Yes! Step one of my new years resolution complete - I renewed my membership to the gym and had my induction earlier this evening. Now I just have to keep going...Anyway, introspection being something I seem annoyingly unable to help, I got thinking...
So I'm painting away at these sloppy little studies for art coursework when a note-worthy train of thought enters my mind...Here I am doing all my work on time, getting it done, doing everything required to get top marks. But I still wasn't good enough to be the best...I was rejected by Oxford see. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't care less, but it was a bit of a 'wow, life is demanding, think of all those people whose lives are just one long series of failures' moment. As in those people that truly deserve success but are just unlucky. To clarify, that's really not how I think of myself, haha. It's also a shame that it's not as simple as 'if you work hard, you'll find success and if you don't, you won't'- people that didn't really work for it will sometimes find success. These people are lucky or intelligent or alot of both. The variables are so endless, it's a sisyphean task trying to be successful. And by 'success' I do mean any individual's personal idea of success.
So when it comes down to it, it just makes you think, why bother with anything at all? But that's what everything comes down to, I suppose. All this post has done is explain in another set of words why for alot of us, it would be fine to just kill ourselves because we're overpopulating the planet :)
Or would it?
Is it ever right to deny the world your potential? Is suicide always selfish?
And there's the debate...
Is life worth it?
In my opinion there's two very strong arguments for either side of the debate.
Just pondering the slightly big questions here.
Listening to: Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People.
I think this album is so, so beautiful...I think reviews were largely positive but nothing to shout about. Certain artists imbue their music with the quality that this album has. This soft, tender quality that has the ability to sort of soak up pain. And it is an elusive quality - it's not the product of depressing/inspiring lyrics or cathartic guitar solos, I think it can genuinely only ever derive from real skill as a musician. The King had it, Bob Marley had it, and I think Mogwai does. I think it's partly the inspirational quality inherant in a masterpiece. It's about the simplicity of hearing something that is so good, it manages to move something seldom moved in you - awe. It leaves you reassured.
It also seems to require a slow, gentle tempo...it's a tempo you can keep up with when your mind is exhausted. Music is so fast these days it doesn't often give itself time to stop and contemplate itself - to give you a break from your equally fast life. It's all dance, dance, dance. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying, if you're not a constantly upbeat person you have to look harder than you would've 30 years ago for music you can identify with. I find I'm starting to seek out slower music. Getting old, clearly.
Mogwai remind me of more ambient Nine Inch Nails on this album. Nuff said. 'Moses I amn't' is full of echoes of 'A Warm Place' and 'The Downward Spiral'...I give this album 8 or 9 out of 10. It floats above the crap.
It is an outrage I don't own these guys' latest album yet...
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