http://grooveshark.com/s/Blue/khU2u?src=5
Blue (Joni Mitchell album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I remember singing this song with an a cappella group (Dutch), and being struck by the melody, and by my own interpretation of the lyrics.
The “empty space to fill in” “Underneath the skin” obviously refers to getting that tattoo by means of the song, but to me it was about the empty feeling of purposelessness in life, waiting to be filled in (futilely, obviously) by many kinds of distractions (“Acid, booze, and ass \\ Needles, guns, and grass \\ Lots of laughs”). Still, the end result was beautiful, as is any life that has been lived.
Nowadays, I am trying to fill my life with lots of things (skipping the drugs, going for the laughs, mainly ;)). Sometimes, I try to relish in the feelings of uselessness of anything at all, trying to dive in and live each and every moment to the fullest. But other times, I try to do as much as I can. Going for a 30 day body transformation is / was one of those endeavors. Taking on long-term projects to program on in my spare time, either to enhance the tools I can use at work, or to bless the world with one of many innovations that are still living inside my head another. Trying to get to round 2 of the Google Code Jam yet another. Making lots of friends (still haven’t blogged about those), cooking, or watching movies / series / reading interesting books also pile up on that stack of metaphorical needles.
And then… my mind feels overcrowded again. I feel the pressure of finishing at least one of those projects, start feeling the aimless quest of trying to be entertained by consuming, consuming and consuming those nice distractions that were made by others. And those are the times that I long for that peaceful retreat into the mind again.
That wavelike roller coaster of life energy I’m trying to ride bears lots of resemblance to the rhythms and melodic variances I hear in Joni Mitchell‘s Blue. And how easily that song helps tempering the stress that sometimes comes with that crowd of life!
joranvar 