Memory Lane

He beeped the horn and waved through the window as he pulled out of the parking lot. He was driving on that same road he did so many times. It was quite warm for a winter day. A slight breeze was crawling through his hair as he looked at the tall trees and dark green fields that were rushing past him. He wasn't feeling what he expected to feel. He felt an unusual need to reminisce. He was driving on memories and the surroundings turned to blurry images as the only thing he could see right now was the past. The last six months have brought on an avalanche of experiences that can only be measured in the sudden gain in self-respect that he felt. Did he feel bad now that he was going back into the once despised lifestyle? Not at all. He felt a large emptiness that was compensated for by the beautiful memories he knew will follow him for the rest of his life, that were purely a glimmer of hope thrown into his lap by the ever-mocking fate. He cherished this moment. He realised that this was something that he needed. This emptiness had to be felt so he can realise that honesty is the path that always ends in a feeling of satisfaction that lies have tried so hard to achieve. He knew that he was a better person now, that he has no regrets and that if this road was in fact a portal into the past, he would work towards being where he was right now under the exact same circumstances. He knew the pain he was feeling now was but a stepping stone in the river of irony, joy and misery that we like to call la dolce vita. He was, after all, an optimist. He realised not so long ago that his life had turned into the most rewarding experience that he could ever wish for, and he knew that luck was not responsible for that; he himself was. He lived his life bound only by honesty and the aim to experience as much as he could in such a short time. Whenever he was dealt a blow he smiled and said 'after the pain is gone, im gonna feel a lot better and I know that I won't let it leave a mark'. He was in a state of melancholic happiness. He was enjoying his sadness for the first time in his life because of what the sadness was associated with; a period of absolute bliss. He was close to his destination, the surroundings were slowly morphing back into their normal appearance. With this he felt a sudden influx of a feeling that slowly overwhelmed him and was seeping out of his whole body. It was joy. 'I'm here' he said.
He pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine and with that switched the world back to its normal appeareance. He walked up the stairs to the white door. He unlocked it, walked into a new era and closed the old one behind him. But before he locked the door he whispered something under his breath. 'Thank you'.

Golden Oldies

As I finished listening to Pink Floyd's 'Wish you were here' album for the second time today, I decided that I was in the mood to listen to something outside of my usual selection of bands which include: the doors, curved air, jethro tull, the allman brothers, led zeppelin, fleetwood mac and many others. I wanted to listen to a band that is a bit more modern. A few bands that come to my mind are astra, wolfmother, the answer, priestbird and blood ceremony. Then I realised something that I haven't thought about before. All these modern bands have very obvious influences in most of the aforementioned bands. So once again I am going back to familiar and much loved grounds. Why is that? Is it because I am stuck in some loop and I only have limited resources for music? Not really, I am surrounded by music lovers and musicians with tastes coming from all musical genres that constantly expose me to new or previously unknown music. Is it because I live by the philosophy 'if it's old then it must be good but if it's new it must be shit'? Not at all, I am constantly seeking out new and young bands that I can follow or watch live in concert. So with all this in mind and the fact that I'm a wannabe musician, one can agree that I have a relatively objective taste for most genres of music (except for rap and hip hop, that's really not my thing). Hence why do I always end up rummaging through the archives of music from the 60's, 70's and 80's and always finding something enjoyable whereas whenever I go on a hunt for new music I (more often than not) come back with empty hands?
The question is: 'Is modern music worse than music from the 60's, 70's and 80's?'
This is something that has been a fiery debate in my social circles for quite some time now. I think that for all the people that are fans of the golden years, there are just as many fans that think music has evolved into something better. I cannot speak for everyone, but in my opinion there is something missing from modern music. That missing ingredient is responsible for me continuously relapsing in the sea of familiar tunes. Older music stirs up emotions, stops time and lets the imagination run free. Modern music just makes me tap my feet and nod my head to the rhythm. Why does modern music contain such a void and how can it be filled? I think the answer to that is the same as the answer to 'Why is it that the white man can never master the blues?'. The white man can never experience what the African man went through during times of slavery and post-Civil War America. Therefore, the emotion that the white man sings about in the blues are (generally) made up. The relevance of this to the topic at hand is because I see modern music as the blues' white man. The man that enjoys blues but doesn't really understand them and is unaware of the emotions from which the whole genre spawned. He is there because that's where he wants to be; he wants to make blues. The black man was thrown there. He didn't want to be miserable or melancholic, blues music was his way out. I think that is what modern music lacks. It lacks the emotions, the hardships and the bitter fight to survive that musicians back in the day experienced. Go search wikipedia for 'Pink Floyd' and you will come across quite a novel. I think since times have changed so did people's perspective on music. Back in the day music was the messenger, the amber for that rebellious fire burning inside the people's hearts, the judge and the saviour. Today music stands for fame, business and of course money. I know that there is exceptions to everything that I am saying, but I think that in rock'n'roll, this is generally the case.

So are we doomed to forever listen to music from bands that are either dead or too old to make a concert that we would give anything to attend? I don't think so. I think that musicians are slowly realising that they can not aspire to do what the greats did because they will never be nearly as good, that's why they are called the greats. They need to draw lessons from them and use those as a foundation to build something new, something that they can pioneer. I think we are in the transition phase; where bad music with even worse video clips is made. But I think there will be a musical revolution that will bring back eargasms.
But until then, I'll go back to listening to lyrics like:
Stand under my umbrella
ella
ella
e
e
e

How does one come up with such lyrics? That's what I want to know

Emotional Defence

Through a series of events and encounters that I went through in the last few months I realised that there is a certain trait present in some of us that I like to call 'Emotional Defence'. It is not a very creative name so I assume you can already guess what it means. In most people, a seed of caution has been planted at some point in their life when they were emotionally scarred one way or another. In most cases these wounds originated from some emotional disaster that some people call love. Why do I call love an emotional disaster? Because it seems that these days people can only fall in love if there is some risk, pain or uncertainty accompanying the relationship with their partner. If none of this is present, people tend to call it boring and too easy. Hence, this leads to a deduction that to keep someone you care about interested in you, you have to go out of your way to make their life difficult, not much, but just enough so they have something to worry about. So people that are not like this by nature, have to come up with some way to make the relationship risky so they can prevent the other person from losing interest. The usual action people take when a situation like this arises is to hide or dampen their feelings so that their partner does not realise the level of their emotions, which by some magic will re-establish the partner's interest. So basically you are pretending not to care about someone, while caring immensely, so you can get the other person that doesn't care about you normally to fall in love with you because they think that you don't care about them and this will all be like some Sunday night chick flick that they can later boast (or mourn) about to their even more emotionally immature friends. That ladies and gentlemen is emotional defence, it sounds really complicated but we all did it at some point; some still do.
I don't consider myself a relationship expert, far from it. I had some ridiculous relationships in my lifetime and their degeneration was induced solely by my inability to recognise that a) I was afraid that I will go back to my pathetic single life that involves meaningless flings, bad hangovers and even worse self-esteem issues; and b) that I was so afraid to get hurt that I would rather develop a personality suiting more to my partner than to myself and eventually forget who I really was.
But then I went through a metamorphosis, realising that things are going to happen the way they are meant to irrespectively of what I did. All those relationships would have ended anyway, because these people didn't accept who I am nor what I do. This is no 3 hour tissue wasting romantic movie. Relationships are about respect, about accepting the other persons flaws and doing what's best for both. I found the best measure of compatibility with someone is whether or not you can behave around them as you would if you were around your closest friends. If they don't like it, the best thing to do is to just walk away.
I felt these things need to be said, not because I am some bitter, relationship deprived male (on the contrary) but because I have seen too many good people around me suffer because they were afraid to let go, or they had the bad luck of encountering people that told them 'I'm sorry you are too nice for me' and then they ended up blaming their wonderful souls for the end instead of realising they were with someone whose mindset is still at the nappy-wearing age.
But the whole 'You're too nice for me' quote is a topic for a completely different story.