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I was looking for a replacement post for what was supposed to be my original post today because I embarrassingly haven't touched my backup queue basically since the end of cohost and managed to run through it about a year ago. Disappointedly, because I finally watched the music video for what I had hoped to post today and for a particular reason I won't get into, decided not to. I couldn't really even bring myself to post the song without the music video. I think anyone who knows me well could make an accurate guess as to what happened. And to my own credit, I kind of suspected it would be like that, but I did my due dilligence and made myself watch until I felt I was adequately informed enough to change my own mind.Anyways, I momentarily gave up and went to listen to my current comfort album, I Got Heaven, and remembered THIS PARTICULAR RECORDING. It's so mesmerizing, it's like it's got a permanent place in my brain now. I've been obsessed with the visceral growl of Missy's voice since I first heard them, and it's so well captured here. Every aspect of this song lends to make it feel like it's digging under my skin to reach my heart.
That's what I want art to do to me. Eat me from the inside like a parasite, live inside my soul forever. I'll never give up on the beauty of humanity and the human spirit because I don't think I or anyone else can survive without it. Music often reminds me of the collaborative aspect of this. Even playing alone, there are traditions and real human faces tied to everything you do, even in pure experimentation, there's a connection to the past and present and future. Even just listening, there are people who have aired the same pains as you.
And in contrast, there are vapid, meaningless things with the only intention to distract you or act as pointless, uncurated filler in your life to separate you from connection and meaning, and now its creation is completely automated and coerced into many aspects of our lives. I'm not just talking about AI -- I'm talking about the automatically-curated entertainment, the aesthetification of the self, illusion of community and communication and influence through metrics, and the general coercion to relenquish control over our lives under the guise of convenience. Everthing that gives our lives meaning we have been convinced needs to have its interesting rough edges smoothed out and yet things are still just as bad as they've always been. Food costs too much, we're trapped in a forever war, and despite having a beard, I am still somehow regularly getting sexually harrassed by men.
You can learn to submit or you can learn to fight for yourself, your community, and what you believe in. Staying down and being nice won't get the boot off your neck.