Back in 2018, I fell in love with TheFatRat's music when I heard "Monody" in a listicle video. It was both like nothing I'd ever heard before, but was also deeply familiar to me in a lot of ways. Over the years, I listened to more and more of his stuff, eventually reaching the point where I subscribed to his channel. Not everything was amazing of course, but ever single song was amazing, at least musically. Then 2021 came, and in late November he posted a (now unlisted) video announcing he was going to start selling NFTs.
I was, and still am, so angry at him for doing this. You can't tell me he didn't know that what he was doing was wrong. Despite this, it took me until the middle of April to unsubscribe from him.
Some people claim that it's possible, even morally just, to separate an artist's work from the artist who created it. I don't buy that. I've studied music history for years, so I know that art hasn't always been seen as a personal venture the way it is today, but I also can't pretend that I don't think that what Mozart, Bach or Wagner wrote wasn't a reflection of their views, at least in terms of what makes music good. So I'm not going to pretend I ever thought that my choice to continue listening to his music afterwards is anything but a reflection of my principles. But I kept at because, simply put, I loved his music. Music, to me, has always been a way to express my emotions about the world in a way that words often can't. I can't say his music was the most emotionally gripping for me, but it did help me express feelings I didn't even know I had.
I'm not subscribed to him anymore, and I don't plan on listening to any of his music. But I will say this, it's harder than you might think to break free from a favorite artist, even if you don't have a deep connection to them. It seems weird to say this, but his music was a part of my identity for a while, and turning away from him meant unbuilding and rebuilding a whole part of my personality. I don't even think I'm finished doing that yet. This is also something I'm not used to dealing with, most of the music I listen to was written by composers who died over one hundred years ago. I'm not used to having to decide between music I love and not supporting someone I think is horrible. This has been about deciding who I am and who I want to be as a person, and it's been the hardest fight I've ever had.
Disclaimer: I don't usually post poetry on days other than Monday, aside from the time I forgot to post "The Future" during the week chapter 7 of All the World's a Stage was released, but I've been feeling really depressed lately, and this poem fits my current mood.
A song by Ellen Thomas
It must be said; when you're a writer, you run the risk of having your words reflect the reality of what's happening in the world. I can't help but wonder if that's why so many people peddle conspiracy theories, you don't have to worry about being right.
I've been writing about the state of the world for about six months at this point. Mostly just to get my feeling on the page and to try to make my voice heard in whatever way I can. I've got poems about how the world is dying. I've got poems about how hard it is to believe in anything anymore. Most recently, I posted a poem about how everyone is trapped, and now we have to fight to get out. None of these poems were written based on facts, they were written based on what I saw and what I was feeling at the moment.
Now a billionaire just bought a social media platform so he can peddle his own beliefs without consequence, and the supreme court is in the process of repealing Roe v. Wade. I can't help but think our leaders have grown tired of trying to placate the masses, we keep demanding the same things, even thought they've made it clear they have no intention of listening to us. So now they're trying to destroy our sense of worth, pushing us down, making it clear we have no say in the world that we helped create.
I'm scared. I don't miss the old world, but I'm scared that our new one is going to be so much worse.
I'm still riding high off of publishing "A Glass House". I confess, though, part of me feels just a little bit bummed. Not that it's probably going to be very obscure, I always assumed nobody was going to wind up reading it. It just feels like this blog's been building up to the release of this poem for so long, I'm not sure where I want to take it from here.
I do know that I want to write more fiction. I've been telling stories ever since I was very young. My writing grew out of my tendency to daydream. I'm also not going to stop writing poetry. I hope I can come up with another poem that affects me the way this poem did. I want to get better. I want to write poetry that I genuinely think is great poetry. It's been my life's dream to be a writer, and now I feel like I've finally made it. Someday, I want people to read what I've written, and I hope I can impact the lives of other writers the way I was impacted by my favorite authors.
I don't know how it normally works for writers, but blogging for me has been driven by the desire to get people to listen to what I have to say. I've written for almost my whole life, mostly fiction, but this has been my first attempt to get my message out into the wider world. I want the world to know me, to see me for what I am. I want the whole world to read "A Glass House". It's the story of the world I saw in 2020-2021, a world of people who were desperate for anything, and an upper class determined to withhold all they could. I confess, I'd hoped it would be obsolete by now. I don't envy writers who words become truth, because people start to take everything you say as gospel. But that doesn't change the fact that I think people can be moved by my words. I'm not special, I know. In truth, some of my favorite words have come from authors who simply wanted to tell a story, and got at uncomfortable truths entirely by accident. Truth is odd like that.
Whatever the future holds, I hope the world breaks free from the glass house we've been trapped in for who knows how long. People hold certain inalienable rights, and among those rights is the right to speak and be heard, a right we deny to too many people. If this is supposed to be our world, then why do so many of us never get a chance change it directly? Why do we have to sit back and hope that whatever god we believe in listen's to us?
It's time for the world to change. Too long we've been trapped in darkness, hoping that tomorrow things will be better. It's time to do more than simply wait for the dawn of a new day.