The world is a largely empty place.
Literally in that most of Earth's surface is water, but in a larger
sense there is the pervasive idea that even though there are portions
that have become so populated that they're in decay and on the verge
of collapse, ultimately there still remains loneliness and the
expansive land that surrounds each of us. Even in lines and crowds,
you've got your personal atmosphere to think of and it remains
unfilled.
I'm A Good Person- Don't Turn Me
Into the Old Me.
I've been thinking a lot about
loneliness. Everyone suffers it, and isn't it ironic that we all bond
over the moments where we find ourselves without others, whether we
make ourselves unavailable or the symptom is indicative of a larger
issue? I have flirted with the idea of depression since I was young
enough to understand it, but it remains a fling, an idea- a companion
that I get intimate with time and again but can't quite commit to.
Now please don't misunderstand- I am not advocating depression or
trying to romanticize it at all. It is a serious condition with
effects that can be reversed or treated and if you feel the genuine
fear or it then by all means you should consult help.
I struggle. My youth and young manhood
and manhood were rife with loneliness- you know the one about how
girls didn't like you and kids made fun of your voice and weight and
just about anything they could? CLASSIC. My sense of self-worth has
shot up rapidly since then, and especially in the last four months,
but if you're a fucked-up and possibly inherently sad individual like
me, you can't ever quite shake off the fact that you weren't always
this way... or the fear you'll fall back. By yourself.
Mall Day, Everyday
Although my life has been surged with
positive changes lately and the support of some truly wonderful
people, it remains a struggle, almost an addiction. Knowing that
things are going to change and having your patience tested day after
day when they don't-- it isn't easy and it isn't right and it isn't
fair. But I'm not the only person it isn't happening to. I counsel
and console dear friends and even absolute strangers all the time
about the inherent goodness of things and how we take your feedback
very seriously and here's what I might recommend, but that advice
doesn't bounce back as well. That's why I write blogs like this and
tweet out bullshit jokes and listen to mallsoft without a trace of
irony.
Which brings me to mallsoft- a fake
genre with a very real impact. It started as a joke and is apparently
considered “over” by now. The idea is that it's downtempo,
unintrusive structuring- music to muck about to, to walk around
aimlessly as neon faces on the wall smile at you. Mallsoft's merits
lie on its dismissible nature- it's meant to be background noise,
music to not notice to. I once worked in a mall, when I was younger-
I know the feeling of staring at the grey and the familiar sights,
day in and out, the layouts that never change and the sounds of
consumerism, young unbridled ennui and obligation. My time in the
mall was brief, all things considered, but I'll never forget how my
mind wandered as much as the other patrons, and I found myself with
the same thoughts- it has to be better than this. It can't always
stay this way. I won't work in this fucking mall forever.
And it was. It didn't. And I don't. My
time there served as synecdoche- it would reflect my restlessness
with complacence, yet my internal desire for independence and even an
emergent sense of personal pride. Mallsoft takes me there, and it's
fascinating to me that almost ten years to the year I regress into
something I would grow out of, yet I find a beautiful vantage to it.
Through mallsoft I see that the doldrums of being single or even
being on my own don't always have to be depressing- these are the
moments that let me creep into my mind and shut down the dick jokes
and puns long enough to ask the questions I ask of everyone else. And
answer them. To take a stroll down the aisles of my life and see what
needs to be cleared, what's new to this wing and what isn't going to
survive the season.
It's my time to take inventory, and
when I put it out like this, I hope that someone out there gets a
glimpse into themselves, or even if you think I'm a sad sack
fuckface, you're thinking outside of your own head and suddenly we're
not so alone anymore.
Everything must go, but the things that
matter we shouldn't discount.
