psychomode's Blog: The Freedom Is Over.

As of tomorrow, I will be officially back in school, or as George Carlin once referred to it as, "the innocent-sounding indoctrination center where people are stripped of their individuality and turned into a soul-dead conformist member of the American consumer culture."

I have completely wasted my summer, and oddly, I don't regret any of it.

I meant to get around to at least making some progress on the novel that I am writing. Guess how much I got done? None.

I meant to finish the album I am quite tentatively recording by myself, in full knowledge of my past failures. Guess how much I got done? About half. I got about 3 tracks fully completed and about 3 recorded without vocals. Slightly more productive than my other creative output, but still a failure.

I meant to finish Final Fantasy VII, but I somehow lost interest, probably because I set a goal to finish it within a week and when I realized the impossibility of that task I just gave up. Guess how much I got done? About 5 hours.

I meant to stop sucking at Guild Wars. Guess how well that went? Not very well at all.

I meant to run at least 3 miles every day for the entire summer. Guess how well that went? Well, I ran about twice a week on average, go figure.

But that's okay, really. Summer is about wasting time. If I was going to work hard on stuff all summer, it just wouldn't be summer. This summer has mainly been about just wasting time alleviating boredom. Although on the plus side, guess what I DID get done?

I improved musically. I'm now far better at guitar than I was pre-summer, as now I can get my way through about 6 Fall of Troy songs without my fingers falling apart.

I also discovered a plethora of new bands, since I've been venturing away from my indie rock and alternative roots into music that is both more technically complex and a lot heavier. I also stopped caring what people thought about my music taste and downloaded me some Paramore, and I fucking love it. Who cares.

I mentally prepared myself for the upcoming year, perhaps most importantly of all. I don't have the mindset that I possessed on the way into my freshman year. I'm no longer a slightly insecure, wholly introverted kid whose only distinctive feature is his plethora of band merchandise. I am fucking ready for anything that high school is ready to throw at me. I've had enough of the pretentious bullshit that completely ensnares about 50% of my peers. I've had enough of the people who think they're "it". I've had enough of cliches and stereotypes. I've generally just abandoned any cares of what other people think about me, or what they think of themselves. I know who my friends are now, and I know who are my enemies are. There are people who piss me off, and there are people who I piss off, and nothing is going to change that. Get ready, bitches. :D

And to top this blog off with more musical musings, I think the song that best represents my stance towards the upcoming school year is one written by the aforementioned gods of music, The Fall of Troy. Over the last few months I've pretty much declared these guys as my favorite band, as I absolutely fucking adore everything they've ever recorded, and I admire the fact that they were really young when they recorded their first album and are still not even 25. This band possesses such sheer talent and are an absolute inspiration to everything I stand for musically. It may sound absolutely ridiculous if you watch the video and think "this guy can't sing and what is with the screaming", but I'm sorry... if you think that way you either a) are, fair enough, not going to enjoy this kind of music, or b) just completely missing the point.

So, in the words of The Fall of Troy themselves, I'd like you to fast forward to 2:07 of this video.


This is where we stand.