The following post is more or so an unorganized set of thoughts, drafted into a blog post. I had a sudden urge to write down some thoughts, and felt it appropriate as a blog topic. The next post will be a sequel to an older post, The Driving Force of Music! ---Life is a beautiful mess. It's filled with inconsistencies that tend to be both expected and unexpected. It's filled with memories, both joyous and painful, that will walk down the road of life with us until we reach the end. With every positive emotion comes an opposing one, always keeping us in check with reality. It's truly a mysterious yet miraculous part of life, knowing how not everything is always going to be sugar and rainbows. We live in the anticipation that there could always something that pushes us down in life, and yet we still go with the flow, because we have something that can combat those negative feelings: love. Love is a difficult feeling to explain, since it's not a feeling depicted objectively, and certainly not something that can be proved logically. Rather, it's best explained by the effects it produces. It's when you show off your spotless report card to your parents in elementary school, and they tell you how good of a job you did. It's when your family watches you walk the stage at your college graduation ceremony, emanating how proud they are of you. It's when you announce that you found a job to your friends, and they clamor in excitement for your future. It's when you find that one person in life who would travel across the world an infinite amount of times just to be with you.Love brings about the feeling that there will always be someone there to be your rock, no matter what. From life goals to surprises, it's evident that having someone that's there for you brings about an incredibly warm and nurturing feeling. Sometimes, life doesn't work out perfectly. Scratch that; it never works out perfectly. You can plan everything out the way you want it to, and life will make sure that some parts of it don't go as smoothly as you'd like. It's up to us to learn how to not only cope with imperfection, but to fight on and live with the result. This, of course, is much easier said than done. As humans, we can't always cope with distress and issues properly, and we sink to our lowest of lows. Depression, anxiety, sadness, fear; these emotions are inevitable.It could be a time where you had an argument with a significant other, and there's not one suitable person to talk to about it. It could be a time where you disappoint your parents, and the only form of retribution is to just deal with it and not do it again. It could be a time where someone that meant so much to you passed away, and nothing you can do can bring that person back.For most of the not-so-pleasant times in life, we can negate them with the feelings of our loved ones. They're there to comfort us and let us know that things are going to be okay, and that time will heal all wounds. We take these feelings and thoughts, and day by day, we pick ourselves back up and continue down the windy road of life. Yet, there are times where even our loved ones might not help us. Sometimes, the person we need most in life isn't there. Sometimes, we force ourselves to be alone, since we know that no one can do anything about the situation. Why do we feel like this? Why is it, that even though we might have the people who care for us nearby, we choose not to seek this antibiotic for sadness?Deep down, I feel like there are times in life where we just want to embrace the sad moments in life. We want to live in that moment of pain, of loneliness, to understand how it feels. It's not a conscious thought; implicitly, I believe we realize certain situations are unavoidable and that people can't make the situation any better. Absorbing all of this sadness and letting it all out sometimes feels like the most human thing to do.
"When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change." - Aang, Legend of Korra
However, we mustn't ever come to the conclusion that we are not loved by anyone.Just because we unconsciously reject people to help us doesn't give us the right to assert that no one cares for us. It's so easy to believe this though, because we secretly want to exploit the sadness to its full potential. We dramatize the situation to bring us down to our knees, in the hopes that someone, anyone, would come by to pick us up off the ground. We want to feel that no one is there for us, even though there is.One quote sticks out rather well for this phenomenon, from one of Stephen Chbosky's books:
"We accept the love we think we deserve." - Charlie, Perks of Being a Wallflower
It's those moments where we sometimes don't feel like we should accept that feeling, that warm ray of light. Is it due to shame? Self-pity? Embarrassment? It could be due to a plethora of reasons. But I think it's only until we understand these reasons that we then begin to accept this warm ray of light into our lives again. You are loved by the people who helped raise you into the person you are today.You are loved by the closest friends that you've met and kept throughout the years.You are loved by the people you see on a daily basis at work.You are loved by someone. I guarantee there is someone out there who cares for you and wants you to be happy. Despite how you may hit rock bottom in life, don't lose faith in the people who've entered it. Those people will always be there to help you, even if they're there to act as a wall and listen to your thoughts. I think it's important to keep this in mind, no matter how dreary your situation might be.Don't ever give up hope on dreams that might seem far-fetched, because there will always be someone there to come pick you up when you don't succeed. And they'll always be there, beyond the point when you achieve your dreams. We are all loved in some way, and we must hold that close to our hearts. When life seems like it's going downhill, just know that there's going to be something better happening in your life to counter it. Life is a huge scale that juggles the good and the bad, and it's fate that tells us that things will negate each other at some point.And if you still don't truly believe in these words, then at least trust me when I tell you that you are loved by me. --- I totally forgot to paste a musical excerpt in my last blog post, so this entry will have two! Yay! These are both rather soft piano pieces, so please turn up your speakers if you can't hear them; they're beautiful.I have a playlist I frequently listen to when I go to sleep. A lot of the songs on the playlist consist of instrumentals and soft ballad songs to help ease my mind into sleeping easier. When I was writing this blog post, I was listening to this playlist in an attempt to stir up some more emotional and personal thoughts. I figured I'd share a few songs that helped inspire and get my mind into a reflective state.Tsuisou (Reminiscence) by Akito Matsuda from Sound! Euphonium Original SoundtrackThis song comes off a recent anime I've watched, entitled "Sound! Euphonium." This anime is about a girl who enters high school and joins the band. Her goal of becoming the best euphonium player she can be comes at a price, with the lack of support from her family, a mediocre band program at her high school, and lack of friends. As someone who did band in high school, there are so many elements within the anime that I can relate to. I highly recommend it for those who also have done band at some point in your life! It's a story about how a girl learns to cope with these problems and figure out ways to make everything better, while still pursuing her dream.Anyway, this song was one of many gems off of the soundtrack. It's peaceful, contemplative, and optimistic. To me, it allows me to reminisce (hence, the title) on where I've come from. It rings the idea that sometimes, things don't work out...but you've made progress on the goals you've set in life, and you're one step closer to achieving them. There are people there to support you all the way, so don't give up, and keep on pursuing your aspirations.[audio mp3="http://coreyjustinroberts.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/1-25-Tsuisou.mp3"][/audio] Clair de Lune by Claude DebussyOne of my favorite piano songs of all time, and one of my favorites to play. This song has such a beautiful story to it. Consider it as a kind of love story. The intro brings about the story of two people who meet, to an embellishment of feelings for one another. Small tribulations between the two occur, only to be succumbed by a quick resolution (a la allusion to the main theme).It sounds cheesy, but consider these thoughts as you listen to this extraordinarily beautiful piece.[audio mp3="http://coreyjustinroberts.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/04-Clair-De-Lune.mp3"][/audio] That's it for today. Until next time,Corey