Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Push by Sapphire

Although it was a painfully short read, I was so completely enthralled with the story that I finished it in one sitting. This book is without a doubt one of the most powerful books I have ever read. Its subject matter went far beyond popping anyone’s safety bubble, at least in my opinion. It was so raw, and harsh I often found myself thinking huh, what the hell was that only to have to reread a previous statement or paragraph. It was emotionally nerve wrecking to read, and really painted a picture of this poor unfortunate soul’s life. Much of the book centralized on her lack of intelligence and aptitude to “push” which culminated in perfect synchrony to the actual style of writing. The misuse and grammatical errors simply made the book that much more engaging to me. Although obscenely graphic at some points I felt it was used as a tool to give an overall tone to the book. Her level of detailed description, although crude and unpolished, invoked very deep feelings. It was hard to read some parts, yet at the same time I didn’t exactly want to stop. All of the sexual abuse was eerily fascinating in its own right. For someone to tell of such horrors is truly courageous. The difficult part to stomach was the knowledge that during her early years she didn’t have the mental resources to get her messages out there, only prolonging her internal suffering. I also found it a bit astounding to read something that was so unlike the norm when it comes to traditional text. I am always use to the big fancy words usage of well known authors that at times over embellish their writings to the point that their main points are shrouded, making them even harder to comprehend. With this book however, I found that her points were so easily conveyed even if at times I had difficulty reading this book, because of the way it was written. This book was very powerful and it made me think of just how terrible the lives of some people really are, that these people are really out there in the world, right under my nose.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Painful Lyrics

Well first of all I believe that most of the songs that would be categorized as containing so called painful lyrics are mostly ridiculous. To be perfectly honest I really find it distasteful for someone to pour their feelings out to the world like that. Various artists from every conceivable genre of music tend to do this at some point or another. When I turn on the radio to listen to the newest hit, lately it tends end up as me listening to some poor sap of either gender tell me about their tragic love lives or other various issues. Obviously the hit topic of painful lyrical music tends to be love. Now would someone please tell me why I would want to listen to someone carrying on like a baby about their pathetic love stricken lives? I truly don’t find any of it worthy to listen to. Even popular music with lively beats that should make someone wants to get up and dance end up being drowned out by someone’s story. Why does love in particular tend to generate such provocative music lyrics, when in my mind there are so many other things I would rather enjoy listening to. I am in love and I’m sure I will have my hardships just like everyone else; yet that doesn’t mean I believe that everyone else in the world would enjoy listening to whatever is plaguing my mind at the time regarding the subject. For some terrible reason we as a society enjoy listening to such ranting. Take Lincoln Park for instance; even I like most of their songs. However when I listen to “crawling in my skin” I can’t help but question their sanity as individuals. All they seem to do is confuse what is real, so how could their sanity possibly be intact. I think if any one of them would ever lay themselves down in front of a shrink they would find out some highly factual and interesting information regarding their mental stability. Most of the songs I have listened to contain various reasons such as cheating, divorce, and an array of other various relationship problems. Whenever I listen to any of these songs I can’t help but think in my head that’s great, I really couldn’t care less. Also we as a society enjoy this type of music because many of these problems coincide directly and reflect upon the problems of their own lives. However, in my opinion if I were that down in the dumps I wouldn’t want to have any outside factors influence my already saddened state of being. To me if I were to listen to such music while in that fragile state it would probably lead me to even deeper depths of despair. Sadly however this is the music that permeates through my ears as I listen to the radio. I believe that is one reason why our society is chock full of individuals that want to kill themselves or worse, hurt others. It is music like this that drives people to extremes. Whenever someone is constantly subjected to music of pain they in turn create an altered reality for themselves. It is as if they are being brainwashed. At least that’s my opinion. So until the music of today changes we will all simply turn into mindless fools that will be full of sadness and pain.