nonliteral

About this emptiness

An emptiness came and stayed where something else used to be. And it stuck there, not visible or palpable, yet you could easily know that it is there. You feel there is a lack, can't exactly pinpoint, maybe everywhere? Still, you adopt it, because it's better to deal with emptiness than with nothingness, right. And in this emptiness, that inversion of what once used to be, you have a sign that clearly points to something that used to be, but now it isn't, and the sign eventually, in this way, leads to what once was, keeping it from sliding into nothingness. 

It acts like a companion to me. When I am home, for sure it's there with me. When I go around the town, somehow it still trails and eventually catches up. I could travel far, and I did, only to be greeted again, because I know this is what certainly awaits me. I don't mind its presence; on the contrary, I cling to it as if my life depended on it. I would be beyond sad to lose it, because I lost it before, I can't lose twice, that will be too hard. Why do I have to keep on losing, as I already lost everything? Not everything, but all that has meaning. So standing here looking into the abyss with a hand stretched below, keeping the fist open, for the lack to come and be my glove.  

What can anxiety do for you?

Do not ask what can you do for your anxiety, but instead ask yourself what anxiety can do for you. It can get you slimmer, it can make you hyper aware, it can reveal absolute limits within which you can still barely function. All in all, it's one huge act of self discovery! You charge blindly and unwillingly where your mutined chemistry leads, agitating your body and spirit to the very essence. One can only accept it, waiting for it to end, or can charge ahead against the wave. The more you fight it, the harder it becomes. Sometimes you create trouble in the outside world just to match disorder in your head. It all must be hectic, unpredictable, make it or break it. Anxiety is not punk rock, because it asks for safety, reassurances, where you can't find any. It's against the principles of DIY as well, because imprefection is not to be tolerated. You think everything hangs by a thread, but rarely we see the thread and can do something about it. It's anti-life as a human existence. Therefore, we must embrace it to climb back to reality, to accept life as it is, make is as you go exercise, getting across the river by jumping from rock to rock. We rebel against the life, we do not accept the terms, because they are not fair and do not work in our favor, we can build fortresses of security, only for them to be razed sooner or later. We leave at peace from time to time, untill it rocks us. Well, we can screw it by making choices, it can work for us if we do things despite. Hitting against the wave it is. The more choices we make, the more we will retrieve some sense of control. Just saying, we can determine ourselves, so even if it scrathes us, we do not lose touch with reality.  

Seize the means of distribution

Brothers and sisters. Fellow music makers. All of you that are sitting in your homes with headphones on producing your next song. As you are probably aware, we have seised the means of production. Lesser than ever before, we depend upon expensive studios to make and record our music. Music making equipment is getting affordable now, and you can make a decent song on an absurdly cheap equipment - not to mention that the audience has become more receptive to lo-fi sound. But there's one thing we are lacking - the means of distribution. 

To publish your music online, most likely you will use places like Bandcamp. But their player sucks, it poorly supports embedding to social networks, and most importantly, much less than ever people are downloading music to listen it from their devices. Now it's all about streaming. I usually listen to music from Youtube these days. Unfortunately, everything now is a service. 

But most services and if not all are private, use untransparent alghorithms, feed you commercials, there we need our own service. But that costs money and you need people. The desire for an independant service could lead eventually to another private and untransparent service.  

Driving is a social event

I talked too much about music lately, and although I have a new album and it's New Year (Happy New Year everyone - that's settled) for a long time the topic of driving was eluding the posts here. Finally, I have to look upon what is now a significant part of my life, having influenced me in many different ways. It could take a couple of pages to do that so I'm just going to write about a single specific aspect of it, and it's already in the title. Yeah, driving a car is a social event. 

You may struggle with driving technique, or traffic rules, and it makes you discouraged, and you may think you will never get better, but only if you could perfectly control the car then anxiety will wear off? Or you may think you will die in a crash or whatever, but in the end, it's the social aspect of driving behind all these fears. The moment you enter the street in your car you are connected with random people either driving other cars, or pedestrians, or (oh, these suicidal guys) cyclists. You enter and find yourself with others of whom you know nothing, you may not even know if they want to move forward, or left, or right, or reverse, or just stay in place. You try to read the situation, look for clues, maybe stare into the rearview mirror to check the driver behind, do some basic profiling and wonder if this guy is going to be pissed if you don't start moving quick enough when the light goes green. How will she/he react when you hit him if you are on a hill trying to climb and you fuck up the clutch? What will random pedestrian do standing there on the island between lanes, is he suicidal, waiting to jump in front of your car as you are passing, or some drunk which will blissfully take a bold step in front of your car? What if any kind of shit happens and the other party is a bit insane and has a baseball bat, a gun? What if someone gets so angry at you for your random mistake and tries to get you out of your car by force? 

I would not self diagnose myself as someone who has social phobia, and I can manage almost all social situations. I am old and experienced and so I don't get impulsive. Usually I am very patient. I can tolerate someone stealing my place in the long queue while waiting for a less generous green light. But I used to live a life in which I could choose people I meet, places I go, and of course as a pedestrian I meet all the random people as well - but I am a pedestrian with 44 years of experience, I can read the situations and I think I am very good at that. But as I drive all of this is taken away from me, and I am driving blind in a way. 

Lost in Music

Where do I start? Where do I go? I am swallowed by the music. Will it spit me out at any moment? I don't think so, it isn't likely to happen, the machine has picked up a speed and momentum is too strong. It is to be determined if the machine is actually moving inside a vacuum, so it will just pick up more and more speed, or does it move inside some substance, gas like or otherwise, which will gradually slow it down. It must be the former, things always stop, but it does not seem that likely for the foreseeable future.

Playing in no less than two bands, just a year after when I started to think that band activities are definitely part of the past and that in my age it must be over with these things. That alone gave me one final push to finally release my first proper solo album in nine years. I have a video announcing the release here. Aaand, I have yet another video inspired by the drawing made by my Celik Promet comrade, Midzi, it's here. It's the closest you will get to new music by Celik Promet these days. But we must do with what we have. 

Finally, I was about to sit down and write a music review of a recent concert. I never meant this to be a blog about my music activities. But it's midnight already on a workday and I must postpone it, as I do with a bunch of other things.