Feeling Good...? ...BOO YA.

Well well well...

Now for something completely out of the ordinary.

Or not!

I have this terrible habit of listening to depressing songs when I get depressed. Which then pushes me over the edge of a swirling tempest of bitterness, resentment, anger and unbelievable sadness.

I realized this a while back... When I was going through some trying friendship/relationship problems and having weird random breakdowns every two and a half days.

THUS! I have come to the conclusion that the only answer is to listen to HAPPY music. And to say "I. AM. FEELING. GOOD. AND I'M NOT LETTING ANYONE BRING ME DOWN." when you're angry.

SO. The other day I said some stupid, STUPID things to a friend of mine... which I think both hurt them and made them very angry at me.

I realized how stupid and mean these things were and apoligized as best as I could... but I'm pretty sure they're still mad at me.

Annnd... I realized that no matter what I said or did... they were just going to be mad for a while.

Therefore, I'm listening to happy music and putting it behind me. I can't change how they feel. I can only try to be a good friend when they need me to.

Life is good. That is what I have to keep telling myself. And if I will it to be good, it shall be good.

So here's some music for you to listen to and FEEL GOOD.

Live, love and laugh! It's what we all need to be happy, and it's always there for us to grab. :)

Mary J Blige - Just Fine



Nina Simone - Feeling Good.

Songs of Regret

Songs I listen to when I'm feeling particularly regretful and/or unhappy plus a poem I wrote about two years ago about eternity. Aren't you excited?

Ben Folds Five - Mess.



Matchbox 20 - Bed of Lies.

(I couldn't find a video for this one...)

http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569488118814094

Eternity:

I have no words to speak,


I have nothing to say.

There are no thoughts left to think,

That are worth thinking, anyway.



There are only memories,

There is only music and poetic lines..

There is only the motion,

Of time slipping through my mind.



It was nothing to me,

Yet somehow I've lost something.



Time is turning eternally,

And sometimes it's the only thing I can feel.

Now I only wish I could go back,

Restart, and say what is real.



Because now I know,

Eternity began several years ago.



Music is flowing eternally,

And sometimes it's the only thing I want to hear.

Now I only wish I could change the track,

Turn the record over and remember the fear.



Because now I see,

I could have stopped all these things.



Memories are always around,

But sometimes I can't remember if they're real.

I only wish I could see them as they were,

And remember why I wanted my future to be clear.



Because now I know,

That it wasn't worth the show.



I have no words to speak,

I have nothing to say.

There are no thoughts left to think,

That are worth thinking, anyway...



There are only memories,

There is only music and poetic lines.

There is only the motion,

Of time slipping through my mind...



It was nothing to me,

Yet somehow I've lost something.



I'm missing something that I never had.

Why do things always seem so bad?

I'm missing something that I never had.

Maybe I can still go back... back.

Music of the Week

(DISCLAIMER: Some of these songs have questionable lyrics. If you're going to get offended, don't listen to it. I like the way these songs sound. You don't have to.)

So... I feel like I haven't updated about music in a while. Here we go.

Lately I've been getting really into heavy rock/metal and rap/hip-hop. Which is strange, since I usually don't listen to those genres very often. Maybe it's because I've been listening to the radio again.

Anyway, here are a few songs I've been listening to a lot this past week.

Elbow - The Bones of You.

I heard of this song from another blog recently. It's a little different than most of the music I listen to... I like it.



Saosin - On My Own.

A friend of mine got me to start listening to this group and then told me that I should learn the bass line for this song so I could play it with him. After listening to it about 50 times while learning the part, I think I've come to love it rather a lot. Thanks, D.



Monty Are I - Dublin Waltz.

I saw this group back in August (I think...), 2009 and LOVED the performance of this song. After a couple months I stopped listening to MAI... but now I'm remembering how awesome they were. Check it out.



Black Eyed Peas - Imma Bee.

My friends used to tell me I was a music dictionary... then I stopped listening to the radio about a year ago... I stopped being the music dictionary I was. SO. I started listening to the radio again and this song has become a favorite. Not really sure why. It's just nice and catchy I guess. Way better than "Boom Boom Pow" was.



Jay-Z ft. Rihanna and Kanye West - Run This Town.

Another radio favorite. In my opinion, Jay-Z had a bit of a fall in popularity a while back, but he's completely back in the game now. Love it. Pardon the unfortunate lyrics during Kanye's verse.



Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway.

I love this song. I would totally listen to it without any singing and/or rapping, too. BUT. It is better with both. Though I don't really like the techno vocals on a couple of Will. I. Am.'s verses. Love the chorus, though. Especially at 2:58 onwards. The build-up is great.

Beautiful, catchy, and it makes you move.



Drake ft. Kanye West, Lil' Wayne and Eminem - Forever.

Alright... if you take offense at questionable lyrics... don't listen to this one. It's edited but you can still get a lot out of it. I fought with myself about putting it up here, but the back track on this one is too good to pass up at a couple parts.

I personally like rap in general, though I didn't used to listen to it as much as I do now. BUT. What really got me liking this song... First, the variety of the rappers in this song. Drake, Kanye, Lil Wayne AND Eminem?? Awesome. Second, I LOVE the piano on Lil Wayne's verse.

If you would prefer, you can just listen to his verse... which is clean. It starts at 3:14 and goes til 4:07. The best piano part is at 4:00.

I also have to make the comment that Eminem is an incredible rapper. Not only does he come up with some of the best metaphors... he's insanely good at articulation. I can understand every word that comes out of his mouth. Which, at times, might not be the best thing. But I appreciate it a lot since many popular artists (not only rappers) have terrible articulation and you have no idea what they're saying.



Alright... That's seven songs. One a day for your week. Have fun.

October is Eternal.

I want this day, week and year to be over. But I want this month to last forever. I want the world to eternally be lost in October’s crisp winds and golden sunshine. Why? Maybe it’s because I want to be able to take long walks and feel good about something for once. I haven’t felt really at peace about anything, except the weather of this month, for the past few years of my life. I’m missing something I never had and wishing I could still go back to it. Back to the beginning of an eternity that started so long ago. We speak of eternity as if it’s always just about to happen, yet never quite here… But it is already here. Eternity began before we could comprehend what eternity meant.

But I digress.

Today, as I walked through a cemetery of forgotten souls, I realized that I am alone.

I didn’t realize it and then weep… I wept until I realized that I knew what the truth was. I wept for myself. I wept for the sorrow I felt for years. A sorrow I couldn’t understand. Then, suddenly, I knew… I knew that it would be like this for a long time. Maybe forever. Some people never get married. Some people never have a serious relationship. Some people never have a relationship, sexual, marital or even friendly, period.

So, I finally understood. This is how it will be. What’s the use in crying? What’s the use in drowning in my sorrow? No use. No point. No reason.

I stopped crying.

The wind picked up in that cemetery, and the trees made a melody that only some will ever hear. A song for the dead and the dying. We are all dying, but some live in denial of this simple fact. I almost pity them, because they will never be able to hear this music. They will never hear this enchanting lamentation that the wind, the trees, the grass and the graves whisper out to me, for eternity.

Being alone can be eternal. But so can October. October will not fade. Not from me. October is in the remains of my soul. Within that damp grave of my life, a life made for dying, the shattered mirror walls of my hollow heart now reflect only the broken light and screaming winds of October. And that’s fine with me.

How could I say such a thing? Isn’t the whole point of life to find truth? To find beauty? To find freedom? And most importantly, love?

No.

Life doesn’t have a reason. Or if it does, we don’t need to discover it. I don’t need to know why I am alone. I don’t really even want to know. The truth is a terrible thing. It drives you to the brink of love, life and sanity and throws you into the darkness of the pit. Isn’t that why it’s called falling in love? Someone, something pushed you off the edge, and all you can feel now is the adrenaline coursing through your veins and the wind rushing past your body, leaving you breathless.

I’ve come to the conclusion that people who suffer mental disorders are not crazy. They are simply hyper-aware of things that we weren’t ever supposed to know. Panic attacks… you become hyper aware of your surroundings and it drives you insane. You can’t fully take it in. You can’t truly comprehend the death that you know is coming, but you do know that it is coming... slowly and surely.

It reminds me of a Metallica song… You finally see that “the soothing light at the end of your tunnel was just a freight train coming your way.”

But I’m getting off of the point.

I may never find love, truth, freedom or beauty. But does that mean I can’t feel them, as ghosts in my dying world? Does that mean I can’t breathe their sweet, musky scent as they pass me by? No. I can. I will. I have.

                                          

I took a walk on a Sunday afternoon in October. I felt the wind whip my hair across my face. My eyes squinted nearly shut as I look toward the mid-afternoon sun. I was cold. But the cold thrilled me. My pupils were tiny specks of black ink in my eyes, yet I continued to look West, into the sun.

I am eternally enthralled by the sheen of October’s bright orb of an eye. Enthralled by October itself. On this walk, nothing can crush my absolute certainty that life, though dying, is beautiful. Love, though broken, is real. Freedom, though trapped, is found in every corner. And truth… truth is an everlasting gobstopper... a glass of wine that will never be drained, though it may always be half-empty. But does this mean that we should not try to drain it? Of course not. I know that now.

And I know that October… my majestic October... is eternal.

Burning Diamonds

These are some notes from a song idea I had a few months ago. It was the idea of Burning Diamonds.

"A cage of burning diamond, holding in the tortured soul.

Breaking it into a million pieces of stolen thoughts.

A life of twisted granite, crumbling at the touch of something whole.

Breaking into a million memories of shattered thoughts.

Can even this describe Hell? No.

Can anyone describe the memory of an emotion in your worst nightmare? Never.

So why do I keep trying?

Do I need to know what Death holds in store?

Why would one focus on eternal pain of death when they still have time left to grasp, however feebly, the memory of partial life?

I think burning diamonds would be the most incredible sight... and the most painful thing to try to grasp.

'Diamonds are much like people. Pressed and scorched into something beautiful. We are nothing until something powerful makes us something. Burning diamonds is the epitome of burning people. We are destroying ourselves. Something that was meant to be beautiful.' -R

In a way... we become diamonds by being forced to get closer to ourselves.

We're pushed inward and forced to look at our sins until we change.

Once we see properly, we've become clear like a diamond to ourselves.

And we modify.

Otherwise we're just lumps of black rock."

"Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl" Book Review

A beautiful blend of theology and classic humoristic wit, N.D. Wilson’s “Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl” is an amusing, yet highly accurate journal of thoughts about our world and the amazing God who designed and directed it. The God who not only wrote the screenplay, developed the perfect cast, and directed the feature presentation, but who also spoke it all into being with one word: "Action!"

In this book, N.D. Wilson uses sarcastic humor to show that the world we live in is not the way many have represented it (a world of chaos, chance and tragedy), but that it is, in fact, a novel of purpose driven, everything happens for a reason, delight. He takes ordinary events and pastimes of the average human’s life and turns them into theological tales of an incredible play, with lines and scenes for every living, dying and dead creature.

“Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl” is filled with memorable metaphors reminiscent of GK Chesterton, but with a modern twist and sarcasm that is all its own. Lines such as, “Death is that black stripe above my head on the measuring board. When I’ve reached it, well, then I can go on the gnarly rides” have made me smile and nod my head with approval. Such a simple statement, yet it is soaked with meaning. N.D. Wilson’s book reminds you that life and death are all characters in this great story. He reminds you that there is a plot, and you are very much a part of it. Life is an epic poem, and N.D. Wilson’s book is a record of a miniscule part of it. His part. But going with the ideas of “Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl,” even Wilson’s small part and small book of stories is a page in the novel that God has dictated into being.

N.D. Wilson has created a book that I would recommend to anyone interested in Christian theology and even in life itself.