Let's Talk about Feelings

I'm not a very open honest touchy feely dude. At least not in real life. I keep to myself. I talk when I feel comfortable talking. And I shut my mouth when I think it's a good idea to keep my mouth shut. And honestly, even though I'm pretty tight-lipped in a lot of situations I still feel like my "shut the fuck up" sensor isn't doing a good enough job sometimes because I still end up talking a lot and eventually putting my foot in my mouth.

But then I get on here or sit down to write a song and everything changes. I can let that part of myself that's a little more honest and a little less worried about how I'm going to be perceived show a little bit more. No... that's not quite right. That sounds like I'm saying that I'm dishonest to everybody I see on the street on a daily basis and the only time when I can actually be me is on some stupid blog on the internet. That's not the case at all and if it were I think it would be pathetic. The basic jist of it is that this is a different forum than the local bar, my office, a classroom, or any of the other litany of places that I exist.

The original title or premise of this blog was "Letters to God". Who's God? God's the person I can talk to about anything at any time. I can go to Him in times of need and in times of utter bliss. He gives a damn about every dumbshit piece of nonsense that comes into my overactive and sometimes pointless mind. The only catch? Yeah, you guessed it. He's not there. He's a figment of my fucking imagination. But I can accept that. Because writing down some of the dumbshit nonsense that pops into my head is kind of cathartic and helps me get my thoughts in order.

So one day after I start writing letters to this God dude it hits me that when you write a real letter and stick it in an envelope and send it off to God or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or Zeuss or whoever you feel like writing to that it just ends up somewhere. I think it's called the dead letter department. Anyway, there's a guy (or a girl - Women can work for the US postal service too) in the dead letter department and he's in charge of overseeing the whole deal. His job is simple because his mail doesn't need to go anywhere. So I'm guessing that he gets bored and curious some days and starts tearing open letters. I know I would. I'd be fascinated to see what innerworkings of the human condition could be found in the unadulterated conversation between a person and his/her chosen superpower (or jolly gift bringer). So this person exists and is opening my letters to God.

And you know what. I'm ok with that. The postman can read my letters. Maybe he'll get something out of it. You're the postman. So read my letters. And enjoy. Or don't. I don't give a shit. I'm just writing my dumbshit thoughts and feelings into a little textbox and shipping them off to God. In the meantime I don't mind if you peer over my shoulder.

The thing I haven't been able to come to terms with is what happens when people start writing back. What happens when my mom finds out about this and starts reading it? What happens when classmates and coworkers stumble onto my little letters? What do I do with that? This stuff wasn't meant for discussion. It was meant to straighten up my little brain.

So I guess this is sort of a half explanation and half excuse about why I'm not real psyched to have conversations about my blog on the street. I take my private stuff and I make it public. But it's always in a letters to God kind of way. I don't write songs to anyone in particular. I just write them. I don't write this blog to anyone in particular. I just write it.

So with that in mind I'm going to get to what's actually swimming around in my head.

I've spent a long time terrified that the closest I would ever be able to come to another human being might be the exact fucking length of a microphone cable.... that the closest I could come to connecting with someone else might be screaming the same songs at the same place at the same time. Kind of acknowledging that we're in the same boat without ever really talking about it. But I've learned in the last year and especially in the last few days that I have the ability to be extremely honest and almost sickeningly vulnerable with another human being. For something that I used to be so afraid of it was such a relief to actually do.

For a long time I was just alone. Completely detached from everything. Then I found hardcore and learned how to feel connected while still keeping myself isolated. That's what hardcore is about to me in a lot of ways. It's what this stupid blog is about. It's what my songs are about. It made sense to me recently what I was actually trying to say in this song. It's called Still No God. It will be the first track on the new record.

Still No God

"There's still no God
We are still all alone

No voice to guide
No words can save
No faith can heal

And there's still no God

No salvation for lost souls
Still No God
But we needed more than everything.

We're all alone together
We're all alone alone
We're all alone together
Waiting for some kind of fucking miracle

No salvation for false souls
Still No God
But we needed more than everything

There's still no God."

I guess I could explain everything about what it means in context of the record but I think I'll leave that for a later day. The basic point is this: We're lost and we're desperate. We're reaching out to something that we see as really far away because we're too blind to see everything that's right in front of us... "We needed more than everything".. So we're all alone together. We're all alone even when we're staring in the very face of the things that could connect us. Save us. Hardcore kids are notorious for this kind of thing. We know what it means to be alone in a crowd.

So why are we all alone even when we have all these people around? My reasoning for it is because I'm too scared to bridge the gap. Everyone has their own reasoning. We all want to be connected. Some of us just don't know how. Some of us are scared. Some of us are stubborn. Some of us have just been burned too deeply by the right people.

I know this has been my issue for a long time. I'm alone but I realize it's because I keep myself so guarded. I keep everyone at a safe distance. But I'm in the process of crossing the bridge right now. Not with everybody. But with somebody. And in all honesty, it's so much harder to give myself to somebody in a real intimate and honest way than it is to hang my dirty laundry out in a forum like this. This is cake to me. One on one is waaaay harder and waaay more terrifying. Maybe that's just me though.

You can't legitimately give yourself to everybody. You can't legitimately accept everyone else's shit. These hardcore songs that we shout in each other's faces make us feel connected and in a way they tie us together. But a lot of us are still alone in the crowd. A lot of us are hiding in our ipods or in our record collections and in our pile ons. It's a great set up for people who are desperate to be close to people but terrified to be legitimately close to people. It's myspace. It's meaningless sex. It's sing-a-longs to your favorite band. It's sloppy drunken conversations late on a Saturday night. It's that stupid sheet of plastic that your grandmother puts on her couch. It's all a buffer. It's all a placeholder or an acting out of real human intimacy while at the same time trying to protecting ourselves from getting hurt. It will never touch legitimate human intimacy. Ever.

This makes hardcore seem cheap and meaningless. It isn't. It's been one of the most important things in my life. But it has the ability to be a breeding ground for meaninglessness disguised as meaning if you're not careful.

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