Because you are breathing...

Let me explain the name of my blog

Well, actually, there are two names. The URL is "Beautiful Ammunition" - this is the third solo album by Adrian Borland, perhaps my favourite musician. I've written a piece about Adrian Borland which is on another blog I had for a while, but I will upload that to this blog because it fits far better here. So, that's the URL. The name of the blog itself is "the earth is not a cold dead place." This is the third album by Explosions in the Sky, one of my favourite bands. They're a post-rock band who helped popularize the crescendo-driven instrumental sub-genre of post-rock and the music moves me more than any other music can. The titles of post-rock songs really summarize the feeling, but without lyrics, they remain vague enough to allow us to fill in the gaps with our own emotional responses (unless you're listening to Red Sparowes!) 

I was thinking in the days leading up to the creation of this blog, "What should it be called?" It was something that troubled me, but I never applied any real thought until I sat at my laptop on www.blogger.com and began the process of making it. I stared at the entry that asked what the title of the blog should be, and without hesitation nor conscious effort, I typed, and what appeared was "the earth is not a cold dead place." 

The reason it means so much to me is because of where the title continues. On the vinyl release, etched onto the disc it follows the sentence with, "because you are breathing, because you are listening." I think there's something in that. Because I'm breathing, the Earth isn't cold, isn't dead. Life is such a beautiful and wonderous thing and it's something so harshly and vastly misunderstood and it saddens me. The fact that I am merely alive is something so miraculous, the fact that I have a consciousness, that I'm aware of who I am and where I am in this small corner of time I occupy, the knowledge that I am occupying a collection of atoms that have been around since the inception of the universe and have lived through so many different forms... it's all so strange, we're all so connected, and it's quite beautiful. I know I live in a near-constant state of cynicism and negativity, and it's so exhausting and it becomes a vicious cycle in which, my negativity makes me more depressed, which makes me more negative, which makes me more depressed, which makes me more...

Even though I live in this state, I'm fighting it now. For the first time, I'm fighting it, and for the first time, I'm winning. I went out clubbing last night (Christmas Eve!) at 1:30am after an impulsive decision following a phone-call from a drunk friend. I didn't act fake or seductive, for once I went as me. I hated it, I felt so out-of-place, so judged by everyone around me, but I didn't try and act fake. The feelings I had were real, were me. I didn't resort to the costume of confidence and allure this time, and that made me feel good. So I felt out-of-place, but in its place was another piece to the puzzle of who I am. I know I'll be able to enjoy things like clubbing soon, and that excites me greatly. So, for now, I want to wish y'all a merry Christmas and leave you with an excerpt from a screenplay I written earlier in the year, all about life and the universe and its beauty. 

Sometimes I really can't comprehend it. But that proves that the Earth is not a cold, dead place. No matter what you may think or feel. So just find the reasons in yourself and your life to know it's not cold and dead. I guarantee if you look in the right places, you'll find them.