… or too much found his mind.
My grandma wrote this maybe a year or so after I was born. She said she was praying for each of her grandchildren and God gave her some words for each of us.
My always deconstructing Christian upbringing aside, I think about these words a lot. Somehow when my grandma looked down at a probably naked and crying one-year-old brown child, these words came to her mind, and she put them to paper unknowingly speaking into existence the central struggle of her grandson’s future life. His “strong mind” and “strong spirit” will often be broken and tired, those “obstacles and barriers” will always standing in his way. He’ll be often afraid. His “sweet and gentle spirit” will feel calloused and ready to throw in the towel. He won’t know how to relate to others often and will withdraw, hardly allowing the opportunity for people to be drawn to him. He’ll come to look cynically, and not even know (nor really care) what ministry means anymore.
The thing is, I think those words she wrote is someone I strive to move towards. Again, setting “kingdom” and “ministry” language aside, I see a Mirror of Erised type of thing with her prayer over my life.
Like the approach of an endless storm, sometimes I fear mental collapse on the horizon. It’s not like there are glaring indicators, but there are enough thoughts that creep up that could suggest it. There’s a weariness and a pessimism that trickles in often, and in my worst moments, there is a sense of absolute nihilism and a strong belief that there will be perpetual strife and unredeemable hardship for the rest of my life.
I don’t think I’m on the edge of the precipice, but I feel a breeze coming in from the distance.
For the past few years I’ve definitely felt an isolation in this part of my journey, namely, my entire journey, but the past couple weeks have given me a companion that I am way too entirely blessed to have: mewithoutYou’s latest album, [Untitled].
(from here on out, I’ll weave applicable quotes from the record in with my dialogue on this topic, the quotes will be italicized.)
They say he lost his mind, or too much found his mind.
I’ve been on a very intense and sincere inner journey for the better part of the past five or six years and while it has given me a depth and a sense of purpose, it has also brought innumerable moments of hopelessness, isolation, and ultimately a sense of suffering. The more I’ve discovered of my own mind, the more I fear it’s inevitable collapse. Aaron Weiss, the frontman for mewithoutYou, has been alluding to (and outright naming) his struggles with the very same thing on this last record (and accompanying EP). They were already my favorite band, but at this point, this record has become an indispensable companion to me.
To drown in doubts the future needs us if by chance it should arrive.
In absolute honesty (no red-flags here, just transparency), taking my own life was never really on the table. That being said, I really, deeply, understood why people decide to take their own lives. I perpetually feel a weariness under my skin and behind my eyes that I can’t explain, and the thought of it never leaving is scary. Aaron’s phrasing right here is filled with exasperation and a frantic sense of reaching out while partially being resigned to the cold indifference of the universe. The future is a paradoxical thing because our decisions and our choices right now could seemingly have an effect, or at least prepare us, for what is to come, but at the same time, the future doesn’t even exist. The “by chance” portion of this lyric is what gets me — it articulates perfectly my feelings towards the future.
Have I established a pattern, perhaps a bi-annual mental collapse? And is every day a thousand years for anyone with ears to hear?
Cycles and patterns are maddening, but they are an intrinsic part of nature. Why should our temperament and inner life be any different? This doesn’t give me any solace, in fact, it provides a lot of unrest in my mind, but it’s worth thinking about. Like Fall turning into Winter, I go from equanimity to lifelessness and isolation (but where is Spring?).
Michael, won’t you row that boat ashore? Your little brother can’t paddle anymore.
When I really parsed through what these lines were about, I was genuinely destroyed for a couple of days. Michael references Aaron’s brother, and the entire song which this belongs in, aptly titled Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore, is the most chaotic/unsettling/unhinged song mewithoutYou has ever written. It talks pretty much exclusively in cryptic language about Aaron’s fear of mental collapse, and how he leans heavily on his brother to carry him forward, while the music accompanying him is layered dissonance, walls of sound colliding into each other. It’s heartbreaking, harrowing, and the most genuine portrait I’ve seen (um, heard) of a person in resigned despair and wrought with visceral fear. It shakes me to my core, because I feel it all.
I’ve got a few Michaels in my life that I’ve asked to row for me before. They’ve gotten me safely across the waters of circumstance, but when I look back, those waves weren’t as dangerous as I thought they were. When I turn my attention forward, though, I see the oncoming storm. I see how much more violent and relentless the waves to come will be, and I don’t know how to ask someone to sit in the boat with me to paddle. It feels like it’s my burden to bear alone, and even if I ask for help, I don’t know if the help I receive is going to get me/us safely ashore. This is what fear really is.
Someday, I’ll find me.
The record ends with an existential longing, albeit an optimistic one. Aaron sings it in a tired voice, I say it in a tired voice.
Someday my restful body won’t fear itself. Someday.
Someday, I’ll find me.
