Facing Reality
Right now, I feel quite comfortable. I’m sitting in my warm, cozy bedroom writing a post on my laptop while drinking a mountain dew and being a bit philosophical. For the moment, the world feels right. I feel right. But deep down inside, I know something is terribly wrong. It only takes a second to turn on the news and see a bomb that’s desecrated the lives of so many others in another country. And somehow, this tragedy feels distant. It feels as if it were just a movie. Sometimes I’d rather pretend it was just a movie. I’d rather believe that the world isn’t spinning out of control and that evil and greed hasn’t taken the heart of man and manifested itself as hell on Earth. But I know this isn’t true. The world is most definitely spinning out of control. And I feel helpless.
For me, this is where music comes in the picture. A long time ago I realized that music gave me a sense of purpose beyond all of the senseless pain in the world. A song could take me places I didn’t know existed. It didn’t solve the problem of pain, but hinted at something more. For me, writing songs has become a mad search for that something more. Songs are a great avenue to ask questions and dig deeper into life. Although sometimes it’s hard to fit a great philosophical dialogue into a three minute song, the ideas and questions still find their home. That’s why I write these posts. In part, I hope that these thoughts find their home in your life and help you to think about life.
It’s so important to think about life, yet we try to ignore it. The last thing we really want to do, is ponder our own existence. It’s much easier to get lost in the newest game or latest book. It’s easier to live out another life and get lost in a movie. Anything that takes our mind off ourselves. Facing reality can be difficult. Apathy has swept over my generation like a warm, cozy blanket on a winter night. We embrace apathy. Our only purpose is to hold out until Friday night so we can get our paycheck and find our place at the bottom of a bottle. We’d rather pretend the ship isn’t sinking. Youth feels like it last forever. But life is too short to delay reality.
I want to embrace reality. The good and the bad. I want to feel the pain of those hurting and the joy of those living. I don’t want to waste my time by chasing after fantasies or living in the comfort of apathy. Sooner or later, the reality of this life will hit us all. We will all have to come face to face with death and know whether or not we have made a difference. Whether we have invested in relationships or money. Whether we have changed others for better or for worse. One day, we will all have to face reality.
