I can't decide if music pulls me out of a slump or kicks me further into one.
As I sat in my bed earlier thinking about things (Calculus, mainly. Being a math major, I don't have the time not to think about Calculus), a group of alpha males started up an intense game of throwing-a-football-at-regular-intervals-in-easily-catchable-trajectories in the courtyard outside my dorm. All of that throwing, catching, and (not) moving and tackling must have shot up the testosterone in their system and this game of catch quickly turned into a game of catch-and-yell-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-so-as-to-disturb-people-who-actually-have-finals-to-study-for-you-inconsiderate-bastards. Either jealous because the Calculus test I was studying for was obviously much more demanding than their Intro to Reading Five-Plus Letter Words class, or because the opening strains of their symphony of grunts of spontaneous hollers didn't quite align with my musical tastes, I turned on some music.
Not wanting to favor any one song over another, I always start my excursion through my iPod by hitting Shuffle and just letting chance be my entertainer for the evening. The first song that came up was the song Glorious by Muse, a real gem of a B-side that should've ended up on the album, but that's not what this post is about (nor is the little football game earlier). Once I was able to identify the song, a familiar thought crossed my mind: I just know this song is going to depress the hell out of me...it always does. But, seeing as my iHome was twelve whole inches behind my head (that's over thirty centimeters, mind you), I decided to eschew being proactive for reasons unknown to me. Sure enough, the sound trickling in through my ears just settled as a dense mass in my chest and was converted into some chemical that makes you sigh a lot, apparently.
Now, I've been blindly navigating life through this unceasing and dense fog of gloom and worthlessness for a time that would make Eeyore call me a real killjoy, so adding a song like this on top of all of that really just caused things to retrograde. The weird thing is that I couldn't (and still can't) definitively explain what it was about the song that caused me to feel that way. Maybe the song had the potential to cheer me up, but I felt that wallowing in my own mess of self-pity was just the best thing to do. In retrospect, it made about as much sense as choosing not to jump out of the way of a speeding car because you think, "Gee, this broken tailbone and collapsed chest will be a great icebreaker for that social tomorrow."
Even though I had heard the song several times in the past, one line stood out among the rest as startlingly more positive (and relevant...Muse is still in their "conspiracy theory" stage). At the end of the second verse, as I was preparing for the big emotional release of the second chorus, Mr. Bellamy mumbled out "Don't close the doooooooooor on what yooouuu aaaddoooooorrreee...." It was in the midst of this dark shadow within an already-dark domain that I found a single particle of light that shone brighter than it ever would have in a world of ease and more general happiness. Don't close the door on what you adore. It took this British man whose credentials in psychiatry are very well in question to push me deeper in this twilight ocean so that I could find the tiniest semblance of light lying at the bottom. A single phrase lasting no more than seven seconds was the hidden treasure all along, and it was quite a journey getting there. I may know that my journey as a whole in this trying time isn't over, but at least I have this guiding light to light my way through whatever other ravines and trenches my circumstances have laid out for me. And even though I can only hope that the reign of these adverse circumstances is nearing its end, at least I know that there are little drops of light scattered in the most unlikely of places with the distinct purpose of leading me through these trying times.
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