Mentalechoes

It’s been another weekend of work… mostly. But even mostly is starting to be too much. I’m at the point where I can’t even remember when I last had a day off it’s been so long. People are starting to hate each, and the vibe is getting ugly. Something is going to blow soon at that place, and I fear I’m going to be somewhere near the epicenter when it does.

My love affair with music is deepening. About a week ago I found a new place to make downloads from legally, and so I’ve been pulling stuff off the progressive house list fairly constantly. Here one of my favourite mixes right now, if you want to have a listen to it. The tune that starts at 27:40 (min/secs) is truly beautiful!

I find it somewhat strange though that this music obsession is happening now at this stage of my life. I hate sounding like a cliche, but I would have figured that this thing for music would have happened when I was younger. Isn’t middle-aged-ness supposed to be kicking in about now?! I see it in others around me! God though, I’ve always had this morbid fear of becoming middle aged and ending up in the suburbs somewhere; tired, boring, pointless and out of the way. I can’t believe that is what so many people actual desire out of life; it’s really the mainstream dream! Get a job, get married, buy a house with a white picket fence and stick 2.4 cars in the garages to carry around your 2.4 kids. Take 4 weeks holiday a year and don’t try anything too risky. Buy Levi jeans, and watch mainstream news! Don’t think about stuff too much, otherwise you might form an opinion that goes against the crowd. Whatever you do, don’t do drugs… don’t ever do drugs! Drug users are killers and killers are drug users. That’s what the serious man for the government says in his police uniform about why armed robbery is going up every year. That’s inbetween the advertisements for more beer, more advil, more cold and flu syrup, more skin cream, more pimple cream, more McDonalds, more debt, brighter whites, brighter teeth, and more fat free 100% sugar shit for kids! Because fat free is good! Eat more fat free people, it’s so good for you you can suck it up like air! More is better! How could so many smiling models be wrong!?

Jezuz fuck, where is the life in any of that!? Why don’t people want more than that? Or maybe they do and I just don’t see it, because I’m just as predjudiced as the next person and I only see what I want to see, just like everybody else. After all, I live here too!

It’s the fear of waking up one day in the burbs though that keeps me going; that motivates me to undertake radical actions to ensure I don’t sink down to a level of mediocrity where the masses float and dreams drown in the watery substance of reality. I can feel that fear sitting like a prickle on the edge of mind, always present, always warning me that I must do more, or it will grow and cause pain until I do something shocking and unexpected.

Contentment - it’s a word I only know conceptually. I’ve never… experienced it. I know that it must be real because friends of mine have told me that they are content with their lives. That they are happy and want for no more. I’ve never known that. I’ve never known what it is to be content. No matter what I do, it’s never enough! Something keeps pushing inside of me, pushing and pushing and making me go further, driving me forward even when there isn’t a forward in front of me I can see. Then the wheels simply spin and burn until something happens, often self destructive! Perhaps it’s my fathers desire for me to be more than I was in his eyes that has taken root in my consciousness. I was never good enough for him, and so, perhaps I am not good enough for myself.

And yet, right now, when I feel my mind beginning to be overwhelmed by a torrent of thoughts so strong and angry; when I feel my own anger rising within me like a swirling raging tide, the soft sweet melodies of a beautiful tune I am listening to gathers around me like a cool blanket, bringing calm. It’s like someone blowing a mist of water gently and steadily onto a fire threatening to engulf everything around it; slowly it’s energy is brought under control, without hurry, and without harm. Peace of balance is restored.

Once more I find myself thinking of the old man who was walking his dog, and that calm look perserverance and acceptance he had in his eye. I wonder if he was ever someone such as me?

I wonder what he is doing right now?

Padwanna.