{ [ # a world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are .

"I don't know."

One of my friend's favorite songs by Macklemore, "Same Love," tells a story a lot of people are tuning into. Thanks to Jelani for being such an awesome individual and helping me grow as an individual both in confidence and charisma within the duration, less than a year, I've known you. Fun fact: I would surmise that it's an artist's obligation to incorporate a reflection of society - distorted, vivid, impartial or completely deflective - into their trade.

It's society that shapes our environments, our environments that shape us, and, ultimately, it is us who shape society. There's always some sort of cyclical fashion that we get lost in. Fortunately, there are currents and guides along the way to send us to the top of the tornado, at the highest above all the turmoil where we can see the ends of the earth, where we can see everything beneath our feet in its smallest exactness.

There are currents and guides along the way to pull us up from spiraling into the darkness of whatever abyss you may be trying your best to surface from.

Words are colorful. As some sort of writer, I should be more familiar with this, though I just think of writing as writing: I've been doing it for a while, so it's grown nothing more than another facet of my life I'd love to continue as often as I can. Writing anything and everything is obviously not my only trade nor am I alone in the interest. There are more people on this earth than I will ever meet in my life, surely, and there are even more things that connect each and every one of us, somehow: our interests, our favorite musicians, colors, meals and cultures, our physical attributes - the works.

Somehow, some way, there's always an underlining message in every song I've heard. While it may be superficial to half the world, the other half may get all the messages on so much as a conveyer belt of lyrics, each meaning, each connotation of every word panning before their very eyes. Of course, I've always gravitated towards music that sounds good to me. "Good" is merely subjective, because there's been an objective "goodness" that everyone has always disputed. Henceforth, people made their own definitions.


Eventually, there will be no set denotation for "good," but the connotation will be more... uniform, I suppose.

My definition incorporates a tier of the human-ethics concept of being born, innately "good." People argue back and forth over it, and there are always philosophers to reference - like Immaneul Kant [ one of my personal favorites ] - who think they know the best and the most over everyone else in the world. I suppose a bit of superiority garners credibility with a track record of being right more often than not. Just generally stating that seems to be the case with the human ego; I don't really have any prime examples. Not that it would matter much to this entry's purpose.

I wanted to share this song, for some reason. I put it on when I got home because a friend, who I got the chance to cross paths with thanks to a Rachel Miller cover contest way back when, asked me a favor. It had to do with this song.

"...of songs that REALLY hit home, and that's one."

- Jesse Magill

I think it's unnatural. To be able to write something so beautiful, with such frankness that grips the listener and stirs up some sort of reaction. It is natural, however, for whatever reaction is produced to vary on a grand spectrum in relation to other people: I might like this song more than another individual, but my friend Jelani probably loves this song so much more than I do. It's the way we work, I suppose.

Macklemore's lyrics are enjoyable, relate-able in a sense. I mean, his other songs are obviously to enjoy to make his own music, because "Same Love" does not have the same message as "Thrift Shop" or "Like the Ceiling Can't Hold Us," if you're familiar with his hits coming out. But the capacity to write with such depth, or even graze the surface of a matter in so many places, shows his musical vastness. Of course, there are people who would much rather another artist to Macklemore, but this isn't meant to serve as a popularity, public service announcement.

Instead, it is to serve as a vessel, as I aim to do with all of my entries. Well, most of my entries, I believe.

There are some lines you'll always go back to and think about in a song. It may be the chorus, it might be the line with words you're uncomfortable with, it might not even be until the end of the song, if it's any different. Whatever the case, a song's written from someone's mind, and what's really cool about that, to me at least, is that these are all words we know and may use every day, but it just takes a bit of rearranging and a light of consciousness to direct it. And there are always songs that tackle social issues, songs that cocoon the festering and blossoming and brooding experiences of love, or songs that reach out to similarly searching souls, lost in the overwhelming experience of life.

The one line from this that gave me goosebumps when I heard it, when I actually heard it in the song instead of just listening to the song and the voices, is the same line that it is the title of this entry.

The third verse:

"We press play, don't press pause
Progress, march on
With the veil over our eyes
We turn our back on the cause
Till the day that my uncles can be united by law
When kids are walking 'round the hallway plagued by pain in their heart A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are
And a certificate on paper isn't gonna solve it all
But it's a damn good place to start
No law is gonna change us
We have to change us
Whatever God you believe in
We come from the same one
Strip away the fear
Underneath it's all the same love
About time that we raised up"

This is something we all know of, no matter how sheltered, ignorant you'd like to be, or well-versed with the existence of it is, but suicide claims too many lives. I have yet to meet an individual who has claimed their life null, void, and worthless yet enough to end it. That I am partially grateful for, however, I'd trade everything I have in the world to save someone; not for the sensation of selflessness, nor to brandish any boasting moments to the entire world.

I've always, thoroughly believed that a person's life is much more important than they could ever imagine.

I've had my moments of self-discovery, including turbulence and just as much relative stress as the next individual. It was never in my nature to pursue that ends to the means, especially when I have so many things to take care of, so many people to take care of, so many people to remind that they are loved. It was never in my mind to guide any individual out of the cycle and send them out into the nothingness that is uncontrolled, chaotic, and with all abandon.

It does well to break loose from the regiment, from control and have an epiphany of inner power that helps regulate one's life, though there are so many things that are bigger than us. There was a quote floating around:

"Suicide is the only thing
you can control in your life.
And that's why it's considered a sin.
Because you're beating God
at his own game".
         -S.H

It's not the only thing one can control in their life. There's never just one thing a human being, with such an intricate internal composition and a mind that houses a soul, with such varied capabilities and is riddled with a subjective, unique history that segments their lives in possibilities that are just as unfathomable as the depths of the ocean, can control in his or her life. Words are normally filtered through a conscience; actions are usually contemplated without impulses; happiness is usually enriched or diminished by the environments in which an individual hosts his or her self.

And Life was never meant to be a game for us or whatever higher power instilled us onto the land, into these concoctions of muscle, bone, flesh, and fluids. It's the best we can understand it as, because we'd so much rather "have a conversation about Pokemon than of something serious," as my friend Calin once berated me for. But what amazes me even more is that we have the capacity to dream up lands and worlds and existences that are beyond our wildest dreams. While we may be on the track for the future, there's always some kind of repercussions if we don't follow up and make everything the best we can make it for the time being: if everyone half-asses everything, without any determination or everyone else's best interests in mind, the structure will not support its upper tiers.

It will collapse, just because Gravity exists longer than we do.

The reality we rarely coincide with is daunting. The world is rough, the world is crude and callous. It's cold and unearthly, leaving us with scars littered around our open chests and with a gaping space where our conscience once resided. There are a select few, leaders and followers of their generations all the same, who are not in peak shape to exist, but merely exist. They share laughs, they share cries, they share words of wisdom, and they share an arm or two, whatever they can give for those who need it.

They share the love they think they, themselves, deserve.

This entry reminds me of my friend Nicole Pastore and her organization, You Are Loved. For regular readers, you're probably more than familiar with it all. For people who've rarely looked at these and stomached a resolve to sit through them all, song looping and all, feel free to inspect it. You can find it linked in the image of the book at the top  of this entry, or even on the Facebook page. A shameless plug, I suppose you can consider this.

The song does not touch just one thing. It does not only talk of homosexuality or only of religion or only of Macklemore's accounts, whether they are fictional or non-fictional. It is borderline impressive into wondrously bewildering how someone can write and say things so clearly, so bluntly with a grace and amble air about his words. Rhythms and pitches in the voice, fluctuations in emphasis and emotion accompanying it all, the song just leaves whoever is the audience member with their own reaction.

It's unfortunate to see that, with as many people are in this world, the number of individuals who dislike this video is so high - not in comparison, but accumulative in its own right. Music isn't always about who can make the best song for the summer, or who can repeat the chorus the most and make it the catchiest. And by no means am I intending to protect Macklemore and his work, because he's an artist as are the rest of them. It's just impressive because, from my perspective, these lines paint an image that no other individual would be able to replicate.

It's of the world with the sun at a different angle: an image that you would never be able to capture the same exact way, no matter what.

"Love is patient
Love is kind
Love is patient
Love is kind

Love is patient
Love is kind
Love is patient
Love is kind"

 

<3 ~ Monty.

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