Sunday, November 26, 2017

Personal Reflection on Two Lives Lost, and Thoughts on Passion


  • I am out of practice writing. These are just my thoughts, they might not make much sense and I am not implying that they are any kind of objective truth. 
  • I am abbreviating two mens' names as G and P. I am not trying to exploit their names as fuel for my shitty metal blog, this already feels bordering on shitty for using their memories as "content."
  • With this, I am just trying to find a light in the darkness, so to speak.
  • I won't claim to have known either of these men beyond their Facebook presences - in a sense, I am talking of them in respect to those presences, powerful and impressionable as they absolutely were.

At a certain point today, myself being depressed and listening to metal in bed, I scrolled through Facebook to find that G had taken his own life.

G was a passionate man, one who shared my love for metal music. One who I was just starting to learn was quite a thoughtful dude, who had concise and truthful words to banish the thoughts that certain issues were even issues at all. A member of our little FB prog metal circle. A friend of many. A good soul.

G was the second "metal Facebook" friend to lose his life this year. Earlier this year, P had passed as well.

P, too, was a thoughtful man. Also a passionate man. One who knew not to take life overly seriously, who knew that there was a meme for every situation. A man who was caught in struggle the entire time I knew him, over Facebook. Despite his own struggle, a man who was there for his community and his friends, who actively fought against toxicity in the music scene.

When P passed, even though we didn't talk regularly, I was hit. I looked down in shame, and just uttered "god damn it." Whenever I remembered his passing for the rest of the day, or week, I found myself in disbelief, like he would show up with another shitpost soon. It was just so random, for being so heavy and so darkly real. Despite that we weren't too close, it was obvious that the world, and metal FB community, had lost a good soul.

When G passed, I was fucking stricken. His online demeanor was so similar to P's. Both just came across as so genuine, open, passionate. This is just too fucking dark of a trend. Why is it that the most thoughtful, down-to-Earth and passionate people are the ones who end up permanently removed from our world?

That is rhetorical, by the way. Look around, read the news, read the comments sections everywhere around the internet, scroll through social media just once, and you'll know. Nihilist memes aside, our world is fucking dark. Our world is fucking cruel. In the earlier 21st century, it seemed that anonymity was allowing people to be their darkest selves, those they would never show in person. Now, even in places where people use their real names on the internet, it just seems like more openness of expression just allows more hate and self-righteousness to prevail. As if those years of internet-anonymity allowed everyone to come to terms with the hateful and self-righteous nature of mankind, and post-anonymity, everyone just knows that's how it is. Our world makes it seem like there is barely any place for passion or peace anymore. How must this bode towards people with the tendency to be depressed? Those with the tendency to dwell on issues? Those who are straight up too good for this world, and too good to have an ego about that? I won't claim to know the specific reasons why these men chose to leave our world, but I'll be damned if the circumstances didn't help.

Amidst all this, amidst my own depression, talking to a close friend about the ways I am holding myself back, and considering my options, better or worse, going forward - I have renewed my promise to myself to never deliberately injure myself, much less take my own life.

I do not want my parents to spend nights reflecting helplessly on what they did wrong. On top of that - we, their kin in being passionate of an art - of something - have to do something for these men.

Depression will make you feel like you have nothing to give to the world; when it does, think back to your passion. That passion is a fire, shared with others, that gives warmth and life to you and your kin, in an otherwise cold and would-be dead landscape. Simply by holding onto your passion, by holding onto your life and sharing your passion with others, you give back to the world. By giving others something to relate to, by fueling their fire and letting them fuel yours, you are doing so much more than you think.

When G and P died, a great deal of passion left our world. Passion is a valuable fucking thing nowadays! A lot of plebs will meme you nowadays for being passionate or romantic about something, but fuck them! It's up to us, those passionate about something - an art, a hobby, a way of thinking, a way of being, whatever makes us feel alive - to hold onto that passion with an iron fucking grip. To keep that fire fueled, for yourself and for your kin. The life we feel when we are lost in our passions is not fake, it isn't this superficial, romanticized-ass escape from reality. The passion we metalheads feel when we lose ourselves in our art IS our reality. That's what we fucking live for. The rest of the world doesn't have to matter at all, especially if it's going to keep itself lost in this endless fucking conflict and need for superiority. That dark, "real" world isn't the one that has to matter to you in the moments that make life worth living.

Rest in peace, brothers. The internet metal communities have lost a lot. I am still in disbelief.