“Let yourself go, let your feelings show”

It’s a question that I’ve been asking myself since I was around eleven or twelve years old and – for an entire decade – I’m even further away from the answer than I was as a preteen. The concept of live emotion, or someone who may have the ability to own it, share it, and use it. A very large majority of the people I’ve found and lost have the same common factor: emotions are almost a dead concept. I’m someone who is definitely more emotion driven than logic driven, and I don’t expect everybody to be all emotions all the time (likewise, there are moments where logic works better in certain situations and I can see that), but when people interact with each other, or when someone goes and does something that they’re passionate about, or when people are in tough situations I cannot help but feel that I know way too many people who would rather shut the door on their emotions. I’m not sure whether people see it as a weakness or a flaw or a waste of space, but I can say with full assurance that it is necessary to have some form of acquaintanceship with one’s emotions.

Emotions help filter what makes us happy from what makes us feel offended. People start relationships with other people (friendships, romances and later on families) because there was an appeal to an emotion, even if the emotion seems small or insignificant. When people find something that makes them happy, a career field or a hobby, they take enjoyment in learning as many facets of it as they can. That career or hobby then becomes a passion as someone reaps the happiness they get out of it. I’m a songwriter because of the joy that it gives me to put words, melody, rhythm and ambiance together. I love serving coffee to people because I love seeing the light turn on in someone’s face as they go from zombie-like-sleep-state to awake and ready to start their day. It’s hard for me to subtract my emotions from either of those things, and to be honest I wouldn’t want to if my life depended on it. 

I saw it in Toronto all the time – going through school, finding my passions, developing as a person, getting my first job and living my life – people shutting down any part of themselves that related to emotions, and I also know people who have broken out of that because of how generally miserable and bitter and lonely they were as a result. In a world when people don’t care, you’re your only resource. As the kid who was consistently picked on and physically abused based upon emotions, falling into fads, being slightly plump and other various personal flaws, I learned to turn off my emotions because I lost faith in the idea that people still had them. I wound up becoming abusive myself; not caring about anyone or anything around me, lashing out, hitting and yelling and frigid like the Arctic. I hated every day of it and wondered why it had to happen to me. Then a thought came into my head, the idea that maybe it’s because I’m not channeling my emotions into anything of remote use or potential benefit. I started seriously songwriting initially because I didn’t want to burden anyone with my emotions, but still felt the need to communicate them. Songwriting started as my outlet because I didn’t feel that anyone wanted to listen to the words themselves, a self-therapeutic measure that I put in place to try not to impose on the friends I had at the time who were busy figuring themselves out. Seven years later, I’m still writing and I’m still feeling, but it doesn’t really appear like many around me are. 

Do I wish for everyone on the planet to be on the same emotional wavelength as me? Not by any means, but it’s something we as a race of creatures all have in common – the ability to feel. If there’s any benefit that you get from spending time with your friends, family, significant other or from a passion or favourite pastime, that’s an emotional elation you’re getting and it’s undeniable. Why deny that in the rest of your life? The lesson I’ve learned from growing up with my emotions, and seeing certain other people look at it similarly, is that human potential is the most visible when you can feel a pulse in what they give their time to. 

I love all the people I chose as friends and family with every fiber of my being, and because of how much more other people benefit from love as opposed to silence or apathy, I live my life with love in my heart and an open mind on a daily basis. I’m not saying people should completely rethink how they live their lives, but I’m sure there’s a part of everybody where emotions play a key role and sometimes it’s best to keep that in mind. As cheesy as it sounds, telling someone you love them to their face can and does make people feel lifted and affirmed, and that’s another idea that I live my daily life with, because I do it and I see the benefit all the time. 

A discussion about concert experiences.

I recently posted the following question on my Facebook page as a status: “when you see a concert played by a band with a large catalogue of songs, what would you rather hear them play, a string of their biggest hits or a cross section of songs from their whole career?” I woke up this morning thinking about concerts I’ve seen, bands I’d love to see live, set lists that people have shown me from concerts they’ve seen and it really got the gears turning in my head.

I remember being 19 (really not that long ago at the moment) and seeing Depeche Mode live. One of my biggest influences and a band currently singing the moods of a horrible time in my life, I was drawn even stronger to them at that point than ever before. They played songs like “In Chains,” “Wrong” and “Hole to Feed” as well as big hits “I Feel You,” “Enjoy the Silence” and “Personal Jesus.” But what really surprised me was the revival of songs like “It’s No Good,” “Strangelove” and “Master and Servant,” as well as one of my personal favourite non-single track of theirs, “Fly on the Windscreen.” I connected so strongly to their music that night, and the one song of theirs I didn’t know so well, “Waiting for the Night” (played as the very last song), became one of my current all-time favourite songs of theirs.

By total contrast, I saw Duran Duran this year and I felt very strange because the set list bounced between songs from the new album and their biggest hits. Don’t get me wrong, I could listen to “Come Undone,” “Wild Boys” and “The Reflex” for a long time if I wanted to, but I also was thinking about all the songs they weren’t playing that I adored; “Electric Barbarella,” “My Own Way,” “Union of the Snake” and fan favourites like “New Religion,” “Sound of Thunder, their cover of Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines.” Their set had become a commercialized performance of what they thought the fans wanted to hear (“Tiger Tiger” and “The Chauffeur” being the only fan favourite songs played that weren’t commercialized somehow). However great their hits are, I feel disillusioned from “Hungry Like the Wolf” and “Rio” because that seems to be all that people I know or meet know from them, as well as their continual (even now) overplayed nature on the radio.

Finally, for people who know me well, it’s no secret that I’m a huge Pet Shop Boys fan. I haven’t seen them live, but I did pick up a copy of their Pandemonium concert DVD. The songs they played during their Pandemonium Tour were exactly the type of set up I would like to see in a band with longevity; one that includes some of their hits to refamiliarize their audience but as well with new songs to promote a new album and fan favourite or non-commercialized songs/B-sides. They even put a medley together of their hits “Se a Vida E (That’s the Way Life Is) and “Domino Dancing” with a sequence from their album track “Discoteca” and a cover of Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” to end it off. It is, in my opinion, the perfect medley of songs, arranged in a way to surprise listeners, show off their creativity and make them dance, as many would at a Pet Shop Boys show. And to end off the DVD performance, they played a remixed version of “West End Girls,” combining the single everyone loves with an intro from Shep Pettibone’s remix of the track from their Disco compilation.

Overall, I think this means that I lean more towards a band exposing themselves more as a band than as a commercial force when they play shows. Moreover, I love the prospect of seeing a band play a show to promote their debut album, because you may only recognize 3 or 4 songs from the radio but the rest of the songs are all true to the artist without the commercial aspect of a chart position to tag onto that. The songs that don’t get released onto radio and made into singles have a life and a character that help to shape a band just as well as any single can, and for that band’s devout fans, that band wouldn’t be nearly as good without those songs. Any fan of Mika’s knows “Billy Brown,” and it wasn’t a single. Any fan of Jason Mraz knows “Life is Wonderful” or “Butterfly,” and they weren’t singles. Any fan of Lights knows “Pretend” and “Lions,” and they weren’t singles. It’s a question of character and every band has it, but the songs they play to their fans really showcase that, and their album tracks, B-sides, rarity tracks, cover choices and even their lower placing singles provide audiences with a complete picture of who that band is.

“I’m walking with your arms around me, and day by day, we pass survival’s test”

Have you ever had something happen to you that makes you rethink the way you do certain things in your life; generally a frightening, heartbreaking or even near-death experience? Sometimes, these moments are perfect for highlighting parts of you and emotions you feel that you wouldn’t think about otherwise. Instantly, realizations hit you and you think things and feel things that people don’t have the time to think about at any other moment. Regret, remorse and reconciliation are just some of the many things people feel and contemplate after coming out of a situation where they’ve been harmed or put in danger.

A parallel that I can draw happened recently. I, alongside a group that I care about very much, was involved in a car accident. While the cars suffered immense damage, no one was injured, but I cannot help but think about how it might have been if it ended differently. What would’ve happened if someone was badly injured? What would’ve happened if someone died? What would’ve happened if that person was me? And instantly, I found myself thinking about how thankful I was for having the network of close friends, family and loved ones that I’m involved with; a feeling that I’ve had since the date of the accident. I walk into work thinking about how grateful I am for working with the people I work with, and I talk to my friends thinking about how inspiring and kind they are. I take better care of how things go with friends entering into my life post-car accident, and I try to bring out the best in all the people around me. And what have I taken out of all this? I’ve thought of three things that I can now clearly say I try to do with the people I love: love them, inspire them and protect them.

For readers, this may be the first time hearing about the accident, and the decision to write about it was not an easy one given how sensitive I’ve been on the subject. The consensus that I came to was that I needed an outlet for some of the emotions I’ve stored up. While I feel as though I love everyone who might read this, I can’t exactly go up to everyone and shout “I love you” at the top of my lungs; people would think I was mad! But this accident has shown me not to give up on anything; dreams, projects, people, work, because I appreciate it all so much. Anything and everything that has shaped me is appreciated and held high, and I couldn’t feel this way all on my own. I have a world of people to thank and a universe of circumstances to think about as I live a life where I hold nothing back.

If you’re hearing about the accident for the first time, talk to me in detail if you feel so inclined. If you knew about the accident, none of this should be new news. And if you were involved in the accident, know that you’re loved very much and that your safety is cherished to me.

And if you read this at all, thank you for taking the time to allow my outlet to take its fruition.

I love you all!

“You tell me stories and write me letters of hope, wisdom and of mirth”

You know that feeling that you get when you dig through a box of some kind and you come across a chain of letters you once wrote, or postcards you once received, or Christmas and birthday cards you got from someone? That nostalgia? Keepsakes have a way of maintaining that feeling: gripping an emotion from the past that moved you strongly. I’ve recently (about 20 minutes from when I wrote this paragraph) came into an intense bout of that type of nostalgia; the endearing kind that moves people so powerfully in a sweet way.

The title of this blog comes from a song that I wrote when I was 15 years old; one of my oldest compositions titled “Love For Me.” The song deals with this exact type of emotion, and interestingly enough, I wrote the song before ever having any keepsakes to draw nostalgia from. But then there’s a bit more added to this plot twist. The letters that I found (from someone who shall remain nameless) then seemed to point towards my lyric book, where on the day of 5 November 2007, I wrote a song called “Sunset on a Warm Summer Night.” I’m reminded of a time that felt like one of my first experiences with magic; where time seemed to disappear and the confines of even distance had no meaning to me. I was writing back and forth with someone I knew I couldn’t regularly see, and yet through every letter I could feel a heartbeat; with every word, I could detect a breath; through every use of “I love you,” I could feel the spark. Here we are, some three whole years later and every time I’m reunited with a keepsake from this particular person the same emotions come flooding back, as if these feelings never left. Specific songs take me back there as well; this state where I’m reminded of a love and a respect and a friendship that really hasn’t gone anywhere, and how the heartbeat and the soul and the emotions remain intact.

Every once in a while, you never know how something you randomly flip through might make you feel. That’s another beauty about nostalgia; it can be surprising. It can hit you at times when you’re not expecting it. It can inspire or uplift someone at just the right moment, or it can add to your day somehow. You really never know when it will hit you really powerfully; I guess that’s the mystery of it. I know this nostalgia continues to inspire me; there are songs of mine that are still in the works that touch on this subject.

Come to think of it, it makes me feel a lot like the way I used to feel when I lived in a house, and my parents would light the fireplace. There’d be marshmallows and egg nog and lots of hugs, I remember. Maybe that’s more nostalgia…? Or cross-nostalgia…? Whatever the case, it’s definitely a blissful return to emotional form for me.

“It’s raining in paradise, but I want you right here beside me…”

It’s raining outside.

Three words typical of some form of disdain. It has a tendency to put a bit of a damper on people’s spirits (worst pun ever, I know…), but there are a number of people who actually find rain comforting, soothing, and if you’re me, sensual. Rain for me is an incredibly cerebral and peaceful atmosphere, whether I’m inside or out walking in it. Just like being exposed to a starry night sky, rain seems to serve as food for my creative flow as well. I’ve noticed an added focus and an increased emotional detail during rain and thunderstorms.

Where does the introspective feeling attached with rain come from, though? It’s so easy for people to become more emotional and so immersed with thought when it rains, and it almost seems like it just happens. People are more in touch with themselves for some bizarre reason and it shows through their articulation. I’ve also witnessed many people get so emotional that they’ve started crying; people I’ve never even seen flinch before showing signs of emotional vulnerability. I guess a part of it is that rain has a way of reminding us that we’re all human, and what we do with that ideology is an essential part of who we are.

Rain also seems to possess some romantic connotations as well, I’ve found. I’m not sure if there’s some type of chemical in rain water that triggers pheromones or not, but somehow it manages to bring out the inner lover in people. I’ve even seen some people treat rain as their own brand of aphrodisiac. Rain has strange connection to a form of magic; not voodoo or anything, but the innocent type of emotional magic where everything fits into place. Maybe that’s another part of why rain makes people emotional; it shows them a feeling of utopia in a world that’s far from perfect. If you’ve ever been kissed in the rain before, you can actually feel a difference, emotionally, between a rainy day kiss and a kiss on any other day. Despite certain people’s dislike for rainy conditions, it has a way of bringing bodies, feelings and hearts together.

I leave with a suggestion: if you’re the type of person who become depressed or upset at the thought of rain, my challenge to you is to take a walk in it, with a music player of some kind or something that would generate some cognitive motion, and just give thinking about anything at all a try. You might be surprised. If you’re the type of person who feels anything like what I’ve described above, keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve got the right idea.

“Lights shimmer; silver glitters in the night sky”

“GET TO BED!” “YOU’VE GOT TO BE UP EARLY IN THE MORNING!” “GET ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE DAY!”

All of the above are probably statements that have been used before, some in different incarnations; others more than once. But take a closer look into the sky, right up at the stars. Sometimes, there are just so many things going on in the thoughtbox that you just can’t get to sleep over the sound of how loud your ideas are. And sometimes, looking up at the stars or going for a late night walk can do one of two things to those ideas: dissipate them, or expand on them.

I love going on late night walks. I’ll have a music player with me and I’ll shuffle through songs evoking different emotions, memories, thoughts and perspectives in my conscious, and then something will cross my mind; something that I’ve either never thought of before, or something from a completely different point of view. There’s just something cerebral, liberating, cleansing almost, about active thought in a nighttime setting. It could be the serenity in your neighbourhood or a park, or walking through an empty street at night that thrives normally during the day. Whatever the case, it’s hard for the brain not to provoke some thought underneath the stars.

I’m a songwriter in my everyday life, and I can safely say I’ve written many a song underneath a night sky. An obvious example is a song called “Constellation Boulevard,” a song about two lovers simply having romantic fantasies underneath a star-filled sky. Being outside at night – where it’s quiet and tranquil – just seems to be the place for me to create magic, lyrically. The stars help to provide you with a really classy, expensive paint set for your mind and it appears to come with its own colour map so that you can decide completely on your own how your new creation is going to unfold.

It’s also interesting to ponder that each and every thought that we have, whether we like it or not, seems to have some type of emotional connection or connotation. You can think about the most random thing ever, like a polkadot lion doing aerial tricks on a pogo stick, and then giggle about it. You’re humoured by it (probably not, but examples are as examples d0), and your brain keeps thinking. Then, what if this lion went into a contest with an elephant, an emu and a porcupine? There’d be an armadillo as a judge and grasshoppers delivering the commentary, and fireflies as the spotlights. And what if this whole thing took place on Saturn? What effect would gravity have on four animals doing flips and tricks on pogo sticks? Call me crazy, but I find it odd when some people tell me things such as “my brain shuts off at 12:30 at night,” or “my auto-crash feature kicks in at 1:30,” and the like. It’s just so hard for my brain to just shut off, or rest, because there’s always something new entering and exiting my brain; some things I haven’t even realized I’ve thought about yet.

That’s another thing about art. It’s so easy for someone to say that their creative process starts and ends at certain times, and if they don’t get anything, they have “creator’s block.” Art is beautiful, but it comes when it comes; there’s no stopping it. Art is beautiful because art happens; you can make art from something as simple as looking at a marble and writing a poem about its colour, shape and size to something as complex as the interpretation of Shakespearean English, or political corruption of some kind. Regardless of your art form and subject, art is beautiful because it happens, and sometimes it just happens after hours.