From The Inside

From The Inside

Music is one of life’s greatest art forms for conveying the wide spectrum of human emotion. It can bring memories flooding back from the opening notes of songs we forget with the passing of time. Pulling us gently back to the moment our memories associate a particular piece of music with. It relives the stress and trails of every day life. It act as an audio guide to transport us to deeper sections of our imaginations. Opens our minds to new and different ways of thinking. 

This song was written as a way to express emotions and thoughts that i experienced at a certain point in life. Everyone has their own music within them and i strongly believe their is an artist in every human being. Find your way of expressing that which words sometimes cannot. 

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”

-Victor Hugho

 

Vocals on this track were done by the fantastic Sarah McCarville

 

Potrait Of A Friend

Stuff is the matter in which all of everything is found. Stuff is a broad generalization made popular by the world famous chef, Ryan McGivern, in the year 2014. Among this and his other catchphrase, the ever flamboyant drunken call of “Sit on my face”, Ryan, affectionately known as “Terry”, has continued to increase his knowledge and research of stuff. As pertaining to all other qualities in his life “Stuff” to Ryan is met with the same passion and excitement he brings towards his food. Famously, Ryan is from South Africa which as we can tell simply by looking at our beloved Terry is the world capital of sexy ass motherfuckers. A mere glimpse into his eyes and you feel as though Ryan is penetrating your very existence rendering you an immobile vessel of bodily functions and dying skin tissue. Once his enchanting eyes grasp onto yours he in time can control your very thoughts and actions. No one has ever escaped this glimpse no matter how hard they try. Many of them succumb to be at the very whim of this sexy chocolate man. Perhaps only time will tell if Ryan “Terry” McGivern will be given the title of “The King Of Stuff”

Alongside his already household catchphrases in early March of 2014 Ryan “doesn’t” McGivern “a shit” popularized another simple selection of syllables to create a new profound life philosophy. Macabre in its inclination, fierce in its delivery and unapologetic-ally in your face all at the same time “Fix it!” although such a simple concept at first snow balled into a usable every man quote. In times to come such profound and incomparable use of the English language will guarantee that McGiverns lessons will be studied ritually by students, taught profusely by lecturers and regurgitated by anyone who wants to skill people in the life of love. Upon hearing such a cacophony of phrasing you feel as though every aspect of your life up until said point has been merely a lie. An elaborate conspiracy by every authority figure every known. A ploy of magnificent proportions to such an extent that you feel you are the only person living, dead or imaginary, that is on the outside of this inside joke. Once this contagious view of thinking encapsulates your very being it begins to make changes in every molecule and atom that is you. The English language rarely has been used with such raw abandon and perpetual disregard that McGivern himself will undoubtedly become a master of the literary arts as well as his already sterling reputation for his wizardry and awe inspiring culinary traits.

But least we concern with ourselves with Ryan “The Perfection” McGivern for fear of placing him too high on a pedestal far above the eye level view of us mere mortals. Although a god like stature is justified to be bestowed upon this gentle giant let us look into the human aspect that as I like to call is Ryan “The Friend” McGivern. A man whose kindness and humility makes Mother Theresa look like Miss Trunchbull (if this reference makes no sense to you I’m afraid to say your childhood wasn’t as glorious and fond as your memories may recall it to be). You see although the phrase “How are you?” has become such a shallow form of greeting, a question which has always had the automatic answer of either “I’m good” or the even less thought provoking “not too bad” when Ryan asks such a commonly assaulted hello you can’t help but hear the emotion in his voice. The concern for how you are actually doing and the interest and genuine fondness he has for your state of being. He doesn’t ask this question and quickly brush it off pending a follow up of the ever more brain damaging and intellectual conversation killing point of “some weather we’re having” McGivern wants you to plummet the very depths of your emotional state, to explore every fabric of your being and to hear the thoughts and actions that have been of any concern of you. Every the smallest trivial point of your day is of interest to this creation of cuddles and hugs. His interest is not because like certain people we have all had the unfortunate luck of encountering at some points of our lives that just want to ask you how you are to then completely disregard your incomplete answer to tell you all about themselves. (Seriously, who asks a question just to then spout out some pre rehearsed yarn to try to justify that there also pointless existence is any way more important than yours?) Ryan wants to know every aspect of your life simply because he is, if you’re lucky enough, his friend. As a friend to this beloved man you become an extension of him. A personality trait in physical personification. A projection of the love and hopefulness he sees in the eyes of anyone who’s lucky enough to call him “Terry” and not Ryan. Be under no illusions that to call him using his Christian name is of any condescending or negative connotations to him. Terry is a simply referral to his middle name. Inside information to people closest to him. A way to distinguish between the adult masquerade society views anyone over the age of 18 must have when there among more “civilized” people of the outside and the real and true form of ourselves we all are behind closed doors. Although nicknames and shortened versions of first names, i.e. the ever imaginative way of making a respectable person called Anthony into a tracksuit wearing beur feeking superking smoking tough guy named Anto, Terry bears more than a simple bastardization of his glorious middle name Terrence. See Terry is an identity. A fun loving, peaceful, heart-warming and sometimes clumsy Ryan. A man who endeavors to make the world a brighter place. Whether through tantalizing your pallet and then making sweet love to your taste buds with his symphony of flavors or simply by looking you straight in the eyes and asking how your day is. If the rest of the world was even just half of the human being Ryan McGivern is world peace wouldn’t be such a ridiculous notion.

 

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

Socially Digital

For all intents and purposes, another view of the technological influences on human nature and interactions has to be taken. We’ve all seen the stream of barely functioning youths (youths used loosely here as I still consider myself in that category although the added parts of endless bills and “adult responsibility” persuade me otherwise), sauntering down the road, necks locked in a macabre stare at the illuminating portal of endless information and ignorance shattering capabilities as the very world around them ceases to exist. Now with such limitless possibilities for every scrap of recorded data on the face of the planet we are presented with a fact that this technology has a more positive effect in some way.

Unfortunately, this is the complete opposite of the case. Although at the very tip of a finger one could learn anything that your mind desires, if trends and regularity are anything to go by the most wanted information is feline related and the want to investigate the lives of others.

Facebook, for whatever reason, is the default website for most internet dwellers. A virtual melting pot of passive aggressive status’, alcohol and chemical fuelled photographic evidence worthy of showing the grandkids and more weather updates than Martin King on cocaine could spew out. This “social media” (a term humourlessly dipped in irony) has slowly captured most of the human population.

Now, before every negative opinion I can muster brings itself to the forefront of my mind, I feel I should at least present the positive aspects of this internet phenomenon. I couldn’t think of one. Honestly.

“But you can reconnect with old friends and acquaintances from years ago” A point which will inevitably be brought forward. A point which is absolutely redundant. Listen, if you haven’t seen or heard from certain people for a good few years, chances are there’s a reason for that. There’s at least a 50/50 that you or the other person don’t like each other. I haven’t met the guy who sat beside me in a particular class in school (for the last three years of my “education”) since I walked out of that building hands in the air grasping that first breath as a free man.  Yet not so long ago a picture of what looked like this man plus 20 years of aging ( I’m guessing time was just as kind to him as he was to me in school) popped up on my computer screen asking if I would like the privilege of entering his (virtual) social circle.

Now this automatically made me think this dude has a shockingly short memory span. Of course I declined this kind request (if I didn’t want you knowing me then chances are time has healed those wounds). Seeing this it made me wonder if he really all of a sudden interested in creating a real world relationship or was this merely a want to increase his online friend quota. Something which is all too common.

I’ve seen many people who have over a thousand online friends and immediately I thought how the hell he makes any time for his actual life if he’s busy with his small army of friends. And in this little thought came an epiphany. People like aforementioned “friend” spend more time concocting a bite-sized aesthetically pleasing version of their lives to put prize of place online. A quick daily ego boost to their damaged and disappointing “real” life. An antidote to their disease of mundane reality. People who find the refresh bottom on the homepage like heroin addicts find quitting. Just one more time and I’m done.

Besides the Facebook addicted, few of whom will admit such a shame, there are those who use the site as some kind of personal therapist. A place where you can rant about absolutely anything and think that somehow in this endless pit of information that your problem will be solved or your opinion validated.  I can personally guarantee you that neither of these things will happen. What will definitely happen is that a) you will have knowingly aired your dirty laundry in public (which gives me great ammo to utilise should I have the pleasure of ever taking to you, plus you automatically look like a bell end. Congrats!) and b) your opinion (like any opinion openly on view in the realm of the World Wide Web) will be disregarded, dissected and ensure an agreement between you and people equally as irrational (which makes great reading for me and plenty of other bystanders by the way.)

Oh and if your also one of those people who write up a status asking a question such as the electrifying “What times does the shop close at” instead of just googling it there’s a special circle of idiots you belong to. I won’t waste too much time writing about you people because I could just as easily google the phrase “fuck wits” and get faster and better results.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”

-Albert Einstein

The Illusion Of Importance

Every single life on this on this planet has the same rights. The right to have just that, a life. Society as a whole has become so self-centred, so obsessed by personal gain that too many believe this life is a competition with other human beings. They hurtle themselves towards a self-imposed finishing line never truly stopping to appreciate the beauty of the world rushing past them. People whom see other people’s failures and setbacks as fuel to their self-importance fire. Don’t get me wrong a person with drive and ambition to accomplish their goals is an amazing thing to witness in a world that wants to beat your dreams out of you with financial stipulation and a swift drop kick to your dignity. It’s the people who use their job title or social standing to place themselves on a pedestal and believe that they are somehow more important than anyone else.

No single person on this planet is above anyone else. These people create titles and roles for themselves to boost their ego, to inflate an already grotesque large head and add more divinity to a god complex well established they believe themselves beyond the realms of mere mortals. It’s this illusion of importance that leads to cultural divides. Leads people to think less of themselves because they don’t have some sort of combination of letters at the end of their names or a house with more rooms than an eight storey game of Cluedo. It becomes a race of material possessions. A glorified sense of emotional stability guaranteed by vast quantities of “stuff”. It’s with this wanton greed that creates such animosity between thrives of people. It strips them of their very humanity by emphasising a falsity of inanimate worship. Creating almost a religion out of materialism, an altar at the feet of gods of pointlessly fast cars and big screen televisions.

Smartphones have become more of a social status than mere hunks of plastic and microchips. A world where an apple logo on the back means your better than someone who just figured out to how to get polyphonic ringtones for his blockia. When your phone costs almost the equivalent of two months’ rent you might want to start reconsidering some priorities you’ve set in life. Look just because your phone can instantly identify that guy you saw in some movie today and couldn’t remember his name or can tell me the level or precipitation expected tomorrow doesn’t, make you some greater ensemble of blood and muscle. Just because you bought an overpriced mini computer and telephone marketed as a a smart phone doesn’t mean it affects your actual IQ. So if you people can stop acting like you’re an endless fountain of knowledge and usefulness just you have fast acting internet access in your front pocket that would be fantastic. We’ve become a world of smart phones and dumb people.

Technology has become such an ingrained part of the human experience that it has created a reliance on machines that has never been witnessed in natural history. This need for technology has helped humanity copy its possessions in small traits. They become inanimate objects. Just look around you and the evidence is a harsh reality. Watch any person or group of people 25 years old or below and you’ll see their mobile phone becomes almost an extension of them. At any moment’s notice instead of watching the world and life go on around them their heads slump in a dead pan stare to a flashing light emitting from rectangular piece of plastic. Observe any group of teenagers anywhere and you’ll see the only eye contact or acknowledgement they give each other is such a rapid and sparse affair that so rarely happens it becomes almost an extinct human trait.

As human beings we are slowly allowing technology to become our main communication tool with each other. We are severing our ties with each other on such an emotional human level that I sometimes fear that future generations will become so dependent on technology that social skills will develop in a more staggered way. It’s very hard to hear the emotion in words and phrases when there on a screen in front of you. People become less emotionally aware of others around them when they never see or hear the emotional and human side of humanity. I believe emotional development as well as core education staples should be important parts of education. With better communication and reasoning we could create more empathy and relationships with each other. And I think more than ever the world needs a sense of oneness and equality in order to help guide us all to further reaches in our humanity.

More than ever we as a species must finally look past the mere physical difference’s that have created divides and injustices in our society. These superficial attributes have caused so many lives to become obsolete and less important than others. We must pick each other up and move triumphantly into the future with love and compassion. We must cast aside the mental blocks society has thrust upon us. We must dismantle these illusions of importance and level out the playing field of humanity so that no person gets left behind and become lost to the sands of time. Our reliance on materialism and consumerism has helped us erect emotional barriers that we must tear down with kindness and love. This is an endeavour our entire species must make. Try every day to look at the human side of life. Next time you ask someone how they are go more in depth. Go beyond the regimented response of ignoring their reply almost immediately. Look into the soul behind the flesh and you’ll discover things you never knew. Bring light to a world that wants you to fade into darkness. Become the very thing we forget we are sometimes.

Be human. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s all we were born to be.

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
-Desmond Tutu