this is another song i recorded which turned out to be closely associated with some kind of a running video clip that i play out in my mind whenever i listen to this song.
today was a nice day. i was minutely present at certain occasions. however, as of yesterday, i have restarted my exercising routine and this has made a truly noticeable effect on my mood and general energy levels. today, i found that doing my work-out really contributed to centering me and release my mind from the stresses of excessive thinking. after coming out of the gym, i felt as if some weight had been removed and i was more attuned to the silence and the primordial Buddha-nature of the universe around me. it was much much easier to be present in that situation.
this has been an important lesson for me. i shall make it a point to give as much priority to exercise in my life as i do to the other important endeavors i choose to undertake. this is my resolution: that i shall continue with an exercise routine for as long as i am able realistically and pragmatically to do so.
about this song, i recorded it also several months ago, during the phase where i was producing several songs each day and my creativity was truly flourishing. after listening to it a couple of times, i decided to call it “Flying Cured Me”. the song had automatically symbolized a very particular scene that played out in my mind in sync with the song as i listened to it. the scene i pictured consisted of a depressed or run-down and upset main character walking around his room. his low spirits reflect in the generally melancholic opening of the song. he is depressed with his head bowed low with droopy eyes and occasionally sighing deeply and emotively.
then all of the sudden, he rushes to the window and jumps out to find he has the ability to fly. and he soars high high up into the sky. this is the first fast part in the song where the mood starts to pick up. this adventure carries our main character over to a beach where he settles down and sits on the beach and becomes completely absorbed in an absolutely beautiful sunset with a fiery red sun dissolving ever so slowly into the infinite expanse of water. this is the pause that comes directly after the fast flying part.
then the fast part continues and at this point, the main character jumps up and resumes his flight but soars freely, with no destination in mind. he enters into a forest and he is here flying in between trees and under branches, navigating a thick and lush green forest. this natural environment captivates and ignites his soul and bathes him in a spirit of tranquil bliss. this part in the music is definitively elated and excited and blissfully full of adrenaline at the same time. i imagine, when i listen to this, that i can feel the branches brushing against my face as i rush at a great speed through the thick of it, making radical sharp turns and dodging large bushes and other green objects.
then finally he emerges from the forest and he’s back on ground level, back in the city. and he’s walking through the streets of the city and the music is back to the original tune. but this time there is a somewhat reduced melancholy, having just experienced the extraordinary flight, which softens the sad edge of the tune. it is as if this time around, it reflects a simple acceptance of the world and a simple quiescence and equanimity. it is as though he is relieved from his earlier anguish. he took a trip and realized beauty. there can be no sadness after experiencing that. and finally, the scene around him begins to change, and this is represented by the last part in the song, where everything slows down and guitar takes over. i can imagine the city-scape view expanding and becoming more vivid and more colorful and more beautiful, with more of the beauty of nature apparent within it. it is transformed slowly from a barren concrete wasteland into a beautiful human creation, a shelter, in short, a city. and so he sits down on the sidewalk and takes it all in with a contemplative look on his face. he has been cured, transformed, awakened. all his prior suffering relieved by a flight through nature.
in many ways, this journey exemplified by the song applies to me and in many ways, i feel as though my subconscious was exporting the conscious world its feelings in a metaphorical way in the form of music. or perhaps the music itself is just random and my interpretation of it in this way is due to the journey i myself am on. or a hundred thousand different explanations…who cares? i certainly don’t, i just enjoy and go with the flow. words are meaningless. it’s the feeling that counts. so, in a symbolic way flying really did cure me, or is in the process of curing me. it is my relief and my liberation and my release from bondage and from suffering.
the world is sick. it is sick because it craves. there is a cure. flying is that cure.
“There is an art, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
– Douglas Adams
“I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn’t it be? – it is the same the angels breathe.”
– Mark Twain