The Sensualist

Well, I just had one of the best moments of my entire life - one I will remember forever. It was one of those moments where your emotions and nature conspire together to create perfection.

I was driving home from my parents' house (celebrating my mom's birthday - happy birthday!) and it was raining fairly hard, but there was intense lightning. I just so happened to have Muse's latest CD, The 2nd Law playing, and I decided to pump up the volume to the point of almost being painful (which is how Muse should be listened to).

As I drove down the freeway the music and the lightning together evoked electricity within me. My blood sang.

Let me pause here for a moment to explain the title of this blog entry. "The Sensualist" is a victim type according to Robert Greene's The Art of Seduction, which is a very useful psychological study on what attracts people to each other. Here is a synopsis of a Sensualist:

What marks these types is not their love of pleasure
but their overactive senses. Sometimes they show this quality in their
appearance—their interest in fashion, color, style. But sometimes it is
more subtle: because they are so sensitive, they are often quite shy, and
they will shrink from standing out or being flamboyant. You will recognize them by how responsive they are to their environment, how they
cannot stand a room without sunlight, are depressed by certain colors, or
excited by certain smells. They happen to live in a culture that deemphasizes
sensual experience (except perhaps for the sense of sight). And so
what the Sensualist lacks is precisely enough sensual experiences to appreciate and relish.

I am a Sensualist.

So here I am driving in my car, Muse on really loud, playing "Follow Me." There is a moment in the song when the drum syncopates and the bass drops into dubstep, and at that moment, lightning flashed across the sky.

This is what happened to me:



But seriously, it was an Herbal Essences moment. I was hyperventilating and screaming "yes" over and over. Hahaha. I know it sounds crazy, but this really happened in real life!! And then it happened again on the second chorus!!! I was ecstatic.

The song is really incredible for those who are still skeptical of my enthusiasm. My soul breached another realm where there is no difference between fantasy and reality, and I was sent back to earth to tell you all, MAGIC HAPPENS. It may be just a flicker in your ordinary days, but if you look for it, you will find it.

I am SO IN LOVE with life!!! Here's the song; it is absolutely brilliant.

My Soul Purpose

This post is inspired by Glee and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and of course LDS general conference.

I saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower yesterday, and I found it to be a very touching movie. I wouldn't recommend if for everyone, but if you're like me and you enjoy stories where people face (and sometimes conquer, but sometimes don't conquer) the harsh realities of life, especially growing up, I would highly recommend it.

It touched me for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I related so strongly to the main character. Fortunately, I wasn't abused as a kid; I grew up in a very stable, loving home and my parents still love and support me, all my sisters, and each other. I consider myself extremely lucky for that. Nor did my friends in high school drug me for entertainment (although some of them wanted to). But Charlie said a line in there that struck me like playing the harp with my veins. It was something like: Do you ever feel like if you really shared what was in your head, everyone around you would think you're crazy?

Like I said, I lived a normal, happy childhood (well, considering I wasn't really a normal kid), but once I became a teenager, I started experiencing things that were hard, and dark. Maybe my friends haven't shared everything with me, but in comparing experiences back then, and with friends I have now, of middle school and high school, I kinda think a lot of the things I experienced were outside of the normal range of growing up, finding yourself, dealing-with-hormones-and-feelings-you've-never-had-before experiences.

When I was in high school, I was obsessed with someone, just one person, understanding me and where I was coming from. So much so that I poured my heart out to so many people, most of whom didn't really care or honestly couldn't relate. I don't blame any of them, and quite honestly, wouldn't be surprised if everyone who went to high school with me thinks I'm completely crazy, including the ones I'm still in contact with (and thank you, for sticking around). When I finally realized that I was making things worse for myself, I stopped sharing so much, and started feeling like a normal person.

But Kelly Clarkson's song "Dark Side" put a bolt through my heart. I know, and have known, everyone has a dark side. Still I've refused to believe that anyone's is like mine. Some are certainly worse. Some are comparatively trivial. But the song opened up to me the possibility of finally letting someone back in.

Glee has often struck chords within me, addressing the challenges teenagers face in so many decisions that they are not well-equipped to make, and reminding me of the decisions I've made, and also giving me a little motivation to follow my dreams (yeah, it's cheesy, but everything about Glee is, so deal with it). In the episode I caught up on tonight, Rachel gives this speech to Finn about how he was her first love. And once again, the chords in my heart sang. My first love, he did all those things for me that Rachel said Finn did for her: made her feel visible, and sexy, and loved. And if he could do that once, when we were 17, as the only person who knew (and still knows) the depth and breadth of my dark side, I can trust and have faith that someone else can do that again. If he reads this, I want to thank him, for being the only man who ever understood me. And I hope he remembers that I will always love him.

But that's not the point of this post. The point is that I have a dark side, but I have worked hard and long to tame and control it, and it doesn't rule me. It doesn't drive me. Now it's there to remind me of my soul purpose: to do whatever I can to prevent others from feeling small, helpless, or unlovable. I'm nowhere near perfect at it, but I am going to do something every day for the rest of my life to work at it.

This song feels right at the moment. Wonderful track from Muse's new album The 2nd Law (out last Tuesday, shameless plug to check it out because it will shift your music paradigm), sung by the bassist Chris Wolstenholme. It's called "Save Me."

To conclude, I have to give credit for everything to my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. They made me who I am, good and dark, and I love every bit of where I've been to get me here. And the only reason I know I'll survive the rest of the future is through Them and Their plan. I know I have a long journey ahead, but I've learned that as long as I keep moving my legs, They will make sure my foot falls in the right place. This weekend I was reminded of that so many times, so with renewed conviction, I'm following my dreams and fulfilling my soul purpose.

Muse. In Concert.

Jill and I getting very excited!

The intro.

Awesome lights during "New Born" (Also used in "Undisclosed Desires)

Big Brother's eyes fall from the ceiling during "Plug-In Baby"

Either "The United States of Eurasia" of "Exogenesis Symphony I"

"Knights of Cydonia"

This is how I feel about Muse.

The Muse concert was SO AMAZING!!!!!!! They opened with "Uprising" and then "Resistance." Then "Newborn" which was a total surprise (because it's one of their oldest songs). The lights and special effects were incredible. They had three skyscrapers on stage and they started playing and people started marching up the skycrapers and then they fell down and Muse was inside (just as I predicted). They flashed the words two several songs across the skyscrapers, and the platforms raised and fell...they were really all over the stage and several times Matthew Bellamy slid on his knees with his guitar, just like a true rockstar (because he is). My favorite was the green lasers used during "Newborn" and "Undisclosed Desires." What I think I loved the most about the concert is that no time was wasted chatting with the audience. It was non-stop rock. Everything was phenomenal. "Hysteria" sent me into a hysteria. During "Time is Running Out" I really wished Miriam had been there to sing at the top of her lungs with me. I'm pretty sure it was at that point when my voice left me cracking. The only moment of disappointment didn't come from Muse, it came from all the girlish squeals that erupted from the pseudo-fans at the beginninng of "Supermassive Black Hole." But the entire audience singing the chorus for both "Time is Running Out" and "Plug-In Baby" (a definitely less-well known song of Muse's) completely made up for that. During the encore they played Exogenesis, Stockholm Syndrome, and Knights of Cydonia, three of my favorites. They were all my favorites, of course. *sigh*

My life is complete. If I died now, I would die happy. Perhaps not fulfilled, but happy. And I wouldn't mind at all.

I want to wear my Muse shirt forever. I want to be buried in it.

This is all litotes to how I really feel. How I really feel is beyond my capacity to capture. My heart is on the verge of rupturing at the thought that I actually saw Muse live in concert. Never have I felt such deep joy.

To understand what I felt, you would've had to see me clutching my heart and screaming and singing every lyric with every millimeter of breath I possessed.

Songs they played (so far as I can remember):
Uprising
Resistance
Newborn
Map of the Problematique
Supermassive Black Hole
Time is Running Out
Interlude
Hysteria
The United States of Eurasia
Feeling Good
Undisclosed Desires
Starlight
Unnatural Selection
Plug-In Baby
Exogenesis
Stockholm Syndrome
Knights of Cydonia