#hmbs

My mind operates like a heat-map. Imagine a kitchen island covered in clutter, like mine is most of the time. There are areas lit up in warm reds and bright white. These are the things I care about. The rest, if I’m being honest, is swathed in oblivious darkness. Your keys could be right next to mine, but I will have no idea. To add zesty layers of challenge: My memory is unreliable, my imagination too powerful.  I can picture the keys there as vividly as I can picture them not; I will have no way to know and a history of being wrong.

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One year in my twenties, my best friend and I resolved to celebrate every holiday. We did. We often bucked tradition (like how on Palm Sunday I taught myself rudimentary palm reading) but we tried to do something. We were often inclusive of other cultures, we were irreverent all over the place, and, when the calendar got particularly crowded, we skipped holidays here and there (we passed over Passover). I can say without hesitation, this year was one of the best of my life.

This year, I’m adapting the resolution and trying again: I’m going to contact this friend on every holiday. I’m intending to celebrate in some small way as well, but the important part is spending more time connecting with her. She lives far away, and I have developed an aversion to long distance communication (or reaching out at all) and this is a tendency I want to squash. It is incredibly isolating and self-defeating. Begone.

I am in the midst of exploring the following concepts:

1. The world and the people in it will move on, every day, whether or not I am alive.

2. I am a single soul among billions, and that is just among those alive today.

I’m curious, reader: do these make you feel insignificant? Hopeless? When you read it, did you instinctively rebel, just a little?

If you felt sad or helpless, I don’t believe you need to. If you felt the rebellion, I'll just say this: good.

Because no matter how accurate those ideas are-- and I feel safe to say they’re actually much more fact than mere opinion-  I believe these are true as well:

 I am alive NOW. The world is improved every day because I am here to contribute, even if I try and fail, even if the results are imperceptible.

I am a unique soul, and my Self is the greatest gift from whatever allowed it to be so.

The person I want to be can be the person I can choose to be every day.  

The person I want to be is made up of all of my good and bad qualities, and I get to decide the proportions.

I can look at my qualities with a loving, honest eye and decide who I do NOT want to be.

I can’t make myself be a person I am not without losing energy and lying to somebody, even if that somebody is myself. Stop trying.

Each belief I have may seem valid for now, but I can’t actually know for sure, ever, and that is okay. Beliefs can change and grow and adapt and be shed.

I see a meme all the time, in various forms and fonts and phrasing, but the message is always the same: “You are a special snowflake. Just like everyone else.” 

I think it’s meant to show that if everyone is unique, no one is. I think it’s supposed to remind people to get over themselves, or release their egos, or stop trying to be so goddamn special. 

I mainly agree-  I am no better or worse than you, despite our talents, privileges, outlook, or beliefs. My ego does not need somebody to tell it that I am pretty or smart or skilled enough. I don’t need to try to be special.

I am already unique.

Just like everyone else.

This is GOOD news.

I have been exploring these truths the hard way, and I have hurt many people in doing so. So reader, don’t be like me. Maybe we can learn together before the hopelessness, the helplessness, or whatever is holding you back gets in the way. Maybe it already did.  It doesn’t actually matter. Every moment is a chance to accept the past as over, to look at the future as attainable, and make a conscious decision to be the best YOU that you can be at this instant in time. 

Don’t be like me. You can't, anyway.  Be like you. YOUR you. 

Heavy Metal Bake Sale with Imminent Sonic Destruction

Imminent Sonic Destruction took heavy metal and added a bake sale to cook up a spectacular musical treat at the Token Lounge in Westland, Michigan.

The idea of a bake sale to raise funds for an upcoming concept album release has to be a novel idea. Imminent Sonic Destructiondid just that when they put together their heavy metal bake sale on Jan 25, 2015 featuring local metal and progressive rock…