𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚘, Hyunjin

6.

September 2023

In terms of music, I could listen to nearly all of it. My music wasn't subdued into one genre, and I liked to explore songs as if it were knowledge on the internet. If there was one thing to live for it was definitely for the ability to blast any type of music into my ears. The way the headphones fit snuggly around my ears made me feel more secure than anything.

Blasting through the headphone speakers could be anything that I was feeling that day. Arctic Monkeys was a good choice, I liked the way the guitars always sounded in their music. It would tickle my brain and completely distract me from the situation I wanted to escape from. Sometimes, I would listen to a completely different genre. Rap, R&B, or even blues. As long as it sounded good in a particular way, then it was good enough to be added to my playlists.

Sometimes it didn't even have to be a song with lyrics or voices. Piano pieces always captured my attention, and something about closing your eyes while the piano keys lead your imagination was magical. Many piano pieces always have such mystical names too. 

Solas. 

I didn't know what it meant, but to that musician, it meant something to them. To decide a name for such a beautiful piece of music, there must be a lot of pressure to find something that will give the right amount of 'hmmpft' to your work.

One of my favourite piano pieces is from a movie. Merry-Go-Round of Life, from a Studio Ghibli movie. Something about the piano and the tune reminded me of something. Something completely unknown. I had never felt the emotion when listening to a piece of music before. It was crafted so delicately, made by fingers which knew how to touch your heart. The violin complimented the rest of the music.

My soul felt good every time I listened to it, and it has never once failed to break me away from my breakdowns, and from scary social situations. I read that it made people feel nostalgic for something, but they never knew what. I rolled with the bandwagon and decided that it also made me nostalgic but I didn't know how that felt. I mainly liked to think of the characters from the movie.

Oh, to be Howl. A wizard with great power. A man without a heart, but regardless learnt how to love. He was such a complex character and I had to watch the movie a few times before realising everything. Howl was a man who had no heart, and yet, for his whole life, he was searching for the woman who had saved him from his curse. A woman who had loved him, Sophie. The movie showed me what love was when I was younger, and still to this day, I have yet to find my Sophie. Or my Howl.

"The useless seems to matter more and more

All my life is just something I can't ignore"

Those are the lyrics that belong to my favourite song at the minute, although it's hard to keep a favourite song when you hear new ones every day. Become the Warm Jets was a 5-minute song with an interesting instrumental, and there were only 3 verses of the song. The way it's sung is important to me, and I can't help but get distracted from life with the way the artist sings.

To escape life and the constant anxiety along with it, I listen to music every day. Days that swirl together into the same mush, much like today. Therapy, no matter how many times I attend, will never make me feel better. The nurses, the therapists, and everyone who pulls me into white rooms to 'talk' are all a bunch of qualified people who talk utter nonsense majority of the time.

They wear their white coats, or their badges with such pride in Korea. Helping people with their issues or their struggles is an honourable job, you are basically paid to listen to problems and use some type of neuro-science to sort them out. Yet, whenever I step into the blinding building with a bunch of colours and annoying children who are so obviously going to be diagnosed with ADHD, or the adults who sit there the same as me, being diagnosed with Depression.