Life is badass if you think about it

PART ONE: Movin’ On

Even though Sabrina wanted us to wallow in the sadness and “cry because it’s over,” that’s not my modus operandi. Being an imperfect practitioner of mindful detachment, I accept the reality of cycles of life, death, and rebirth. These lessons are easily applicable in our everyday lives: school years, work quarters, relationships, war and peace.

It’s far too easy for us to succumb to the sadness in the death of things, experiences, or people we cared for. While we aim to remember that these losses are inevitable, it doesn’t fully relieve of us of the pain. Instead, the cycles remind us the sun will shine again and give us the perfect amount of hope to choose to rise once more. 

In 2021, I began a journey of self-healing and self-discovery. At the time, I thought it would be a short journey; maybe literally a season, a blip on my life’s radar. How wrong I was. In the last three years, I experienced a cross-country move, a relationship ending, a really bad rebound, and a layoff resulting in a six-month unemployment period. I also experienced some of the most profound periods of joy.

I wrote on the final page of a journal that listened to me whine and cry and celebrate for three long years:

In celebration of all of us that have lived and learned and are ready to move the fuck on, I present to you: In the End.

PART TWO: Circle of Life

Many religions, cultures and mental maps of time and space visualize time and life as a circle. This concept is present in philosophies like Hinduism (yugas) and Buddhism (samsara), where life is seen as an ongoing cycle of reincarnation until spiritual liberation is achieved. It can represent completeness and unity often during marriage vows. We even have a saying “coming full circle” where we lament about ending things where we began—hopefully with more wisdom.

Ending where we began often feels like defeat (“ugh, damn, I have to start over”) but in many of our beloved classic films and books, having the protagonist end their journey back at home is deeply satisfying. They return home after their arduous journey, having fought monsters and (inner) demons with a stronger sense of resolve, clarity of purpose, and maybe the hot girl on their arm to boot. Unless you’re listening to Coheed and Cambria, it’s rare to find to a song that has the full hero’s journey in a linear storytelling format. Many songs, at the surface, focus on the endings of the artists’ relationships, childhoods, or the  political conflict of the time. Regardless of the subject matter, each artist manages to express similar sentiments: life is precious because of how little time we have.

It would be remiss to not begin with “Circle of Life” from The Lion King (1994) performed by 

Carmen Twillie & Lebo M.  No shade to Elton John.

It’s the circle of life

And it moves us all

Through despair and hope

Through faith and love

‘Til we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the circle

The circle of life

“Everything the light touches is our kingdom, but a king’s time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. One day, the sun will set on my time here, and will rise with you as the new king.” Couldn’t have said it better myself, Mufasa. 🫡

Coheed might be rare in narrative songwriting, but Joni Mitchell does it beautifully in “The Circle Game” (1970), where she narrates a boy’s journey through his tenth, sixteenth, and twentieth birthdays. She emphasizes the theme of circles with the refrain “‘round and ‘round,” as well as activities like skate wheels, cartwheels, car wheels, and carousels.

The carousel is the most prominent visual tool she uses to emphasize and juxtapose the youth of the character with the bobbing and cyclicality of our lives as we mature.

And the seasons, they go ’round and ’round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return, we can only look

Behind from where we came

And go ’round and ’round and ’round

In the circle game

Well-meaning friends and therapists will remind you that “the sun always rises”. Even your worst day won’t last longer than 24 hours! The sun will set and you take your ass to bed and you get to try again tomorrow. The idea that the sun will rise even if you don’t is assuring to many people. On many a playlist for depressed teenagers, “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas (1977) reads as if we should give up; that our life is so fleeting and temporary in the grand scheme of things that even when we’re gone all that’ll be left is the sun and moonrise. 

Though songwriter Kenny Livgren is a devout Christian, “Dust in the Wind” perfectly captures the Buddhist concept of impermanence or change (anitya). “On the mundane level, the clear comprehension of impermanence, suffering, and not-self will bring us a saner outlook on life. It will free us from the unrealistic expectations, bestow a courageous acceptance of suffering and failure and protect us against the lure of deluded assumptions and beliefs” (Berscholz and Kohn, 1997).

Now, don’t hang on

Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky

It slips away

And all your money won’t another minute buy

On the other side of the “sun always rises” coin is “Do You Realize?” by The Flaming Lips (2002) where they posit the sun isn’t even rising, but yet they come to the same conclusion: live your life in the moment and treasure those you love while you still have them.

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know

You realize that life goes fast

It’s hard to make the good things last

You realize the sun doesn’t go down

It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning ‘round

What I learned listening to these two tracks back to back is that while they’re both often used on “woe is me” playlists, they each have something beautiful to share about the human condition and its fleetingness. “Dust” approaches the concept of life and death with a Buddhist detachment and “Realize” approaches the same subject with a starkness that creates an entry point into existentialism for the non-believers. “Realize” begins like the others and around 1:55 minutes into the song introduce a modulation that brings the song to life and provides more levity despite their stark take on astronomy.

By calling the sunset (an observable phenomenon) an illusion, it also calls into question our entire perception of reality.

Knowing there’s an endpoint shouldn’t stop us from doing the things we desire most in life Hozier reminds us on “All Things End” (2023)” because there is an end to everything whether it was a bad or great experience. Might as well just do it. There’s joy in the doing; there’s joy in the challenge and you learn something either way. As Miley iconically once sang, “It ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side, it’s the the climb.”

“All Things End” not only inspired this piece but is a wonderful example of how music enhances a narrative through composition and lyrics.

1:15 “When we begin again,” he sings with a feeling of finality that leads into a brief pause. In a double whammy, the music comes back in with the phrase “we begin again.”

1:28 “I have never known a silence,” he croons as the he and all the music completely stops.

2:07 “All that we intend is scrawled in sand or slips right through our hands.” Similar to Livegren, he’s speaking to the impermanence of life using sand as as his literary device rather than dust. In this case, sand is a more effective tool to describe the passing of time and the futility of trying to make something last forever. I’m easily able to imagine myself at the beach, building sandcastles and grabbing a bunch of sand and, no matter how hard I try, being completely unable to hold onto it all wholly.

Additionally, sand is the primary substance to tell the passage of time in an hourglass. I haven’t a need for hourglasses beyond some of my favorite board games. And, even then, it’s an apt literary device because we’ve all played that game where we swear that three-minute timer was just 30 seconds! Or maybe your auntie cheated. The sand in the hourglass is imperfect and even if there’s a general understanding that we all have the same one in our boxes, our perception of how quickly or slowly time is passing is all based on our lived experiences.

When people say that something is forever

Either way, it ends

And all things end

All that we intend is scrawled in sand

Or slips right through our hands

And just knowin’ that everything will end

Should not change our plans

PART THREE: IN CONCLUSION

I started this piece as a way to tie a neat little bow on this long reflective period of my life. I went searching for music that affirmed the joy of growing and the resilience to experience life even when the going gets tough. While I found many songs with this motif, I also realized that I’ve grown far beyond what I was giving myself credit for.

A handful of the songs we discussed and are on the playlist accompanying this piece, were songs that I’d play in my lowest moments. They were songs I played when I wanted to wallow in my sadness and cry it out and stay in that low place. But I didn’t know that that’s what I was doing then. I didn’t know that by listening to these songs from a place of pain and nihilism, that I was holding myself down. I can now listen to “Dust in the Wind” and not be depressed that I’m but a small speck in the universe. Instead, I can wonder in awe how little ole me got to be a part of this universe in the time and place that I am. “Why me? Why now?” aren’t questions that keep me in spinning loops, but questions that drive me to do more and give more. 

My coach once said that it’s not a problem-free life that we seek. We live life to learn from our mistakes, to solve the problems we have so that we can have bigger and better problems to solve. It keeps life fun and worth living.

Today, I’m celebrating the end of a long and beautiful chapter. 

I’m looking forward to all the bigger and better problems life has to throw at me.