The Ghost of Two Years Passed.

Today, I was bored. And I was on Facebook. I was thinking of a friend of mine who I've known on and off for 5 years now. Right now, I haven't really spoken to her for a while. And I used to talk to her a lot last year. So I thought, what the heck, and clicked on the 'See Friendship' option on my profile. I was going through the old posts and I was hit by this wave of nostalgia. So many old experiences and inside jokes, now relegated to corners of my mind. I sat back for a while and let it swirl around me.

And then, I went through my old photos. I saw old comments, from years ago, from friends I no longer talk to, from experiences I regret, things I'm embarrassed about, things I regret I did in a certain way, good times, crazy nights, things I was scared of but now would scoff at, etc.

I made my FB profile only like 3 years ago. And most of this activity is from Jan 2011 to the present. Though, there's lots of earlier stuff. So basically, it's the ghosts of two years. From Jan 2011 to Jan 2013.

I was thinking - So much change, would I have recognized my present self? So many things I could've done differently. So many friends lost, so many friends gained. So many forks in the road. But it all made me who I am now.

The whole experience was like gazing at the ruins of a fort. You can feel the empires and armies of the centuries grow and die around you and at the same time, you superimpose this image of the present on top of that.

You were there, but you weren't. You are here, but you aren't. You're somewhere in the middle, but you're also everywhere.

It's such a profound and humbling feeling, the events of the past few months led up to this. I don't think it'll sink in for a while. I am awed and I have a new found respect for the enormity of human experience and human relationships which I don't think I'll forget. And it's not sudden either - It's more like a climax of months of thoughts and dreams and memories.

As I sit in this state of climax, the soundtrack that plays in my head is this lovely song I found today. It's by an Indian band called Them Clones.

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it just is. Things change, whether you want them to or not. There are loads of metaphors about the flow of time in Indian and Chinese philosophy, especially Buddhist teachings. You fight against the flow of time, and the water weathers you down. You. Just. Can't. Fight. It. Instead, you have to flow along with it. Adapt. Persevere.

And learn.

It does sound pretty obvious, but, it doesn't strike your consciousness and you try to ignore it or deny it for a while, to cling on to some semblance of stability, thinking that admitting change is something you're not ready for. It's something you read about and see in movies. But hindsight always sees through crystal clear lenses, as opposed to the present's rose tinted ones. 

Downbeat Bass Blues~

So I'd been feeling down for the past week or two. It was a weird sorta low. It wasn't an angry sorta low, but rather a frustrated, pensive low. I was seeking release and couldn't find any.

Then, I thought I'd listen to some music to help as usual. The usual stuff I listen to when I feel low didn't work this time because it was a different kind of low. I still craved release though. I thought about what I was feeling for a long long time. And it hit me what type of music I needed - Frustrated, spacey music.

I immediately put on some Yellow Magic Orchestra and Porcupine Tree.

The Porcupine Tree stuff in particular felt amazing. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was listening to their old albums, like Stupid Dream, Signify, Up the Downstair and some others. The music was perfect for what I was feeling that time, though I'm not surprised, I'm pretty sure Wilson wrote most of those albums while in periods such as these!

An example :

So, I listened and took all the music in and let all the feelings be acknowledged, and in that moment, they weakened and dissolved. Finally could move on.

Ironic, as just the past month I had been listening to Porcupine Tree and I didn't feel much of a connect, and I was wondering why. I had been listening them to ages, but for the past half a year or so PT had stopped making a deeper connect/impact on me. I was thinking maybe I had heard too much of their stuff, grown out of it (if it's even possible to grow out of this sorta music), moved on, etc, but it didn't seem that was it.

Steven Wilson. Just what my iPod's shuffle ordered!