Heroes and friends

John F. Nash Jr. at his graduation from Princeton in 1950.
Credit Courtesy of Martha Nash Legg & The New York Times

Today was to be an ordinary day. I wrote. I ate. I smoked, I chatted on Facebook, I checked the news and I hoped for better days and was grateful for days that are.

Today was to be an ordinary day, until the news came across my feed.

The frequency, really…talking to your demons

GOD bless the den of iniquity, the distraction from daily life, the hotbed of foolishness and total waste of time and energy that is Facebook! Just spent ten or so minutes chatting with a dear friend, hoping to comfort and encourage her – family issues – she’s worried about her kid’s love life.

Hunter got to thinking about his twisted love affairs with obsession.

Hunter has always fallen in love with – or at the least become infatuated with – people he feels he can’t have and with altering circumstances he believes he cannot control. Perhaps the two are connected? Cue the sounds of dark irony and silly obviousness!

For many, many years Hunter (truth be told, its been decades) was obsessed with the concepts of ‘destiny’ and ‘purpose’. For decades he’d composed a mental symphony; the frequency dictating his life’s purpose and the person he wished to walk along with – to skip and bounce with – towards that purpose. Obsession with that symphony took the place of communication. Fate and purpose became a confused tangle with common sense the victim in a game of ‘but don’t you see, Hunter, this is how it is supposed to be’.

Rather than chat and get to know a person – instead of listening to their song and learning if the frequency was the one he’d thought he’d been listening to – into his obsession Hunter would introduce his denial and excuse mixer, making subtle adjustments here and there.

What’s the frequency, really…..? (Part 3 [the soundtrack])

The songs we love, songs we hate, songs we fuck to, chill with, break up to, argue about, share with friends – the soundtrack to our lives – helps to define who and where we are in life. Hunter just broke with a joy sucking, relationship trashing, life stunting psyche hate-fucking obsession with politics. In keeping with a longstanding tradition, Hunter shares the love.

Here’s your correspondent’s current soundtrack, a paean to self-affirmation; letting go of self-doubt and old pain. Standing strong. In no particular order here are Hunter’s (currently) top ten (+ one) “I’m feeling awesome, gonna be fine” tunes. With lyrics and (very brief) commentary.

1) Metallica – The Unforgiven

Uncompromising refusal to allow the shit heads who bring you down to get away with an ounce of absolution. Complete with an (unfortunate) self negating sense of giving up. Imagine that, frustration and resignation in metal.