Mainly a place to break spirals, liberate thoughts, and organize my ducks neatly in one single row.
But hopefully it can also serve you in some way, wether to find new interests, pass the time, or discover what kind of beauty is present in the world of an angsty 25 years old.
- Science stuff I am working on (mostly my masters project tbh)
- Recomendation of songs, albums, movies, videos and what not
- Thoughts on essays
- Reviews and critiques of things
You may also find more about me in other places, such as:
Affirmations
My current favorite affirmation, might as well be just hearing the (beautiful) song '13th Century Metal' from Brittany Howard, from where most of it was taken:
"I promisse to think before I speak, and to dedicate my spirit in the service of what is good and fair and righteous.
Everyday I am alive, I am aware of myself, of my capability to love and to become that what I admire most in others, I am nonviolent, I am a master student and my spirit will never be stomped out".
Favorite album
Do you have a favorite album? I'd love to know which one yours may be, mine is 'Circle Thinking'. It was released ten years ago, in 2015, by the band that hates a lot of things 'I Hate Sex'. This album populated internet discourse for a while and became one of the references to when people talk about screamo/emocore. It's definitely one of the albums more filled with emotions that I've ever heard, and I think most of this feeligns come from their singer Nicole Boychuk, their vocals make such a good job in portraying almost-fear, anxiety-driven anger, spite, and the borderline sadness present in some songs, I'm an empath (/joke) whenever i hear they singing I can't really help but sing along, it's truly magical. Another great surprise that i can point in this album is the shiny open C tunning used by the guitar at least in most songs of the album, enabling really catchy arpeggios followed by strong statements in power chords throughout my favorite songs 'I Hate Sports' and 'San Francisco', that are surprisingly not that difficult to play, if you enjoy this album as much as me I encourage you to go take a guitar and try to play it yourself, it can be really fun :)).
Thematically wise, 'Circle Thinking' it's an album that carries many forms of feelings in it's beautifully written lyrics, the most proheminent one may be grief. Grief it's the first word that appears in the album, and yet it's presence is made clear even before the name first appears, conjured in the shy initial guitar intro that sound almost like fading good memories of someone that it's no longer in your life, trying desesperately to cling to something, reoccurring and reappering when all you really want is to forget it all together. These good memories are also present in the second song 'I Hate Sports' a more energetic, almost happy song, trying vainly and mightily to find hope in the past while confronted by the imminent incapability of finding it in the future without this person, this can be summed basically in the two lines of the second verse "You make me feel like a bug that has lived a full life // like a bee who's never had to sacrifice it's stinger". In failing to find hope anywhere in the past or in the recently lost futures, the starting scene of the third song 'San Francisco' could be that of a funeral, a hole in the ground for the disposal of the deceased feelings, a way to find closure, to start over and move on, followed by the haunting realization that you will not, in fact, get rid of it so easilly. Grief is a haunting feeling, it would be too convenient to get rid of years of choices and memories in a 20 minute ritual, thruth is that it's not gonna happen, you will still find fragments of people in your everyday habits, in the things you learn from them, in the plans you made together and now put in pratice alone, being confronted by those parts of yourself in the mirror can be the main way in which grief make itself seen.
All this haunting, and re-ocurring feelings in the innability of letting go are also well-represented towards the end of the album, when the image of this person now appears more vivid and lively in a way that almost aches phisically and makes your skin hot and itchy, confused by what's real and what's not, like at the start of a panic attack, lived in the descriptions of dreams and memories of the songs 'Sleep Paralysis' and 'Happy 'Anniversary', respectively. The album ends itself in a quasi-melancholic song, 'You + Me = Slipknot' works as a breakup timeline, a reliving of key events that took this relationship to an end, identifying the selfishness that stole the colors of the world, and made every day like sunday.
If this reads like a story more than an album review it's mainly because the album allows this kind of read, It all feels very cohesive in every way, I can't help but look to it as a bigger picture. Some music is best experienced with headphones, and this is one of these cases, if you can put on your best headphone on and give it a listen, hope you like it.