Arise, My Soul, And Sing

This post is about a song written by the band Have Heart entitled The Same Sun. I really listened and read the lyrics for the first time today and it hit me like a frieght train how much it related to me as of this very moment in my life. This entry is solely dedicated to the friends I hold the closest and have known for about five to six years of my life. I have been on a downward spiral of selfishness, thoughtlessness, meaningless, bitterness and overall poor behavior to the people I hold as close as family, and failed to even realize or see what was going on around me due to my actions. Recently, one of those friends stepped up and told me what was happening that I was too blind to see. If anything, it feels as though the tight grip I believed I had on school, socializing, health, and life in general, was instantly torn at the fingertips. I had no grasp or concept of where I was, or who I could still call friends due to my inability to see what I had been doing (I am not going to say any names or what I did out of repspect and love. Sorry to kill any suspense-boners). All that I could do was slouch to the ground and smoke a cigarette, my first in two weeks, after saying never again.

The lyrics are as follows:

"Son, did you stare too long in front of that mirror?
did it break when your conscience didn't get any clearer
with the stomach you'll fill with all the food you eat
and lack of pain you feel for the eyes that weep
outside your windowsill of the castle where you sleep?

Has the sun stopped shining upon the crown you hang?
has your love and your hate started to feel the same?
did that leave you feeling empty, feeling sick,
feeling as empty as a child's stomach?

As alone and forsaken as you'd like to be
there are shoreless miseries of oceans, not seas
while you wallow and wait in your tower of ivory
your sister is starving, your brother is begging

Your sisters are starving, your brothers are begging
your mothers are mourning, your fathers are folding

Unseen, unsung -- under the same sun

Wake up, look up, there's a warmth up there
a reminder of peace, a reason to care

A reason to care

Wake up, look up, that's something you share

There's more to life than the boy in that mirror...

Wake up, wake up, wake up."

...from the depths of this hell:
where the free are slaves,
no difference between the cowards and brave,
where our love and hate have become the same,
it's time that we "unbecame"...

Where the ears are deaf, and tongues too dry
where the arms don't hold, and seeing eyes go blind

Where nothing is everything
and everything is nothing:

"Arise-my soul, and sing."

Right off the bat the first paragraph was a hard slap of reality. "Did you stand too long infront of that mirror..." was important because I give myself hardlooks in the mirror all the time; trying to see something, some inkling of hope or something I hadn't noticed about myself before. And just like the lyrics ask, my mirror metaphorically broke when I found nothing new or nothing of worth or value. Just me.

The next lyric that spat in my face is "...and the lack of pain you feel for the eyes that weep..." Spot on with with what was happenening. My friends were trying to find the me that they had been missing and I had been just standing there like a moron and ignoring everyone. For no damn reason.

"Has your love and hate started to feel the same?"Yes. Yes it has. I can't fully tell you, anyone, or even myself of what I think about someone. I have made it such a complex and ridiculous thing of the simple question "Do you love/hate this person?" Being the complete asshole that I can be I begin to question and pick apart deep friendships for no reason. Overanalization and judgement is, and will forever be, my ultimate downfall. That is the main thing I have learned from this whole experience and interpreting these lyrics. And just as the lyrics state, they left me feeling empty and sick. Thank God, however, that there can come change:

Wake up, look up, there's a warmth up there
a reminder of peace, a reason to care

A reason to care

Wake up, look up, that's something you share

There's more to life than the boy in that mirror...

Wake up, wake up, wake up."

The lyrics, after slapping and spitting in my face, asking me deep personal questions about how my life is an empty hollow shell, embrace me and tell me that this isn't all that there is. "A reminder of peace, a reason to care." There will be peace. in the midst of the turbulance I wasn't thinking of the end, just the present. To every beginning, there is an end. I had lost that sense. I felt like these chains of guilt were going to keep me tied down forever, constraining my every move and thought. I hadn't begun to think that these near-and-dear friends would ever forgive me or look passed my faults. I began to understand that I was trying to obtain perfection while clearing aside my best friends, not realizing that life was perfect with them close by.
"There's more to life than that boy in the mirror." Although I had spent so much time, spanning over years and years, staring myself down in the mirror, trying to find something unique that wasn't there, it finally fucking dawned on me that those words are absolutely right. Just I have said before, I was looking for perfection. I was looking for acceptance and love from everyone. Its damn-near preposterous to do such a thing. As Aristotle once wisely stated:

"A friend to all is a friend to none."

I had forgotten, until just recently, who my real friends were. These mistakes and mishaps were the effects of me forgetting that. I needed the wake up call. I had put so much energy trying to please everyone and make myself look better that I had forgotten the people that make me happy and ultimately make me a better person. The handful of you know who you are. I love you to no end. There will be no end.