the joy of feeling everything.
your favourite indie folk artists competing for space in my tipsy wee brain.
shoutout to the vodka redbull i had at 11:30 (downed in like five minutes because i didn’t want to hold it on the dance floor) for keeping me awake after we left the club too early. i’m slowly getting soberer, but! i CANNOT stop thinking about the discrepancies between “it’s better to feel pain/than nothing at all” from stubborn love by the lumineers, and “it’s better to die numb/than feel it all” from noah kahan’s growing sideways. i just have have have to write about it. tipsy substack post? inthiscorneroftheworld i am in control and this is part of The Vibes.
life has a way of happening pretty quickly, especially if you look away for a little too long. for the past week i feel like i’ve been on a pretty constant catch-up mode, trying to reconcile with all the things i know i should be Feeling In A Big Way, but i can’t quite get there. from a noah kahan growing sideways perspective, this is great. i’ve lived my whole life feeling the joy, pain, and peace of everyone around me, and now my mind is quiet. it’s better to be numb, according to noah kahan (who doesn’t have the best track record of being a reliable narrator, but i digress.) is it really possible to process all of this being completely numb? i still have fun, i still feel happiness… but where have i put the pain of life?
in this instance, i am a stubborn love girlie. there is a burden in feeling everything, but within sharing emotions and empathy there is a deep human connection to be found. i can’t even connect to myself right now, let alone the people around me. there’s definitely a solution probably like an arms reach away from me but i am too apathetic to reach out for it… give me some time to feel the breeze and listen to the waves crashing on a distant shore, give me a few moments alone in the sun to relish the quiet in my mind. i miss feeling pain! it’s better than feeling nothing at all! but… it’s not like pain’s got a place to be (again according to noah kahan,) so why does it ‘keep rushing me?’
pain gives me strength and balance. i cannot feel the full catharsis of joy and happiness without it. to be numb or immune to pain is to be numb or immune to life, to love, to the whole human experience. THERE’S A WORLD OUT THERE WAITING FOR YOU. give yourself some time to feel the breeze and listen to the waves crashing on a distant shore, a few moments alone in the sun to relish the quiet in your mind. and then bring it back and think about the mechanisms of your own mind; find a way to feel it and move through it. this isn’t something you can do numb. this is the prick of a needle on your thumb pad as you sew your favourite top back together, this is an invitation, a calling. (mostly for me when im sober and not tired and ready to listen to the wisdom of tipsy me, but if it helps you… i’m delighted.)
i am going to go to sleep now because the red bull is finally wearing off and i’ve been introspecting a little close to the sun while writing this so i feel like i might be a little less numb already. thanks for reading my drunk ramblings, inthiscorneroftheworld you’re a real one for that <3.