Lack Of Societal Conception
You have no idea what people are dealing with as you walk past hundreds of faces per day. When it comes down to it, the white-collar executive and the blue-collar laborer are both humans. It is often forgotten that people are human in a society so focused on production and output. Every moment must be utilized we are told, it is a continual system of reevaluating your time. Though this perspective has its advantages, (as well as the many cons) it does not leave room for tranquility. This mindset forges a treadmill that will only increase in speed as the years go by. Eventually, you are thrown off the treadmill, often without a choice due to your body failing to meet the demands of society.
Messed Up
Tranquility is missing in cities that are overflowing with demons, embedded in every person and group. We do not see the collective baggage and burden that each person is taking with them throughout their life to understand why that person may believe what they do. For us to understand a person we have to first love them. To love is to feel, and to feel may cause pain. A lot of people feel that they need pain in order to function, and most creative people think that way. It is true that writers and artists must feel either pain or euphoric joy in order to produce and deliver the results and content that is expected. This was famously rejected by my favorite songwriter and artist, Justin Townes Earle, shortly before his death from an overdose. He stated that people did not need to be “messed up” in order to produce work of value. If I could talk to Justin I would say, aren’t we all messed up? This world is a broken place stained by the blood that spills around the world every day.
Art?
The damaged and the heartbroken dive into music, and will continue to seek comfort in knowing that other people are like them. People like this will pour their entire being into the culture. At the end of the day, becoming the culture itself. The pain of existence and constant reminder of a memory that is reopened every day. A switchblade into a heart on fire, no, that isn’t adequate. The entire history of human misery is more accurate. Describing the collective pain of a generation is unattainable. That won’t stop us from continuing to write, to make music and art and life. In the end, isn’t art real life condensed into a frame or a romanticized fraud?
Check out some of our other thought-provoking articles here. Get Collin’s new full-length collection Blood Stained Mahogany here. Check out our Twitter here. Prefer Instagram? We are there! Consider subscribing to get a new post notification if you enjoyed this content. Leave a comment below!