April 30th, 2004
108408518774648967
Forbidden Paradise – Deep Forest
I’ve felt lately that I complain too much, get tired too easily [I'm twenty four!], and the beginnings of stagnancy have crept into my perspective. The last of these is of course the most alarming, for I dread if my experiences ever give me a sense that I know the best way, and that others are wrong or misguided. “Why can’t they just do it this way?“, etc. As a youth I’ve seen that intractable look set in my parents’ eyes occasionally, a mantle of frustration on their shoulders, my grandmother even more so.
Having caught glimpses of a beauty in orthogonal thinking from a myriad of people with backgrounds so far from my own, I mentally reaffirm to myself that I know nothing, and no way is so much better that another. They are just divergent roads running out of sight from one another, each one starting at the core of the needs and wishes of all living things: to exist in peace and to be happy, without suffering.
This lives in the music I believe, and that is why so I consider electronica so much a voice for utopia. It is a baseline of thought formed with technology aiding in celebration, a love bringing people together from everywhere, the joy of the event a unifying glue. I am especially looking forward to visiting the some clubs and Buddhist temples of Thailand this week, a new style of the Way is exactly what I need.
When Thai express gratitude or a sentiment of respect to one another, they press the hands together across the chest and bow slightly, keeping eye contact with the other. That’s the kind of attitude I need more of. When you think about it, that’s exactly what the word means. Whichever way you’re pointing, that’s where you will go. Up? Or down?
I think the first time trance ever really affected me deeply was when I started listening to Tranceport on my Walkman as I’d go for runs in Redmond. That was probably the fittest I’ve ever been, though I feel I can get back there easily now that I have the means to cook for myself and live comfortably again. I’d race down to lake Sammamish, past the houses at the docks and up the sweeping parkways canopied by trees near Marymoor. The sun would have just set over the deciduous horizon, and a stitch would begin to form in my side after the first mile and a half. The sweat foaming on my brow, I’d find my weak mind wanting to rest. The long incline began to wear, but the music kept me going. Seventy four minutes of nonstop energy. I had no choice, whether it was “Words” or “The Gamemaster“, the beat put wind under my shoes, lifting me over the desire to stop.
My calves would burn, but I welcomed it. The pain reminded me I was alive, and I knew I was growing stronger. Hurting was a blessing; stabs of transformative joy, that is life, not another ten minutes in bed on the snooze bar. Sleep is a necessary evil to sustain health, not something to perfect and enjoy like model ship building. It’s hard to remember this some mornings, but when the mind is not awake there is no oxygen, and when there is no oxygen there is not a state from which rational judgements can be made. Such is the true necessity of breathing. Breathing and listening and feeling.
