How long?

My last post was titled, "A Drowning", which is a track made by How to Destroy Angels, a group made by Trent Reznor and his wife, whom he has three children with.

If you decide to listen to the song, I'd recommend you read the lyrics as it plays. If you're interested in neither, or are already familiar, feel free to skip.

It's the glare from the reflection
Making patterns in your eye
It's the looking back in anger
For every second slipping by

Undertow has come to take me
Guarded by the blazing sun
Look at everything around us, well
Look at everything we've done

Please, anyone?
I don't think I can
Save myself
I'm drowning here, please

There's a tiny little window
Swarms of locusts fill the sky
Maybe I'd just disappear
If I can't keep my head above the tide

Please, anyone?
I don't think I can
Save myself
I'm drowning here, please

I titled my last post after this song because it is a specter, following me from place to place. From work, to home, to the public. Music is a huge part of my life, it always has been. It uplifts me and empowers me to face the harrowing reality of where I find myself. Even the sad songs, the depressing songs, they remind me that people that I admire and respect felt the same thing as me.

It helps one gain perspective on what's really going on when your brain tells you to give up. When your consciousness says it's never been this bad for anyone else, you're basically superman for surviving this far. You might as well call it quits here, you're not gonna last much longer anyway. All these tricks it tells you because it is in pain, and you don't know know how to stop the pain. Drugs stop it temporarily, therapy is expensive, and it's always easier to stay home and mope around than it is to go out into the world and allow yourself to fail.

When you sign up for a gym membership and you don't go for the first 30 days even though you paid for it. When you buy something, to force yourself to do something you should do, but you end up putting it off anyway and the money's wasted anyway. It tricks you into thinking there is no path forward. When you tell your friends you want to lose weight but five years have past and you've gained a couple pounds. They ridicule you for it, as they should, and if you're already in a negative mindset, you'll use it to reinforce your lack of self-worth, instead of inspiring yourself to make a change.

You keep making impulsive decisions, going to McDonalds instead of cooking or making a sandwich, buying frozen fried food because it's easy to make and cheap as fuck, plus you don't have to leave your home. And buying hundreds of dollars of weed that never last forever, or getting a bottle of rum and downing it in two, three days of getting fucked up every night. All of this bullshit that empties your bank account and slowly kills you.

It's almost like you don't have the willpower to just pull the trigger so you pick the slow route. At that rate, pick up smoking cigars and you'll be in the ground by 30. You're 23 right now, you think your life is 75% over? Or do you want to live? It's a hard question when you wake up everyday and consider going to work or killing yourself as the only two options in life. And fuck living, your teeth will be rotting out of your mouth by then. You want to be a toothless idiot while going through your mid-life crisis? Or drop thousands on fake teeth. Either way, life is just gonna get harder.

You see, I've opted for the slow drowning. A drowning my friends and family can witness, instead of getting the news the next day. And all I can do is focus on the past time I've wasted, instead of looking forward with what little I have. All I can do is focus on how sad my existence has been compared to my friends. Every single time I think about it, I pity myself, over and over again and it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't motivate me to do better. That mentality tells me that I deserve a better life just for existing. Which, may be true in this timeframe of human development, considering the first world country I live in.

But that doesn't change the fact that it is what it is.

Souvenir of sadness
Method to the madness
Hands up if you feel this
Anyone who has this...

Stand up! Nobody's dying to save you
Speak up! Nobody's waiting to see you
Wake up! Nobody's working to pay you

Go then! Walk through this world with your heart scarred
You're the souvenir of sadness

What's the solution? What do you do with what you have today, instead of focusing on how easy it could have been if you applied yourself 100% a year ago. Any one of us could die tomorrow, regardless of the cause. What do we do with the time we have? What do we as humanity value above all else? Do we just keep pumping out kids and hoping the human race will self-correct? Or do we become the change that we need in the world?

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change