Prozac and Whimsy

Is perfection truly attainable? I can find fault in pretty much anything if I want to. In myself I see little other than my numerous flaws. My smile is crooked. I try too hard to be a good person rather than just being a good person. I’m sarcastic. I’ll make a joke of things rather than admit how I feel about anything. I’m overweight. I’m soft. I can’t stop worrying about thing outside of my control. I obsess over things that no one cares about. I ignore those people who sit in the foyer of the supermarket regardless of what charity they are working for. I indulge and revel in my idiotic whimsies with little regard of who will follow suit or pay attention. I use brackets too much as a means to create a tangent or break the fourth wall.(this one time I proposed using brackets inside of brackets as I was on a tangent of a tangent [it would work like this as what are the square brackets even for?])

But there is good in me. I am a good person, I’m kind and generous and always there for my friends. I can make people laugh. I care about things. I always stand my round. I’m passionate about things and will share these passions with people. I’m creative even if I’m not very good at it all the time because art is about trying and doing things anyway (I think, art is subjective isn’t it?) But it never feels enough. Nothing I ever do feels enough. I always want and need to be more than I am and I don’t know if this is a good thing or not.

I’m currently off work as my world is falling apart. I am exhausted all the time and can’t stop thinking at a million miles an hour. I spend my days in this weird limbo of sleeping and trying to not waste the day sleeping. I feel bitterly alone all the time but time my dog walks for when I know no one will be around as I don’t want to make small talk and make out like everything is ok. I have people checking in on me and I know they are doing it because they care but I feel like a burden to them all.

But there is still the music. There will always be the music. Yesterday some random was trying to go viral on Bluesky with a skeet (remember we call them this because they asked us not to) Asking if there was an album you would listen to non stop for 48 hours for $1,000,000. I’m currently on spin number four of [Untitled] by mewithoutYou of the day and I’m doing it entirely of my own free will. I’d listen to anything for any length of time for $1,000,000. Last year I purposely tanked my Spotify algorithm by making a Gobsausage playlist of their two songs and leaving it on a loop for hours at a time as I thought it was a funny thing to do. (It kind of was and wasn’t)

I found mewithoutYou via /mu/ on 4chan. 4chan was never good, Milhouse isn’t a meme, pools closed, OP never delivers and all the rest of the tired cliches we all know but shouldn’t. For a while there /mu/ was everything I wanted and needed. It was full of other dorks who thought they knew better about music than everyone else and it gave me some bands that I have grown to love in return. mewithoutYou are one of them as they obsessed over 2006′ Brother Sister. Brother Sister is a fantastic record and it’s where you’ll find In A Sweater Poorly Knit the song I will listen to on repeat when I can’t sleep meaning I clock hundred of listens per year and come out on top of the Spotify wrapped thing as if that is a prize worth winning.

They are an odd band, were an odd band they have split now as all good bands do, they were Christian (actually Jewish and Sufi Muslim) but not Christian rock. Their lyrics were a poetic relationship with God and never once preachy. The music was epic waves of post hardcore that came crashing in over moments of tender silence that threatened to wash you away.

Their last album [Untitled] is my favourite, it is as close as perfect as you can get without being The Holy Bible. I will look you dead in the eye and tell you it is the best album released in the past ten years. The one and only flaw I can find in it is the opening track 9:27a.m, 7/29. In itself it is a classic mewithoutYou track it’s loud and it’s angry and it kicks things off with a purpose but, and there is always a but, it doesn’t really fit with what follows for me. The rest of the album has this sadness that haunts every track and seeps into your bones in a weird comforting way. It’s not an album that needs to be blasted at full volume. It’s one you can live in and live with at a peripheral level. It doesn’t demand your attention it gets it subtly, a whispered line will worm it’s way in and not leave you alone for days.

I guess the question I am trying to ask myself here is why do I allow a song, that I like, to taint an album that I love. It’s not an problem with the band or the album or even the song itself. This is an issue that 100% lies with me. And I’m not sure there is an answer to be had. Nothing ever seems to be enough, everything can always be a little better and a little brighter. I can always be better than I currently am.

I think the worst thing I have felt today as I am writing this is the opening sentence reads like those shitty voice overs Carrie does in Sex And The City and it is almost enough to make me delete the lot. I’m nothing if not self aware. So this isn’t perfect but it was never going to be and maybe, just maybe that is enough after all?