Life experience comes at a great cost. We're born into, and as members of, a flawed species in an inexplicable world. We've got active brains, we're naturally conflicted, and there is often no rational explanation for the events in our lives or the feelings in our chests.
There's a song/video on Youtube that, as I am writing this, has a grand total of 70 views, 0 likes, and 2 dislikes. Despite its apparent lack of popularity, it's a track that I continue to revisit and grow close to. It's not beautifully arranged, nor is it spectacularly executed; but it's the content, the song's message, that I find value in.
This was a track that was inspired by an epiphany, of sorts—it was the intuitive realization that life and our experiences (as they relate to us) really are, at their core, simple. Yet, despite their ultimate simplicity, there's a great temptation that acts on all of us, as humans, to complicate our realities and bog ourselves down in convoluted theorems, explanations, and expectations for the world around us.
Our natural gravitation towards over-thinking, analyzing, questioning, re-analyzing, etc. works to ensnare our minds in perpetuating cycles that distort our worlds and confuse our understanding of ourselves.
We're all flawed and we all are subjected to flawed circumstances; just as we all contradict ourselves in thought and action. But, these situations don't necessarily suggest that anything is wrong or needs to be changed—they're simply a natural part of existing as a human being.
To be able to realize and implement a sort of practical philosophy; a way in which to view our lives, our conflicts, and our experiences as they truly are, and simultaneously recognize the simplicity that they contain is immensely freeing; I think this work celebrates the recognition of that ideal as something to strive for.
“Didn’t Come Cheap” [Lyrics]
I’ve been distant, I’ve been reminiscing,
my mind’s occupied by someone I’m missing.
I’m thinking this seeking feels a lot like sinking,
a mountain I’m building or a hole that I’m digging.
I’ve hit some bad notes and sang out of key,
and let my nerves get the best of me.
But blood, snot, and sweat dried up my tears,
and the hunger in my stomache ate away my fears.
Cold wears a jacket,
tired eyes sleep,
thirst seeks water,
and hunger food to eat.
Cold wears a jacket,
tired eyes sleep,
the blood on my strings,
didn’t come cheap.
No, it didn’t come cheap...
Oh, no.
Nothing free or brave about the cloth in the wind,
I don’t owe a grey beard for my alleged sin,
Gettin’ used to hearing my figure’s too thin,
My face is strange to used-to-be friends.
Got a worried mind, with me all the time,
think too much about thinking now it’s weighing on my mind.
Got nowhere to be, but I’m running out of time,
trying to find something that I can call mine.
Looking for a way through this maze that has me encased,
I’ve found a safe place to spend my days,
Between a great big rock and a real hard place,
Embraced for writing lyrics based on all my mistakes.
Cold wears a jacket,
tired eyes sleep,
thirst seeks water,
and hunger food to eat.
Cold wears a jacket,
tired eyes sleep,
the blood on my strings,
didn’t come cheap.
No it, didn’t…didn’t come cheap.
No, no.
I want to be violent, I want to taste blood,
I want to be tender, I want to feel love.
Got my eyes on the level, not looking above,
My life’s not written, I have to act as it comes.
That’s the world as it is, not perfect, not clean,
People are so human, that’s how we’ll always be,
So I try to stay grateful for the air that I breathe,
and put my heart behind armor, it’s too soft for my sleeve.
But a poet’s heart comes with a warrior’s soul,
just as lovers are fighters and hot needs cold,
The hits that land teach us to roll,
So fear what you know but not what you don’t.
Cold wears a jacket,
tired eyes sleep,
thirst seeks water,
and hunger food to eat.
Cold wears a jacket,
tired eyes sleep,
the blood on my strings,
didn’t come cheap.
Cold wears a jacket,
tired eyes sleep,
thirst seeks water,
and hunger food to eat. [x3]
Cold wears a jacket,
tired eyes sleep,
the blood on my strings,
didn’t come cheap.
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