"The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place" running diary

I haven't had a running diary for anything since I blogged during the season 3 finale of Glee, and that's something I want to do. I also want to talk about my favorite album ever, The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky. I always talk it up, saying how powerful it is for me, but I think that the best way to truly represent that is to go through each song and talk about specific parts that resonate the most. I'll be listening to the songs on my iTunes (better quality), but if you want the YouTube videos to follow along, here is a good place for that.

First Breath After Coma
0:15. The bass drum comes in first after the guitar, in a heartbeat sort of way. After listening to this music for so long, I think that the heartbeat is a part of a lot of music off this album. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but I notice it in Your Hand In Mine, which I'm sure I'll get to in approximately 40 minutes.

1:16. I'm also just sitting in front of my computer, looking around my room. Nothing special really going on. Just a man and his music.

6:16. This is my first real favorite part of the song, mainly because of how the guitars come together, following one another. It's also a little ways into the first time that faint ringing note in the background is there. I feel like this verse, or whatever you want to call it, is the prelude to the ending, which is over two minutes away. Having an ending to a song last for that long makes it seem like forever, which is exactly what this song means to me.

7:40. First goosebumps while listening to the album.

8:10. The ringing note comes right to the front, stronger than ever before. Everything picks up at the ending. This might be my favorite part of the entire album...for a decent amount of time now (let's say months), I've felt that I could die to the ending of this song. Everything could come together at once, leading up to the end, exactly as it happens in the song.

9:18. The last note.

The Only Moment We Were Alone
0:45. I've always wanted to be able to actually learn every part of every song on this album on the guitar and piano. Finding some way to put all three guitars together on the piano would be absolutely perfect, and this is one of my favorite parts of the album to play on piano, with that one bass note hitting every eighth note.

3:24. Again, two guitars coming together, and again, another favorite part of the entire album. This just makes me think really good things.

5:33. I wonder how instrumental bands make music. When you use lyrics in songwriting and music making, you can easily convey your mood, tone, and feeling. But when there's no story to interpret other than what you hear, what exactly can you draw from it? How am I supposed to know what the drum beat represents? I guess that's the beauty of instrumental music. It's just there, right in front of you. What you do with it is up to you. (Can I get that extrapolated to a metaphor for life?)

7:52. I remember during Values Game during Orientation that I said that this part was when I feel most alive. The buildup to this starts at 7:19, and ends with the explosion at 8:30. During those pauses though...when nothing is going on, I feel everything going on. It's like all the music went from my headphones to everywhere within me. So incredibly powerful.

9:27. Click.

Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean
0:00. When I'm laying in bed listening to this album via laptop or iHome, I kind of forget that the first few minutes of this song happen. I remember realizing that once and thinking that that's what the first few days of being at the bottom of the ocean must feel like. A little while in, you just wake up, and you're there. It's too bad I never really hone in on any part of the beginning, because there is some really good music involved.

2:07. Of Explosions in the Sky's six albums, The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place sounds so unlike any other. I can find similarities in their latest work to music dating all the way back to 2001 (this album was released in 2003), but there's nothing in these 45 minutes and 37 seconds that's close to anything else. Which might be why I've never really been able to put words to the feel of it. It kind of just happens. Going back to that whole "it's just there" thing.

4:48. I forget how I even got into this band, but I do remember the first imagery I had of this album, and it comes at this part right here. The time signature (6/8) and guitar picking pattern makes it seem like a game of cat and mouse between two people. The chase, the hunt, the games. The slow, patient process of it all. This culminates with the strongest imagery at 6:59 and the eighth notes of the guitar, making it seem like the ultimate dance, the ever-elusive ending.

8:18. I love the cymbals in this part, and the drums leading into the next song.

Memorial
0:00. It's weird, I don't remember getting goosebumps at all during Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean, but I immediately get goosebumps at the start of Memorial. It has to be because of the harmonies, and how they just dig into me. Kind of reminds me of the moment after the dust settles in some desert war. In winter. With snow. I know there's no snow in the desert (I think), but I feel like snow should be included in here somewhere.

1:39. I love how the harmony comes into play three seconds before this part (1:36), leading into the chord. You can clearly hear it too (2:04). Everything comes back home eventually.

3:55. There's the heartbeat again, and I noticed it some 15 seconds into it actually happening.

4:42. I love the bass line in this part. I mean I love the bass part throughout the entire album, but it's best in Memorial. It kind of leads into the next note, where you can feel where it's going to go next. Maybe I have an unfair advantage, having listened to this song dozens of times (83 since January, according to iTunes), but the bass line just makes sense. It feels right.

7:20. Another crash that's preceded by a lengthy lead-in. Man, those are awesome.

7:53. I absolutely love the guitar that comes in here. It feels so powerful, almost like someone's screaming.

Your Hand In Mine
0:00. This is probably the most-known song off the album, but I can't decide if it's my favorite or not. It used to be, and if it's no longer, it's not for any bad reason, but I'm just not sure. I definitely remember this song being around since junior year of high school, so I guess that answers how long I've been listening to Explosions in the Sky.

2:27. Another "good feeling" part of the album (see: 3:24 in The Only Moment We Were Alone). And then the drums pick up, and everything once again comes together.

3:34. There isn't any minor tonality to this song, and there's a little bit of that in each of the other songs. So I suppose it only makes sense that this song is the feel-good one of the album.

4:38. I love the drums in this part. It's almost as though they cascade down upon something, as the guitar shoots up through the sky.

5:02. This begins my favorite part of the song, where all of the little intricacies come into play at the same time.

5:27. The reverb here...I feel like my entire body is set on reverb when I listen to this part. And there's the heartbeat again, just as it was at the beginning of the album.

6:46. You can very faintly hear one guitar note playing the tonic on eighth notes. That will stay from here until the end, which I only started noticing after many listens to the song. Everything comes together one final time, for four phrases, and then just stops, leaving that one note (7:42). Thirty-five seconds of that one note, reminding you that there will always be something after the end.

Well then. Three-quarters of an hour later, after about ten rounds of goosebumps, the album is over. I've done my best to put my feelings into thoughts and words, and I sincerely hope that you give these songs another listen. Eventually, something will stick, whether it's something I mentioned here, or something you pick up on your own. Try and find time to just be. To listen to this music, and to have everything in front of you at once. Just be.

What kind of Stonehill do you want?

Yesterday during Fall Orientation, we had a speaker present to the Orientation groups about sexual harassment, and it was an incredibly good program. I took a lot away from the presentation, and more than one thing resonated with me. But what stuck in my head the most was when he asked, rhetorically, what kind of Stonehill we want. I love that question. And I love that it's something that every Stonehill student can ask themselves, and work towards.

So what kind of Stonehill do I want? I feel as though Stonehill is almost exactly what I want it to be - a place that I can simply look around and know that I'm at home. Where I appreciate the people I know, the knowledge I take in, and the world around me. The reason that everyone gets so involved at Stonehill is because we love it so much, and want to treat it as good as it treats us. It feels good to give back to Stonehill, but sometimes, it doesn't even feel like that. Take the Peer Mentor Team as an example. Sure, one could look at the team and see people who want first-years to have as great an experience as they did, but you could also realize that we get something out of being a Peer Mentor, too. It's not a one-way street, and nothing is at Stonehill. The kind of Stonehill that I want is a Stonehill where everyone appreciates how lucky we are to be here. Where students get involved, do what they love, and go out of their way to show everybody else how much they love Stonehill.

So how do we get to the Stonehill that we want? It's about making the right choices, believing what you want, and always being aware of the beauty of this place. Aware of how much this place can be a home for you. And being active in your efforts to make this as incredible as you want it to be.

Last post from WatertOwn

It's amazing how much music can influence my mood. Yesterday, watching Dexter, I was immediately put into a melancholy mood after listening to one of the piano pieces in the show. Today, as recent as three minutes ago, I was feeling love as I listened to "Crash Into Me." Needing to be in Stonehill mode, I put this guy on in iTunes. Nothing like the Peer Mentor theme song of the year to get me going.

But, as I said, this is about Stonehill, not music. Having moved most of my stuff into New Hall on Sunday, move-in today will take no more than ten minutes. My room just needs to have the finishing touches put on, and I'm ready to go. Ready to go, I like that. That's how I feel about Stonehill now - in my nine-day-long hiatus in Watertown, I knew that I needed to essentially compress fifteen weeks of being at home during the summer into one. I think I did pretty well, but now that said hiatus is over, it does feel like Stonehill mode. I'm excited to get back with the Orientation team, to have everyone at school at the same time, to start classes, and to have what I'm already planning on being the best year at Stonehill so far.

I dunno, I just feel it. You know that feeling where you're just ready? For myself, I call it "let's go" mode. I remember saying it repeatedly during comebacks in baseball and basketball in high school, I remember saying it to anyone who would listen right before the run-in at Orientation...it mainly just involves extensive head nods and high fives, but the feeling is so awesome. It's the adrenaline rush before anything even happens. I'm just ready. Let's go.

The Moment

Paralyzed in front of my computer by one of the most powerful songs I know, I stop and think about moments in my life. Right now is a moment, when I took a shower twenty minutes ago was a moment, and whatever I'll be doing in five hours later today will be a moment. But there are moments that transcend...something. Think of it like my second-layer idea in what I just blogged. There is a second level of moments; a level that deserves distinction from the first. So, we'll call it The Moment. In Now I Can Die in Peace, Bill Simmons capitalizes phrases like Those Games, That Guy, and The Moment, giving them greater significance than ordinary games, guys, and moments.

What's special about these Moments is that they come to define us, or shape us, in a certain way, for the rest of our lives. I believe that in order to get to this exact point in my life, with everything I know, I had to have taken this path - if one thing happened differently, I wouldn't be exactly the same person I am right now. If I took a shower right when I woke up instead of twenty minutes ago, I would be a different person. Probably an insignificant amount, but different nonetheless. However, if A Moment happened under different circumstances, who I am might be completely different. I could have stayed in my room at school instead of going to Jeff Cooney's memorial service, and I wouldn't have heard something that's stuck with me for almost a year now. I could have decided not to go to the 9/11 ten year anniversary service at the O'Hara quad, and I wouldn't fully understand that 9/12 is going to happen, and that's what we should focus on. I wouldn't have the candle holder with melted wax on it that I still have today.

What comes with These Moments is a "hunh" moment. "Hunh," which I don't think I've explained here before, is a mere acknowledgement, a filler for processing something that just happened. Both of the examples of Moments I had also had a "hunh" moment. At the memorial service in the Sem chapel for Jeff Cooney, Father Cregan talked about his journey in life. Said the word probably a dozen times in the hour we were there. "The Journey" just so happens to be my favorite poem of all-time. At the 9/11 service, I remember looking up into the sky, just to see its vastness above all of us, and I saw a plane flying off into the distance. Even typing that now and remembering seeing it happen, I chuckle out a "hunh." These Moments, how they play out, and what happens during them that is significant to only you, are what define our lives, and how we lead them. The experience we get from Moments is omnipresent within us. We might not always be consciously aware of its existence, but its presence will be there, no matter what. It carries a power with it, a power that only you can feel.

Think about your Moments. Think about something that made you stop and think how everything is connected. How some life force might be out there in the universe, pushing us deeper and deeper into the world. These Moments not only define our lives, and set the stage for how we go about living them, but they save us. They save our lives.

Person of interest

The goal of How We Decide is not simply to inform the readers how we make our decisions, and what goes on in our brain as it's happening; the goal is to implore us to think about how we think - metacognition, in the book, and to use metacognition to make better decisions in our lives. However, metacognition doesn't have to apply solely to decision-making. I think that we can always be aware of our feelings and thoughts, on another layer deeper than simply having them. One of my favorite things, when it happens, is when I'll be talking about something that I find interesting, and then I find it interesting that I find it interesting. As if I'm not supposed to be intrigued by it, or something. House does this a lot, too. He'll be brought a case by Foreman, and wonder why Foreman brought the case to him in the first place. The most important question isn't how or what, but why. Why we do things, why we find something interesting, is more important than simply enjoying something. To be able to take that self-recognition one level deeper allows us to know ourselves even better than we could ever imagine. So this is what I implore - be aware of not only what you find interesting, but why. Why does something unsettle you? Why do you want the course of events to run a certain way? By understanding why, we understand more about ourselves. Which is awesome.

Closing ceremonies, pt. 2

A few other things that I forgot to blog about last night:

I helped Vicki move into her room in Villa yesterday, which went rather swimmingly. Her room is awesome and made me really excited to have a single in the fall. (As much as I'll miss my pal Jimbo while he's in Paris, I do enjoy coming back to nothing happening in my room.) Plus it'll be nice to go back to Villa every now and then and still be somewhat connected to it. I also realized yesterday how easy it is for me to move in places. I feel like I just toss everything in the room and spend a couple of hours rearranging everything. That being said, I think I suck at setting up rooms. Freshman year was a mess until my roommate and I bunked our beds (best idea ever), and last year, everything was moved around once James got into the room. Now that I have a single, no one can stop me!

I made my return to Camp Pequossette this week, in what would have been my seventh summer working. I realized today that I've been at camp longer than some of the campers have even been alive, which is scary on so many levels. It did make me think though, about people only being around for certain stages of our lives. Cohort effects, if my sociology memory serves me well. For example, I don't know what it was like when the Red Sox lost the World Series in 1986, yet my parents were in their mid-20s at the time, fully aware of how awful it was. I've had campers who were born after the millennium...by this point, I've also had campers who are now in high school...this stuff is scary cool.

Lastly, I spent about twenty minutes in the pool just now, right before I came to blog. I was just leaning against the wall, observing my arms, legs, and body, picking up on each individual hair. It was really cool to be in the stillness of the pool. The word I thought of was "unkempt," which is actually the exact opposite of what was really happening. Still, it was a quiet surface. I could move the water around below the surface and feel the rippling effects against my body, which was really cool. Try it sometime if you ever get the chance...it's really nice.

Closing ceremonies

One week removed from my most recent blog post, and one week before my return to Stonehill for another year, I can't think of a much better time to blog than now. Actually, that's a complete lie - I've been meaning to blog something or other every now and then since said week, but either haven't had time to sufficiently do it, or just haven't had the motivation. And like every time I want to blog about lots of stuff but end up always putting it off, I'm just going to write about everything at once. That works, right?

One thing I was going to blog about was ten Olympic events I watched in the past two weeks. And by watched, I mean actually (somewhat) cared about as it was happening. (Sorry, basketball. The gold medal was ours from the start.) Handball was exciting because it looks like a combination of a hockey powerplay, basketball, and some third thing. Water polo had Mike Emrick commentating, which was an automatic win. Beach volleyball looked so cool because everyone made diving plays left and right. Indoor volleyball was great because people do freakishly athletic things in that game. Track and field further emphasized the freak athletes, as well as swimming. But gymnastics...I could do probably no more than 3% of what gymnasts do, male and female. Mad props to anyone who can stand on a 4" wide beam, jump in the air, flip, and land on said beam. Like sure, if you fall off, you lose any chance of medaling, but you're still in my good graces.

I was also going to blog about some albums that I love. I think I could have come up with ten, but since this is one cluster of a blog post, it goes here. It would only make sense that the albums from some of my favorite bands are represented here - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place and Take Care, Take Care, Take Care by Explosions in the Sky...In Your Honor by Foo Fighters...Leave This Town and Daughtry by Daughtry, The Joshua Tree by U2, Young the Giant by Young the Giant, and Bon Iver, Bon Iver by Bon Iver. Just to name a few.

I think I'll actually save this one for another time, but I do want to talk about some of my favorite quotes. Well, when I say I want to talk about them, I mean I'll talk about them at a later time. Not just any quote gets tossed into my favorites category...I need some real meaning out of it. That needs its own post.

I was also going to talk about some things I need to do in the next week...some editing on my paper from my summer work, ordering some (all) of my books...it feels like I really needed to do a lot more than that. Pack for school...maybe my brain is just blocking entry to that part of my memory, because, well, none of that is really super fun. "Things I need to do" and "Things I want to do" have very different initial emotions.

So the Red Sox suck now, huh? I actually believed for a while, but I think I know what the problem is (besides our entire team just not playing well). It's the damn media. Everyone jumps ALL OVER the Red Sox when they dip a few games below .500, and yes, some of it is warranted, but don't aim it directly at players! It gives them something to complain about and whine about (see: Beckett, Josh) and then perform poorly in regards to. Although, come to think about it, I feel like I sound whiny and like I'm complaining. Time to quit while I'm ahead...real blog post to follow...eventually...

How We Decide: Sometimes, emotions suck

In my previous post on How We Decide, I played up dopamine to be the coolest thing ever, just like Jonah Lehrer did. Now, I'm going to go off his next move - the notion that sometimes, dopamine SUCKS. Dopamine is great for predicting patterns that can actually happen. When we are faced with randomness, dopamine still tries to do its thing, which can hurt us if we follow its lead. One of the best examples of this coming into play is the casino. A lot of casino games are left to chance - the reason that people spend hours in front of a table or machine is because of the simple pleasure of winning every once in a while. Losing is okay, as long as we win every now and then, all the lights go on, and noises ring throughout the room. In the moment, it's fun, but when you look back on your winnings, you might not find any.

Think about roulette. Whether or not you win money is dependent solely on a little white ball. The ball has no idea where it'll fall, and neither do you - it could land on black fifty times in a row, and it would still be just as likely to land on red as it ever was. People KNOW this, too! But it doesn't stop them. Because they "have a feeling." The simple solution to this is to not even venture near tables of chance - roulette, craps, slots. Much better to go after something you can at least moderately control, like blackjack. Yes, the draw of the cards is still random, but how you play those cards is up to you. You can use chance for you, instead of trying to win despite it. Especially because there's a strategy that you can follow like a robot, negating the need for emotions. Yes, it's awesome when we win, but if we expect to win more than we lose, it's business as usual. It's when we don't expect something good to happen that gives us the largest reward in the pleasure center of our brains when something good does happen. Unexpected rewards are much stronger than expected ones. The consequence of unexpected rewards, however, is that they come with significantly more losses.

So yes, sometimes we can trust our gut too much - when there's an opportunity to have a rational, thought-out, systematic strategy, then go for it. Especially if chance is involved. At least in the casino world, the more you can control, the better.

What do you go home to?

Home. I think I'll be thinking about that word so much in this blog post that it's going to sound weird whenever I say it in my head. But what is it, this home? I think that "home" is an entirely abstract idea. Or at least that it means something different for everyone. So much can be asked about it - where it is, how you find it, what it feels like, what it sounds like, smells like...a home can be any or all of these things. Maybe home is where you live. Maybe it's a group of friends you've known for a long time. Maybe it's one person that you feel most connected to. A place. A sanctuary; somewhere you feel safe, secure.

For me, though, home is a state of being, state of feeling. When I think about the things that could represent home for me, I can't help but feel a surge of emotions coursing through my body. I naturally have a strong emotional connection to those people, places, sounds, sights, and smells. What "home" is to me is the byproduct of thinking about people, places, and other things. Home is everything resonating throughout you, all at once, derived from the love in your life.

This means that all of us can go home at any point - we just need to know how. We need those moments to step back from everything and let our thoughts and words out, even if it's to nobody in particular. When we do that, when we release our thoughts and words, all that remains are our emotions. Positive or negative, you can feel it. You know it's there...it's real. When emotion is all that's left, it will consume you, and take over your body. Let it. That feeling is what home is.

Car wash video!

I got the car washed today at a car wash, and I just felt like taking a video while I was inside the car just chilling and watching everything happen. It was really cool to see the water move around on the windshield. This is totally a petty thing to think awesome, but you know what? I could probably have an entire post about petty things that I think are awesome. (Actually, I totally might do this at some point.) Anyway, enjoy the video!

How We Decide: Live and let learn

The main premise of the second chapter of How We Decide deals with dopamine neurons, and their predictive power. What's so special about dopamine is that they help us to learn from our mistakes. Lehrer cites a famous champion of chess, backgammon, and poker, and discusses his practice. He relentlessly looks at his mistakes, seeing what plays he could have made - in doing this, he builds up so much experience that he'll know what to do in any situation by simply looking at the board. Offhandedly, this is what I consider to be expertise - you just know what to do without having to think about it. And that whole not thinking about it thing...that's exactly what gives humans the edge over other types of animals - our dopamine neurons fire signals in our brain before we make a decision; this is all based off of previous experience. Lehrer writes, "Every time you make a mistake or encounter something new, your brain cells are busy changing themselves. Our emotions are deeply empirical." Often, our feelings are smarter than our thoughts.

So, it only makes sense that "live and let learn" applies here. We do learn best from our mistakes. As Steven Tyler once wrote in "Dream On," "You got to lose to know how to win." And that's absolutely true. He might not have all of the neuroscientific tools necessary to back up that statement, but that doesn't make it false. Live and let learn.

But how can we actually carry out that philosophy? For me, I think that we have to continuously be aware of our decisions. Be conscious of the other possibilities, especially after the decision is made. What if I did this instead? What would have happened in that scenario? By carefully analyzing our decisions, we have a conversation with our dopamine neurons. We know that we messed up, and instead of tormenting ourselves about what could have been, we need to let dopamine do the work for us.