Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved)

I spent most of the day over in New Haven at Chris and Aleksandra's.

On my way home, I was listening to Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground.

Let's get one thing out of the way - I think Conor Oberst is an absolutely brilliant man.  Maybe I identify with Bright Eyes because I started listening to them on a very, very formative couple of days in my life traveling alone from Illinois to Connecticut over 19 hours in November of 2005.  I listened to Digital Ash In A Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake It's Morning repeatedly; for the entire trip, as I recall.

Hopefully you can appreciate that this music strikes a chord with me.

But tonight as I was returning to Oxford from New Haven, I was listening to the last track on the album, Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And To Be Loved), which is a long, epically beautiful, exultant, scream of defiance in the face of everything that sucks in the world.  Tonight it just hit me, and reminded me of all the reasons why I've always just wanted to sing at the top of my lungs and create music.  And I had this moment where I just felt to my core that that's what I ought to be doing.  And what I'm not quite doing.  And what I'm not quite pursuing.  Right then I found myself - 15 seconds left to the song - suddenly crying my eyes out as I drove into my parents' driveway.  I couldn't even tell why, exactly.  Maybe for loss of time, or regret, or beauty, or maybe just for the sudden clarity.  Or maybe hope that I still have a chance to do what I really want to be doing.  I was just... sorta overwhelmed.

Tonight I want to sing, and I'm writing this so that I'll remember it.  I want to scream bloody defiance and joy at a world which, often, seems intent on presuming the worst of itself.  I want to bring our faults to the light so we can see them for what they are.

That's what I want deep down.  I want to sing - literally and metaphorically.

Everyone has an opinion.

My brother and I watched Untitled last night.  It was an excellent film, but there was one quote that stuck out to me, made by the aging composer Morton Cabot (played by Ben Hammer).  It was - intentionally and quite brilliantly - the only line of dialogue from the entire movie worth taking to heart.  I had to search around for the exact words.

Mr. Cabot was attending a performance of one of his own pieces, and some jackass came up to him and started art-snobbing, telling him how much he disliked it.  After shooing the guy away negligently, Cabot states, "Everyone has an opinion.  An artist must find meaning... in the process."  That ellipsis folds away some other stuff, but that's the gist.  And it's as good a piece of advice as you're going to hear.  And something I think I'd do well to take to heart.

I'm very concerned with perception, and always have been.  I think I ought to be a little more concerned with my own meaning in things.  Everything exists in a context, and it's the interplay between that context and someone's work which we all tend to find exciting.  That said, context and opinion are fickle, and if you rely on them to lend meaning to things you've created, one, it seems less likely that you're producing something endowed with grand ideas, and two, you're also likely to be disappointed most of the time.  Because most people won't like what you do, or will simply be indifferent.

So find meaning in the process.  Of life, of creation, of travel, of music, whatever.  You'll be happier for the effort.