Pages

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

A Disquiet Follows My Soul

So here I am again, sitting in front of my computer in a dark room, listening to heart-wrenching music played loudly over my speakers. I could hardly put two thoughts together on my way back from class, all I could think of was getting home to this dark room. There was a kind of desperation there, seemingly without a cause, and I've found myself here again. Why do I keep running back here?

I think I'm happy, and I think I even know what that means. I'm proud to say that I think I'm giving life a fair shake and keeping my eyes open to what's out there. But what if that's all true, and I still don't like what I see?

It would be easy to believe that I could take some pills and feel better. I've even toyed with the idea of getting a prescription for anti-depressants, and yet I can't see myself talking to a psychiatrist. I would want the pills to feel better but I wouldn't feel the need to acknowledge a problem. Honestly, I don't think I have a problem. Things that make me happy still make me as happy as they ever have, maybe even more so for the contrast. And yet the interim seems so much more gray.

I am troubled by the uncertainties, but more and more I realize how necessary they are. I think that's why I keep coming back here, why I keep sitting back in this chair, listening to sad music in a dark room. When I listen to this music, I feel like I'm tapped into another world. It's always there, I think, but people are too busy going in one direction or another to notice it until something forces them to stop. This world is a world of stillness and ambivalence. Here there is only the feeling. I feel like there's a clarity in this feeling, but the vision given to me is one of certain uncertainty. So many people are certain of things, and move confidently down the path they've chosen for themselves, but when I listen to this music, I don't feel the need to move anywhere. It's like a vantage point from which I can look out at my life. And I don't think it's from a point of sadness - that's not really what I feel. It's a feeling of...profundity.

How interesting that sad music is described as beautiful, but your favorite upbeat pop song probably wouldn't be.

There's a hunger for this feeling within me, a hunger that's been growing more and more lately. In fact these days I rarely listen to anything else if I don't have occasion to. Sure it's one thing to listen to upbeat music while walking to class or working out at the gym, but if I'm sitting at my computer, there's likely only one thing playing. I guess if you're going somewhere, doing something, you need music that will take you there. It's extroverted. But much like everything else I do, this music helps me face inward.

Is this because I don't want to see what's around me? I could believe that. I don't much want to see the people here, and I've grown tired of the same games they play every weekend, looking for entertainment. Wasting precious time.

Maybe I just miss my friends, and my home. I'd like to go home.