Exhausted. Have not the energy to be creative. To conjure. So I’ll describe.

It’s a cool Tuesday night. The ground’s still damp from the monster storm that passed through 5 hours back. Am at the open air stalls 4 stone throws away from the house. It is rather late but almost all the tables are occupied. Am in my own bubble though. I have “I love the way you lie” piped into my ears. I must have listened to it like 500 times already. Don’t really care for the song’s meaning. Sometimes you just get tired of searching for meaning. I think the song, the way it’s sung, simply ignites a feeling aligned to how I think I should be feeling. Not sure if what I just wrote made any sense. Very little makes sense these days. Hmmmm! Of late, I think I’ve lost my direction.  But you know me. I’ll bounce back. Right?

Not in the highest spirits as I pen this. Have been beset by a feeling I can’t quite describe. I think, though, that it can be summed up by the question currently hanging in my head: “What if me enlisting everything… is not enough?”

How do you take on the world when you are no longer you? When the reins are held by another. When your wings have been clipped, your strings, snipped. When you’ve lost the ability to harness reason. When answers are met with questions, but not in reverse.

How do you take on the world when you are no longer you? When you are no longer the commander of your ship. When the wind in your sails have caught on fire. When you are the enemy in the blanket. When you can no longer deny entry to that which is harmful.

How do you take on the world when you are no longer you? When all your energies are focused on just getting you through your day. When every joule is recruited to quell the stampede inside. When your equilibrium has been tipped against your favour. When the uphill is made steeper by the avalanche of uncertainty cumulusing towards you. When the gradient stops being a gradient and turns into a wall.

How do you take on the world when you are no longer you? When you see the dimming light but have not the legs to walk towards it. When doubt has become your debilitation. When your desires have turned into the straps that bind you.

How do you take on the world when you are no longer you? The answer is simple. You don’t. You take on you. And it is only when you’ve conquered your demons, regained yourself, that the world is yours for the taking. After you’ve prevailed, please come for me.

Tryad is a pop music project, one where music is collaboratively composed on the internet. I used a piece of theirs, Beauty, in the first commercial I ever art directed. That song has been stuck in my head for 3 days now, and is set on loop on my iPod.

Beauty carries a certain elegance, a steady poise, that I find very soothing. And it has helped restore some calm in this turbulent period.

Beauty is one of the rare songs I’ve chanced into where the lyrics can’t quite stand alone beyond the realm of the song. When spoken rather than performed, the words take on a different manifestation, conveys a different meaning. When read on the page, the lyrics comes across as a poem of undying love, but when sung, you kinda sense a patient longing that is haunting, almost painful…

There are bits of the song that are beyond my grasps. Actually, the song’s overall message still escapes me. I would love to meet its creator to ask him or her of its true meaning.

Of this I’m fairly certain. That in its essence, you will find beauty, and a certain dignity…

>>Listen to the song

Beauty
horizon swallowed you by
and i was no longer home
a sip, a sin, and a sigh
and we slow danced alone

you smiled somewhere
and our lives changed
i found i could share
the things i never could say

someday
you will find me
and i’ll follow you
endless

together we’ll be
green light across the blue
don’t run
though i’d run anyway
for this love of ours

at peace
shining silver or grey
i’ll join you in the stars

i will find you
ton corps cache
metéore illumine

i will find you