[Well it took a while, but I got here.
I've been hard at work the past few months working on music. Practicing, writing, recording, rerecording, rewriting, mixing, remixing. Thinking about early retirement. It's all been a whirlwind of painstaking hours and frustrating periods where it felt like I didn't know where things were going. I just didn't want to do what I've done before, that was truly the only prerequisite for moving forward. It is the eve of me announcing Sliding to the public (12:20 AM as I write) and I feel like I can finally let go of this song and share it. I seriously didn't know when I would finally be able to say that.
I've been overly vocal about being disappointed in myself with my musical pursuits. After the near-fatal car accident I had earlier this year, I told myself I was being a bitch and to just sit down and do it. And quite frankly? I was right. I needed thicker skin, and by now I think some good has come out of the process. I'm very transparent so bare with me here.
To say I'm not afraid of things anymore is a lie. I think I'm just used to being uncomfortable. Viktor Frankl wrote in his book Man's Search for Meaning, "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering." As I get older, that makes more sense to me everyday. But regardless, I find myself a bit more comfortable now. I'm gripping a strange sense of fearlessness that I never understood before.
Someone asked me a while ago what the meaning of "Stranger's Log" is. More specifically, the stranger theme I'm running with here. When I thought about it, I drew a blank for a second. Eventually I pulled up the concept of anonymity and bearing a misunderstood reputation. In the past when these ideas were ever brought up by whomever, it was often in a negative light or an "edgy" light. To me, these portrayals seem based out of fear. I've broken this tradition, instead believing in embodying these traits rather than fearing them.
There is a natural fear of the strange parts and capabilities of ourselves, the parts we don't like, and of others seeing these parts instead of seeing who we "really" are. But life happens. We end up feeling invalidated, we end up perceived by others and we end up feeling strange in strange situations. I've come to realize that it isn't that detrimental of a process (and quite frankly, I think the notion of our "real self" is a lie).
Even so, I am still a very fearful person. I felt like for a while I dug myself into a hole I was never gonna get out of. I was afraid of being perceived based on mistakes I made in my life. Times where those strange parts of me grabbed the steering wheel. Now I don't care anymore. I believe none of that matters. I used to fight the world unknowingly, but I'm starting to think the world is right in some ways. Maybe I am the wrong one here. Maybe just indifferent. I'm opting for acceptance instead.
So to answer my friend, when I think of "strange" I guess it's more of an element to achieve. If something is strange it doesn't really care about much; it's blissfully un-self aware. It likes going to that other place it makes for itself. It doesn't pay attention to being unknown or ostracized since it figured out the secret that if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, it does make a sound. It's still there, it still matters. And if anything it's a bit louder, there's a touch more color and a lot of distortion.
So onward I march, forward the stranger goes, into the future; endlessly unwritten.]