro on Richard Pryor Show me somethin' natural like ass with some stretch marks “

I was a little surprised to see people offended by this. The only women who would be offended by this are the ones who are dependent on unnatural beauty standards. Who would be opposed to us embracing the natural look more? Who would be opposed to the beauty industry not being able to exploit insecure women as much?

LUST.

Lust is not exclusive to sex. Many have a lust for life; this unnatural, unnecessary, destructive desire for surface level things. It shows how the person who obsessively seeks sex is no different than the person who obsessively seeks drugs or friends or social validation or money etc. Many people in society need to have a deep look within themselves. They will find that they use these lustful desires to satisfy this deep, emotional, subconscious “itch”.

“ Lately, I feel like I been lustin' over the fame Lately, we lust on the same routine of shame Lately, lately, lately, my lust been hidin' (Lately) Lately, it’s all contradiction Lately, I’m not here Lately, I lust over self Lust turn into fear Lately, in James 4:4 says Friend of the world is enemy of the Lord Brace yourself, lust is all yours “

Lust is used to runaway from fear. Fear of what?

LOVE. (feat. Zacari)

“ If I didn't ride blade on curb, would you still love me? If I minimized my net worth, would you still love me? Keep it a hundred, I'd rather you trust me than to love me Keep it a whole one hund': don't got you, I got nothin' “

You could think this is about a specific girl or about something else. However, I do think it’s important to mention these lines. These feelings are often deep within our subconscious. It is what we call conditional love. We think people only love us for ___ or ___ because we only love ourselves for that reason. If we can find a way to love ourselves unconditionally, we can alleviate the many problems that arise from conditional love. In reference to the last line, if you don’t have unconditional love for yourself, you don’t got nothin’. You will always be trying to fill that void caused by conditional love with surface level things.

XXX. (feat. U2)

“ Ain't no Black Power when your baby killed by a coward “

Kendrick talks about the hypocrisy present in America. We respond to violence with more violence, hatred with hatred. People want to talk about black empowerment but won’t fully acknowledge the destructive forces within their communities.

“ The great American flag Is wrapped and dragged with explosives “

This just reminds me of America meddling in other countries with our imperialist military operations. It is time for America to confront the fact that they have been the biggest source of military conflict in recent history. This could also refer to police brutality.

FEAR.

This is one of my favorite songs on the album. I love the chill beat on the background. This song especially captures the feeling of fear, and attempts to show how it manifests over time. Emotional conflicts from our childhood that are never dealt with create external conflicts later on down the line.

“ Why God, why God do I gotta suffer? Pain in my heart carry burdens full of struggle Why God, why God do I gotta bleed? Every stone thrown at you restin' at my feet Why God, why God do I gotta suffer? Earth is no more, won't you burn this muh'fucka? I don’t think I could find a way to make it on this earth “

Kendrick attempts to convey the feeling of fear in a different light. The first verse starts off with “I beat yo ass” repeatedly. It really shows the subconscious thought patterns that become implanted in children at a young age. These subconscious patterns create internal problems that manifest over time into distorted, complicated, external problems. It should be no surprise that those who are physically beaten as children develop violent/aggressive tendencies later in their life.

“ If I could smoke fear away, I'd roll that mothafucka up And then I'd take two puffs I'm high now, I'm high now I'm high now, I'm high now “

This shows how people will do anything to runaway from their fears, or their subconscious patterns. Many take to drugs as well as other surface level things like sex, friends, social media etc.

Verse 2 starts off “I’ll prolly die” repeatedly. It shows more subconscious patterns of fear.

Verse 3 gives us a summarizing explanation of how the fear accumulates over time.

The outro is especially important. It highlights the major implications of mainstream religion. It shows how we are taught to believe that God is judgmental. This plays into all of the subconscious patterns of fear mentioned above. It says that God judges us and punishes us because he loves us, which opens the door for many people to become abused by loved ones and remain complacent to it. It also allows for people who are abused to become the abuser themselves later in life, creating a destructive cycle of judgment and punishment.

GOD.

There are two ways Kendrick could have meant this song to be perceived. I believe the most beneficial perception is that he is describing the feeling that many people feel when they “win” in surface level things. People use many things for a subconscious desire for power. When they attain those things, they actually feel “Godly”. Our obsession for power holds us back from ever realizing what true empowerment feels like. Only those who can let go of worldly desires will find this empowerment.

DUCKWORTH.

This song tells a story that you’d be better off listening to yourself. However, there are two notable lines that I want to explain.

“ It was always me vs the world Until I found it's me vs me “

Many people want to victimize themselves and believe their life problems are because of their external circumstances and not because of them. Your life will start to improve when you learn to hold yourself accountable for the life you are manifesting.

“ You take two strangers, and put 'em in random predicaments; give 'em a soul So they can make their own choices and live with it “

A little insight for why we are here.

#music #Kendrick Lamar - Damn #Kendrick #Lamar #-#Damn

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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I am going to die in this dentist’s chair.

My eyes are closed, but I can still see skulls outlined with white against a black background. I have an epiphany: God is death. I’m in the midst of a real-life version of the hallucinogenic ride in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, all in my own mind.

A monitor emits a steady beep, and for a second, I think I’m flatlining. But no: I’ve just completed my first infusion of ketamine, a veterinary anesthetic (often used on cats and horses) sometimes used illegally as a club drug called Special K.

I am here because I cannot stop thinking about suicide. I’ve been in therapy on and off for more than 30 years, since I was 5, and on depression medication for more than a decade. Nothing seemed to work. I couldn’t stop imagining killing myself in increasingly vivid daydreams.

As a journalist who covers health and medicine, I had read about the success of experimental trials that used ketamine to treat depression. My therapists had recommended extreme treatments like electroshock therapy, a procedure that frightened me due to reports of memory loss from those who had undergone it, but had never mentioned this. But I was getting desperate for a serious intervention.

After some research, I concluded that ketamine was not only more affordable but just as effective as sending electrical pulses through my brain. (About 70 to 85 percent of patients with severe depression who try ketamine treatment say it’s effective, compared with 58 to 70 percent of ECT patients.) I told my doctor I wanted to try it.

It wasn’t my goal to be on the vanguard, just to get better, but I am an early adopter of a treatment that could one day help millions of people with chronic depression. After a full treatment cycle, my suicidal thoughts went away. And depression isn’t the only psychiatric illness the drug may combat. Studies are being conducted on ketamine’s efficacy on anxiety, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and even obsessive-compulsive disorder.

That’s how I wound up glued to that dentist-style chair at a clinic in Houston envisioning skulls, as an IV drip steadily infused me with a drug I’d thought was reserved for rave-goers.

Most people familiar with ketamine know it as either a veterinary medicine or an illegal street drug. But it’s been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for anesthetic use for humans since 1970. Its rise as a treatment for depression, a legal but off-label usage not yet approved by the FDA, is even more recent.

Ketamine’s antidepressant effects were revealed in a Yale study in 2000. Over the next decade, researchers continued to explore its potential as a treatment for major depressive disorder. Asim Shah, a professor and executive vice chair at Baylor College of Medicine who co-led several of these studies, told me that doctors have long been curious about the euphoric effects of ketamine. A lot of people given ketamine as an anesthetic “would start smiling or laughing,” he says. “That’s the reason that many people before have said, ‘Oh, maybe it can be used for depression.’”

As of now, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and multiple-receptor antidepressants such as trazodone are among the most commonly prescribed drugs to treat depression. Yet studies show that only around 37 percent of people who use these drugs experience full remission. The number drops past the first year of use.

Ketamine is an NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor antagonist, which means that it targets glutamate absorption in the nerve cells, unlike traditional antidepressants, which raise serotonin levels by blocking the reabsorption of the neurotransmitter. Glutamate is associated with excitability — among many other brain functions such as memory. Researchers like Shah believe that as the brain metabolizes the ketamine, new neural pathways are created that help restore function obliterated by depression. It’s this effect, not the experience of hallucinations or dissociation, that can help treat depression.

Despite its association with the platform sneakers and vinyl pants of the 1990s club scene, ketamine abuse began in the ’80s. People who take ketamine recreationally do so for its fast-acting high, which is typically a floating or out-of-body experience coupled with euphoria. But it’s not the kind of party drug that will bump up your social skills. After all, it is an anesthetic: Users retreat into their minds and experience hallucinations, sometimes reporting religious experiences or even a feeling some compare to rebirth. Drawbacks of recreational use of the drug include risk of overdose, dependence, and high blood pressure.

But for someone experiencing intense depression, that “rebirthing” can be therapeutic.

What people who have never battled depression don’t understand is that it has little to do with “feeling sad.” Sadness is a flesh wound, a knife cut that might sting but eventually heals. Chronic depression is blunt force trauma to the head, locking you into a pattern of negative thought and throwing away the key.

On my quest to find a fix for my depression, I was shuffled from practitioner to practitioner like a poorly behaved foster kid. By the beginning of 2018, my psychiatrist said I had tried (and failed) nearly every class of drug aimed at treating depression. I was fresh out of options and desperate enough to try something more experimental.

When I decided I wanted to try ketamine, I went to the Menninger Clinic in Houston, a respected psychiatric clinic I had written about, to figure out next steps. I was an obvious candidate, as I had been on antidepressants for more than a decade and had shown little improvement; I just needed to be approved for the treatment after a consultation.

I met with Justin Coffey, the medical director of Menninger’s Center for Brain Stimulation Services, to discuss my history and we reached an agreement: I’d try two infusions of the drug, and if it had a positive effect, I’d do four more. At Menninger, this cost $600 for each session, and it’s not covered by insurance. If not, electroshock therapy would be my next step.

I arrived and got a basic work-up in the pre-treatment room. In addition to weighing me and taking my blood pressure, a nurse tested my reading ability, memory, and basic awareness (the date, where I was). Dr. Coffey came in to discuss what to expect over the course of my six treatments. That number is typical for this treatment, but because it’s still experimental, so is the number of doses necessary to work. Coffey was open to the idea of me needing more if six didn’t provide lasting results.

His frightening warning: Since ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic, I might feel like I’m leaving my body and experience a “bad trip,” as opposed to a more euphoric hallucinatory state. But if I were to go into this state, I could tell my nurse, who would stop the infusion or add a counteractive drug, the anesthetic midazolam, to lessen that effect.

The nurse inserted an IV and flushed it with saline to make sure it was flowing correctly; then we moved into the treatment room with its dentist-style chair for my infusion to begin. I would receive half a milligram of the drug for every kilogram of my weight, a very low dose compared to what recreational users inhale or inject. About 10 minutes into the treatment, the tree I was watching through the window separated into two. Soon, it was difficult to keep my eyelids open at all.

And then I was gone, down the rabbit hole of hallucination. My mind skipped through grid-style maps of city parks. I occasionally took a deep breath or wiggled my fingers just to remind myself I still could. I later learned that what I was experiencing is known as a “K-hole,” which is rare at the low dose I took.

Each infusion lasted 45 minutes. After my first one, I had a nurse play the cast album of my favorite musical as the drip began. Instead of running wild, my mind became immersed in the music, albeit in a deeply dreamlike state. Each time, it took about 15 to 20 minutes after the effects of the treatment wore off for me to be able to open my eyes and start walking. Afterward, I was exhausted. The half-hour Uber ride home felt like hours as I longed for the warm embrace of a nap.

Immediately after each treatment, I felt down. But by the time I woke up the next day, I was in less psychic pain and had more purpose. I would start the day on my long-neglected spin bike, feeling motivation that I’d lacked for months. Lunches with friends no longer felt like they existed just to show them I was still alive and making an effort to get out of the house. I was beginning to connect with the world outside my head again. I noticed myself smiling more. According to Shah, feeling the effects of ketamine within 24 hours of treatment is typical. “It is the most rapid-acting treatment for depression,” he said.

After the final infusion, I had the initiative to start writing again. The following week quickly filled up with activities, both work and fun. I was living for the first time in months. It’s been three months since my last treatment, and I’ve even started to feel excited about my future. Shah says I am unlikely to need another dose — I was in the roughly 70 percent who achieve remission after one series of ketamine infusions.

In technical terms, as I’ve said, taking ketamine had caused my brain to release glutamate, the neurotransmitter responsible for “excitatory” responses. But despite all his years of research into the drug’s chemistry, Shah admits, “No one knows the exact mechanism of any medicine.”

If I do need additional doses of ketamine, it probably won’t be an infusion. Thanks in part to Shah’s work, an intranasal version of the drug is expected to receive FDA approval as soon as next year. The side effects of the nasal inhaler, known as esketamine, are practically nonexistent next to the K-hole I experienced; patients would even be able to take the treatment at home. I’m a testament that it can work. And soon, ketamine will be accessible to people (who can afford it, since it likely will be expensive and not necessarily covered by insurance) who have all but given up on fixing their depression.

I had come to believe that my depression was a terminal illness. But the so-called party drug may have saved my life.

Alice Levitt is a writer and editor specializing in food and medicine. She is lucky to live in Houston, Texas, home of the world’s largest medical center.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at [email protected].

Original Source -> “I tried ketamine to treat my depression. Within a day, I felt relief.”

via The Conservative Brief

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