man fuck profs that are shitty to students

Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race myself, bitch.

James Joyce -- Ulysses (with some much needed editing)

I haven’t written here in a long time. In fact, after this post, I don’t really see myself writing here every again-- and no, before any of you (if there is, in fact, any one who will see this) jump to conclusions, this isn’t some kind of weird suicide note, or plea for help. What this is, is a sort of manifesto, or a summation, of everything that I’ve felt, and am feeling at the moment, and in a way, hopefully, purging myself of these feelings forever. It’s a goodbye, but also a new opportunity. A creation, as well as a destruction. A final litany of things that I have to say, or wanted to say, and a final exorcism of numerous antagonistic little ghosts that have been rattling around in my head for God knows how long. 

I’ve always been struck by the concept of a sort of Joycean paralysis. Maybe because it’s true-- that Irish people are, in a weird way, struck with a sort of deep, abiding, spiritual malaise, a psychological and emotional paralysis, as a sort of weird, post-colonial hangover-- or maybe because it simply hits too close to home. The narrative of a sort of genealogical, archaeological torpor is one that is all too easy to believe, because it is something that I have experienced quiet viscerally throughout my entire life, but also in a way that is difficult to articulate. The sense that you’re fundamentally at odds with the world around you because of some fundamental, spiritual displacement resulting from years (centuries?) of imperialistic and religious abuse isn’t something that goes well over dinner, after all-- especially when dinner is a hurriedly bought Burger King and the sound of mopeds careening up and down the Cardiffsbridge Road muffles the sound of Coronation Street on the television. 

But it’s a feeling that has stuck with me so long. Longer than I can really remember. This sense of being held back. By myself, by the world around me, by the people around me. Dreams of leaving, of emigrating, have been a consistent fantasy of mine. Occasional spurts of creative writing have always been characterized by the theme of a departure, whether through the realm of some childish Tolkien-esque fantasy or through a plane ticket that randomly fell into the protagonist’s (read: my) lap. That feeling of momentary, ontological vertigo, when the plane leaves the ground and you can feel yourself lifted in that miniature pocket of zero-gravity, is a sensation that I’ve craved and chased (either literally, or figuratively) whenever possible, with varying degrees of success. I even had, at one point, a bit of a miniature breakdown (you know those ones, where they creep up on you, where you have this vague sense that at any minute things are just going to collapse all around you, and nothing will ever be the same) and I started doing some pretty illegal things to get money (fill in the blanks there however you wish) in order to essentially run away, get a plane ticket to somewhere, and just start afresh. But that did crash down, either way-- I started having some viscerally severe panic attacks; I felt like I was going to be trapped here, forever, that I was going to die here, that all the dreams and aspirations I had of doing something worth while were just gonna be swallowed up the dull, plot-less relentlessness with which life here seemed to drive itself--arguably into the ground. I attended counselling, got a professional, objective perspective, and was able to get to grips with things. The anxiety stopped. The borderline insane drive to escape was lulled, and while the gnawing sense of there being a sort of hole, at the center of everything, dissipated, it didn’t quite disappear. I was, once again, able to manage, and plod right along. 

Over time, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my sense of malaise is not, in fact, the result of some kind of literarily prescribed sense of paralysis-- or, at least, not entirely. It is the result of years, perhaps arguably even decades, of mistreatment. By a family and a home that is so deeply dysfunctional that it is, legitimately, tragic. By an early upbringing so neglected and isolated that, to look back and take an earnest look, is genuinely pathetic. By a mindset and by people who see who I am and see something to laugh at. I’ve slowly come to terms with the fact that my family have never quite seen me seriously, as someone incompetent, flowery, soft, and not worth paying attention to. Years, again, potentially decades of subtle gaslighting, invalidation, negation, criticism, patronizing, condescension-- all compounded by shitty, so-called friends, who were all too happy to take advantage of my desire to please and turn it around on me-- had resulted in a person who had so much self-doubt, such a negative self-image, such a horrible sense of failure that, to further disappoint, would result in self-harm. Decades of having my life dictated to me, taking up responsibility and accepting the burden of my family’s terrible choices, of having my potential and my opportunities circumscribes by what seems to be the endlessly unfolding soap opera of my extended family’s self-inflicted pain.  And the worst part is that I simply thought all of this was normal. The concept of Joycean paralysis was able to help me understand, in a vague sense, what was really wrong, but only hindered me in truly understanding its origin.

I worry that if I go on like this I’ll only end up sounding like some kind of serially self-pitying asshole, one of those people that advertises their personal trauma and tragedy as a means to win the Sadsack Olympics, or obtain sympathy, or blame their lack of success and fulfillment on their past. But in the end, that isn’t what this is about. That isn’t the reason why I’m writing this post. In fact, the reason why I am writing this is far more joyous, written with a deep smile spreading across my face. I’ve spent my entire life orientating around myself around other people, of pleasing other people, and I’ve gotten very, very good at figuring out what is that people want, and giving it to them. What I’ve learned, an what I’ve finally gotten the balls to do, is do what I want. I’ve learned to say no. I’ve learned to pursue what I want, to accrue self-confidence, self-love, self-esteem. I’ve learned to deny people, to put myself first, and tell people who need to be told what for. I’ve learned that to be “good” is to give in, to do as I’ve told and take it all on the chin, and I’ve learned that to be “bad” is to pursue what I want, and to rebel. And, fundamentally, I’ve learned that when I am good, I am very, very good, but when I am bad I am FUCKING FIERCE. 

So I am leaving. In fact, I’ve been planning on leaving for quite some time now. Since March, roughly. I am moving to the U.K, getting away from this place, to spend time with people who I have chosen to spend my time with, that I have build up relationships purely of my own choosing and initiative, and whom I trust. To build a life that I choose to build, for myself, and shirking off as much of the trauma, pain, insecurities and self-doubt as I can. Psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan believed that the core motivating force in all human behavior was anxiety, and not just anxiety, but the creative and ornate ways we go about avoiding or managing it. According to him, a personality was simply a collection of habits and strategies people gathered over time to “avoid or minimize anxiety, ward off disapproval, and maintain self-esteem.” What I’ve learned, personally, is the sheer liberating power of identifying and deconstructing the aspects of my own psychology that are life-limiting, and taking great joy in completely and utterly destroying the ones that are build up anxious defense mechanisms. I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t scary, because when these mechanisms fall I’ll be thrust, head first, into facing the things I am most deeply afraid of—social rejection and abandonment, unworthiness and failure, unlovability and isolation, to name a few. But it is liberating because I’ve come to realize that, yes, our defenses serve a function, but no, we don’t actually need all of them to survive-- and then, suddenly, an entirely new life is possible. I’ve come to realize that I actually CAN tolerate anxiety; I CAN live with not being liked, I CAN be misunderstood, I CAN make mistakes, I CAN feel bad. And let me tell you, it is a relief. God is sometimes understood as a creator, but he can also be understood as a destroy-- And I am choosing to be the God of my own goddamn life, and taking great pleasure in destroying that which I don’t like.

I’ve ended up prescribing some great, symbolic significance to the act of me leaving. It is me righteously striking back at all the things that had made me hate myself in the past, because they couldn’t simply tolerate hating themselves and needed to destroy me in order to feel better. And so, to them, I say: 

Fuck my family, who have done nothing to actually foster and cultivate who I am as a human being

Fuck the people who have turned my own kindness against me and made me doubt myself

Fuck the people who have made me feel as though my command of words is a weakness-- I am a fucking fantastic writer, and I dare any of those people to challenge me, because I’ll write them into the fucking ground. 

Fuck the people who made me doubt my intelligence; I am more than smart enough to figure things out for myself and smart enough, at least now, to see them for the self-hating, jealous troglodytes they are.

Fuck this place that has made me feel that who I am is wrong, and lesser, and subordinate-- I am worthy, and powerful, and capable.

Fuck this country, and its backwards, stagnant, repressive culture

FUCK

YOU

And that’s it. There’s my gigantic, theatrical display of radical self-acceptance. In a way, what I want to do is leave, and never come back. To delete all my social media, and start afresh. But I know that’s not realistic. I know I have to tether myself to “home”, as much as I disagree with the idea this place is truly home. I will say this, however-- there are parts of my experience here, and my life thus far, that have been wonderful. I’ve got a handful of genuinely fantastic friends, and I’ve forged some very important memories with them. To burn those bridges would be unforgivable, and I would never be able to do that to them. 

It’s 2:16am. I was already exhausted but I had to write this and get it all off my chest. But this is it-- me signing off, forever. Let this be a testament to everything I want to be, an will be, from here on out. 

-Ian.

about characters in steven universe being put “on hold”

personally, the “open” plotlines is something i really enjoy about SU. 

i'm glad it’s not cookie-cutter "a character is introduced, an arc happens, then resolved. that’s how people work. then the Gang(tm) are Friends. the status quo is Happy. side characters give you nothing to yearn for, because their arcs are already resolved".

the thing is, SU makes the world feel more emotional and connected. they don’t “close the book” on characters after they’ve had the spotlight once. 

the status quo isn’t happy - it builds discomfort and miscommunication over time until it reaches a boiling point. the drama that arise from that is something the writing cares about. it trusts you to notice character flaws and wants you to yearn for them to be addressed. 

in other words - there are character reasons to keep watching, rather than just plot reasons. 

this show teases and builds very effectively. without hiatuses, it flows nicely to either bingewatch, or watch once a week. 

it uses its time to move characters to a place where they have enough information and development to deal with situations when they pop back up... i say “back” because often, in storytelling, there’s a time to introduce a character, but it may not mean it’s the right time to fully develop them. 

to use a popular example: bismuth. 

back during the summer of steven, neither steven (nor the crystal gems) had enough information or development to truly challenge rose. it was a moment of shock and doubt for steven, but with everything going on, i believe this would not have been the best time to "keep” bismuth and give her an arc. 

what we needed first, were five things (thus far): 

1: in “bismuth”, we get introduced to a nuanced character, with faults and an interesting perspective, a rockin’ theme and design, as well as an agonizing dilemma that steven wasn’t prepared to deal with. he was still at a point where the only way he felt comfortable challenging rose was through telling the other crystal gems what she did... and it’s important to give bismuth an introductory episode before doing anything else. for the audience’s sake. i often find it annoying if a character is introduced only to immediately be given all the focus. i find it more interesting to be like “so, here’s a person... but we’re gonna be restrained enough to make you yearn for them”.

2: in “earthlings”, after bringing up the issue of whether shattering a diamond is a good idea, we see the consequences of that. that little idea of bismuth’s? it did happen. it did not drive pink’s surviving gems towards freedom, but to mourning and revenge. seeing jasper would be something of a nightmareish thing for bismuth, because she’d be confronted with how her idea could impact those she wants to liberate, and how the crystal gems objectified and traumatized literal child soldiers who didn’t have a choice.

3: in “mindful education”, after going through some more trauma, steven feels incredibly guilty towards bismuth, jasper, the rubies... and most of all, his failure to live up to rose. 

at this point, he’s at a point of panic. he doesn’t know what to do, and needs coping strategies for his guilt and anxiety. to me, it’s very much understandable that he tries to bury these feelings; he feels too incompetent to try to help anyone. after confronting those feelings, with connie’s help, he starts rebuilding himself by helping with smaller human conflicts.... and realizing he needs more information to confront gem stuff.

4: in “storm in the room”, steven has a debate with himself about what he wants rose to be, versus who she really is. in it, he acknowledges how hypocritical it seems to bubble bismuth, not tell anyone, and maybe even shatter a diamond herself. this is something rebecca sugar herself has also called a huge mistake of rose’s, in case you thought you were supposed to be happy with that. the show’s pretty openly saying no, you’re not. keep watching. 

that confrontation mellowed out, but it left steven accepting that he’s not ok with things as they are. he has to deal with the mess rose left behind.

5: in “i am my mom”, we see an even more radical steven: he makes a decision that, albeit self-sacrificial, goes directly against what rose would have wanted. at that point, he acknowledges that himself “she wouldn’t have wanted this... but i do”. he’s been pushed to a point where he can no longer be in rose’s shadow. he wants to deal with her problems, but he does not want to be her. 

so... where am i going with this? i’m trying to illustrate that, as steven develops, it puts him (and the other characters) in a place where they can deal with situations coming from a better place - with an understanding that helps them confront problems head-on, instead of shelving/panicking/not knowing what to do about them. 

lars is another great example of this

so after lars is left in space in “lars’ head”, we go back to earth to confront some other stuff. i’ve seen people questioning the legitimacy of this, but i would argue that this is hugely important, from a narrative perspective, so that steven can help lars later. 

there’s been little room for steven to breathe and think about what he wants to do next. upon his return, his closest friendship (connie) is threatened, so naturally, he gets absorbed in that. then, the gems take him on a vacation to help him work through things... he can’t get his mind off connie, but he’s given support and is able to have a nice night. then lapis leaves, in part because people wanted to believe she was fine and ignored the darkness within... then, he helps peridot, and it helps reminds them both that there are other meaningful relationships in their lives... finally, he’s ready to make up with connie. then, with her support, he feels ready to tackle lars.

and this all matters because steven and connie helping lars “snap out of it” regarding sadie was a strong parallel to what they’d just experienced: 

you can hurt loved ones without meaning to. you might need time to yourself after that, but you still care. you may do things that accidentally hurt them because something else matters more, but it’s not out of malice. 

communication and trust can overcome the urge to assume the worst: steven wasn’t trying to hurt connie by sacrificing himself. connie wasn’t trying to hurt steven by taking time to sort out her feelings. sadie wasn’t trying to “get back” at lars by moving on. lars isn’t trying to hurt sadie by helping his new friends escape to earth.

these kinds of character-driven connections and developments, borne from understanding and communication, are at the heart of what the show is. 

i fully believe the show will bring back all the characters you’re worried about, given time and seasons. the same applies to other open plot threads... when it’s time. when it’s ready. why wouldn’t they? when peridot mentioned the cluster in jailbreak, i saw no reason to be up in arms that that wasn’t next on the agenda. it was a mystery addressed in due time: given time to be built up properly, connected with character arcs and interwoven into the larger story.

steven universe cares deeply about continuity. it is consequently careful about what they plant and how they use payoff - they may leave you hanging, but it’s usually for good reason. it’s certainly never forever. 

we’re either gonna title this “i promised @herowndeliverance several fic ideas and i managed to produce One” OR “the aegis-verse version of conservatory au.” take your pick.

"For God's sake, Jo, can't you have an emotion for once in your life? It's Saint-Saens, not Mendelssohn."

Alex stalks over to the second piano, where Josephine Reed looks like she would rather sight-read Beethoven’s piano sonatas in front of a full house in Carnegie Hall than deal with this upstart. Flipping through her score, he jabs at the section where he stopped them. "You have the melody there, it needs to reach - push it to the very end of the line." He plays it with his right hand, exaggerating the phrasing. "You can't let it fall flat, it has to have a tension or else no one cares. Again, from the second theme."

He goes back to his bench and launches straight into the theme, from memory. Jo scrambles to catch him; she sounds the same, no changes to her part, and five measures in Alex makes a strangled noise.

"You see the problem," Adams tells George, from the relative safety of the audience. "She's my best grad student and he's still not satisfied."

"She does lack expression," George feels compelled to point out.

"He already turned down Tallmadge and Burnet, called them incompetent. To their faces. And in an e-mail to me. Would you like to see it?"

George would not. Adams shows him anyway. It's scathing and unprofessional, but also not wrong. George has heard both pianists at juries, and Alex summarized their weak points rather eloquently. The kid has the rare ability to hear when something is wrong with a performance and articulate exactly what it is - he could be an excellent teacher, if he ever learns to control his mouth.

Case in point: he’s abandoned his piano to conduct Jo through her part, calling out directions to her as he goes.

Adams sighs. "Why don't you pair him with one of your students?"

"He won't work well with them." An understatement. Alex flat-out refused when George suggested Tench as his accompanist for the Kings Concerto Competition, and Meade declared his intention to enter just to avoid being partnered with Hamilton. (George didn’t bother considering McHenry, given the number of times Alex had made him breakdown during masterclass.) "You're head of the collaborative piano department, I thought you might find someone suited."

Adams gives him a skeptical look. "You spoil the kid."

The comment makes George's stomach twist. Does he know? No, Adams would have filed a complaint to the Dean (his wife, incidentally) about nepotism and indiscretion if he suspected Alexander was George's son. An illegitimate child wouldn’t raise eyebrows in the music world, given the number of affairs and one-night stands that happened just in AMS conferences, but Alex’s acceptance to Kings and his place in the foremost studio might be construed as a conflict of interest. Besides, George would hate for him to find out his real parentage from a teacher he once called an "anti-charismatic embarrassment to the concept of live performance."

Onstage, Alex has begun a rant about the concept of genius and its application to lesser known composers.

"You should take Reed off the Saint-Saens," George tells Adams. "This is Hamilton on his best behavior."

"Who's going to accompany him? No one in Lee's studio is capable. Or patient enough."

It's his turn to sigh. George suspected it might come to this, back when Alex first applied for the competition last semester, but that doesn't make it easier to say. "I'll do it."

***

George waits until their lesson the next day to tell Hamilton. He bursts into George’s office ten minutes early, as usual, the black binder containing his concerto score cradled to his chest like a child. Before he’s even seated, Alex declares, "I don't want Reed."

George holds up a hand before the kid can launch into a three point argument about why she’s a bad accompanist. "I already told Adams."

Alex leans forward on the piano bench, all his weight on his toes like a lightweight boxer. “Then who’s next?”

"I'm going to be your accompanist."

"...What?"

“Given the issues with your peers, I thought it might be better for you to work with an experienced performer, and since you have a habit of antagonizing the other piano teachers, I was the only option.”

Alex wrinkles his nose. "With all due respect, sir -” and that is a sign the next thing out of his mouth will be disrespectful  “- you and I are nothing alike."

"Excuse me?”

"In temperament, yes, but I mean in terms of style. You don’t even perform -”

"I think I can handle it," George interrupts. His self-control is legendary at Kings - Greene jokes that he's a living marble statue - but Alexander has a gift for pushing limits. "Did you know I performed it on a tour, back in my twenties?" Back when I met your mother, he wants to say, but that admission lodges in his throat, the weight of memory too hard to swallow.

Alex’s eyes narrow. "It's not on your rep list.”

Of course Hamilton memorized the concert list he keeps on his professional website. "I haven't played it since then," he admits, "but I could never forget it."

Alex considers him. It's not as though he has a choice, no one else in the piano department is willing to be paired with him; but then George wonders whether his hesitation isn’t a sign of something deeper, mistrust or a fear of failure. He really should let Martha talk to the kid, use her background in psychology to give him some insight.

Maybe after he explains they are related.

"All right, then.” Alex swings around to face the keyboard. "Let's see what you've got."

They start with the first movement. Alex explains his intention for the piece - “it’s bittersweet, but not sad, more… poignant” - and they do a run-through. Alex in a rehearsal is the same as Alex in a performance, as though he never stops being on, but up close it’s hard not to see Rachel in him, his eyes half-closed and lashes shadowed on his cheeks, his mouth parted like the opening cadenza is a divine revelation only he can hear. For once, George trusts in his technical abilities and tries to be in the moment. What did Rachel think about when she played? George never understood what it means to let go - each note is planned and polished to perfection, an exhausting labor to make up for his lack of natural talent, but one that has also garnered him countless awards and record deals.

He wonders, not for the first time, what it would be like to just feel the music.

After the run-through, they go over the movement again, experimenting with various tones and George making suggestions on technique. Alex scribbles notes in his score, already unreadable with pencil markings. Their lesson goes over by twenty-four minutes, a fact neither of them notices until McHenry ducks his head inside and asks whether this means his lesson is canceled. Alex scowls at him.

"I think this might work.” Alexander gathers his score, tucking his pencil into the knot of his bun. "See you next week, sir."

George can’t believe that collaborating with his own son for a competition might be the easiest part of their relationship.

Album of the Year #5: Bedwetter (Lil Ugly Mane) - volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present.

Album of the Year #5: Bedwetter (Lil Ugly Mane) - volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present.

Artist: Bedwetter (Lil Ugly Mane)

Album: volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present.

Label: Self-Released

Release Date: January 29, 2017

Listen:

YouTube

Spotify

Bandcamp

Apple Music

Background

Bedwetter is the latest pseudonym of Travis Miller, best known as Lil Ugly Mane. For a more extensive history of Miller and his work as Lil Ugly Mane before the release of this album, check out my /r/indieheads For Your Consideration write-up on Oblivion Access, as this background is going to mainly focus on what led to the release of his debut project under the Bedwetter album.

After releasing Oblivion Access in late 2015, Miller, as Lil Ugly Mane, formed the group Secret Circle with frequent collaborator Antwon and Wiki (of Ratking) in 2016 and the group has released a few singles, including “KEEP IT LOW”, “SATELLITE” ft. Despot and “Tube Socks”, since the formation of the group. The Bedwetter project was teased in December 2016 with this Facebook post and the release of the singles “selfish” and “stoop lights.”

Finally, volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present. was released on January 29, 2017 on the Lil Ugly Mane Bandcamp after a concerning post on Facebook that has since been taken down. A day after the release, Miller made a new statement on the Lil Ugly Mane Facebook page after receiving a few emails from people asking about the album and what led to its release. The statement is, as below:

I keep getting emails from people.

I wrote this the day before Bedwetter was recorded.

All i could do, all i can do is write poems and basically a polemic yelp review into the notepad on my phone.

what else can i do.

im not gonna get into my own shit on some specific level because fuck you, i dont know you. pay attention to yourself.

but i feel like this is the best way i can explain shit.

polemic yelp review of american heath care system:

"After a lifetime of avoiding this shit. Ignoring this shit. FInding myself confused.

After 3 months of sleeplessly, anxiously glaring into the eyes of an old monster that suddenly grew a new head.

3 months of forgetting who i was. What i was doing.

I knew something had to happen. I'd known this for a while.

I had been reaching out

Calling.

Emailing.

After continuous unsuccessful attempts for months to contact psychiatrists and doctors, I reluctantly checked into the hospital today.

I thought maybe i could get a much needed psych evaluation and hopefully receive some sort of treatment, perhaps even simply a referral and/or an appointment to go see somebody else who could provide that.

I didn't know what else to do.

What else are you supposed to do.

For six hours I sat nervously twitching and in a freezing waiting room.

Whimpering old men being completely overtaken by their Alzheimer's.

Vomiting children.

Bleeding Fingers.

Ugly loud sagging losers who were obviously constantly there.

Begging for attention with some new ailment and concern.

Their broken humilated spouse at their side.

I was anxious and horrified by the idea of a potential forced or even voluntary intake to a psychiatric facility.

Surrending my freedom.

Surrender of my routines.

After six hours of constantly reassuring myself I was doing the right thing, I was finally seen.

Led down a hallway into a bare concrete cell with a small bed in the center. Dim lights. scratches on the drab walls.

Grates in the floor to catch whatever bodily fluids they have to hose out of there.

One of the walls was one of those steel doors that the corner store pulls down at the end of the night.

Not sure what that was about.

Empty though.

A bed and a chair.

Somebody had carved "slipknot sucks" into the plastic bed that was bolted to the floor. Seems fitting.

You're the same, you're basically just a stupid fucking sad teenager right now. You're pathetic. Good luck getting better idiot.

I was given a gown and my belongings were inventoried and confiscated.

I sat and waited in my gown.

Eventually, Two skittish nurses and some community college educated social worker baby-talked their questions to me as a lurching police officer glared at me disgustedly over their shoulders.

I'd chosen to go in at a time where I was feeling okay so i would be fully able to articulate and describe the symptoms I was experiencing so I could potentially receive the most accurate treatment. I thought that made the most sense.

I didn't want to wait until I was in the midst of some anxious episode and having to hyperventilate my troubles out thru a salty humiliated fog. I thought that made the most sense.

I sat and calmy described my symptoms. I tried to convey how terrified i was. I tried to tell them i couldnt do it anymore.

This was received with a couple bored nods and sparse notes being jotted down on a clipboard.

Eventually i was hurried along and any complexity of my disease was all quickly reduced to two simple questions:

"Are you suicidal? Do you wanna hurt anyone else?"

No.

No I don't. I can't think of anything I wanna do less than die, I can't think of anything that frightens me or gives me more anxiety than the uncertainty of what happens when you die.

No.

No I don't actively want to hurt anyone, to be honest, the fact that I voluntarily came in here could be seen as an indication that I'm absolutely exhausted and desperate to stop hurting myself and everyone else by not confronting this shit for so long.

wrong answer.

I was discharged. handed back my clothes, given a xeroxed list of some websites about suicide prevention and a "feel better" or some other equally patronizing verbal pat on the back.

Back right where I started.

Nobody is gonna help me.

Our current mental healthcare system is absolute shit.

Absolute shit that absolutely incentivizes violence and self harm by categorizing it as the sole interpretation of "severity" worth treating.

By making the idea of treatment feel so utterly hopeless to people who already exist and drown in their hopelessness.

Fuck your resources. Fuck being understaffed. Fuck your stupid priorities. You're incompetent .

Here let me clear out some space for you. Free up some of your time. Empty some rooms.

On hurting yourself:

This is a complex issue, but to briefly put it, I believe a suicidal individual should not only be afforded that right, but after some legislatively decided period of time and therapy and education to ward off impulsiveness and melodrama, the same way they treat anybody undergoing assisted suicide. A process. they should be given a safe clean environment and chemicals to facilitate their decision, no matter the reasoning. grow up.

On hurting someone else:

This is not a complex issue. As far as recidivist violent degenerate squealing psychopaths...rabid dogs just need a bullet to the head.

I've read old yeller.

They dont care. Neither do I.

boo hoo.

Conversely:

lock them in a room and keep them safe.

Is this really that hard?

"Are you an immediate threat to yourself or others are you?"

How about instead of prioritizing that question we focus more on:

"Im so tired and exhausted of constantly hurting myself and everyone around me"

Be passing over someone like me, a person who, on their own volition, came to you for help. A person who desperately wants help. You are simply and plainly creating more and more and more people who will eventually be slobbering immediate threats to themselves and all of mankind.

It creates that understanding.

In an already fractured damaged mind it is an entirely reasonable assertion that you would potentially have to commit an act of violence against yourself or others just to receive treatment. even if you didn't want to.

even if that wasn't a real compulsion.

a last resort.

This system has a very real potential to turn people who voluntarily seek help, people who aren't yet completely overtaken by their illness, into violent suicidal monsters because you are dangling their own treatment on a string in front of them, scoffing at their pitiful attempt at recovery and demanding they need to do more.

"well shit, if you want help yr gonna have to try a lot harder than that buddy, haha, comeback after you snapped a random person's neck in a grocery store and cut off all the fingers on your left hand with some scissors, fucking poser".

I'll get better one day.

Not today.

Maybe I'll have fingers.

Maybe I won't."

thanks for the well wishes.

i'm fine.

i'm just angry.

i'm not the only person dealing with this and i've lived a full, somewhat interesting life.

i hate that you are dealing with this.

Review

I don’t really know where to begin with this. volume 1, since its release, has been an incredibly difficult album to listen to due the the background and the depressing lyrical content. This isn’t the first album of 2017 to bring out a similar reaction in me, as the same can be said about Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me. Both are extremely painful looks at the narrator’s mental health and the events that led its deterioration. For Phil Elverum, it was the death of his wife, Geneviève, after her battle with cancer. For Travis Miller, it was the failure of the American healthcare system when his cries for help were silenced.

Miller’s music, specifically his work as Lil Ugly Mane, is deeply important to me. MISTA THUG ISOLATION and the singles he released before Oblivion Access were all extremely formative in developing my music taste and opened my ears to a lot of new sounds and expressions. Up until the release of volume 1, Miller had always took a more abstract approach to his mental health struggles, and even outright denied his music as Lil Ugly Mane held some deeper meaning. I implied in my write-up for Oblivion Access that it was the first time we were truly hearing a Travis Miller project, but it’s safe to say after listening to volume 1, I might have jumped the gun.

The album begins with the short but cryptic “john”, a remixed and chopped up reading of the Bible verse John 1:1, repeatedly fixating on “was God” before roughly transitioning into “man wearing a helmet.” Distant piano chords, rain, a chopped up female vocal sample, a father talking about his child, a jury reading out a verdict, a man asking another if he and his wife have thought about moving, a father now being interviewed about his child being kidnapped, another female voice that’s hard to decipher but is definitely talking about this child, and a drone playing behind all these people talking leads into the album’s first verse, as Miller describes another person’s childhood memories like ripping bark out of trees, pretending to be Superman, and wearing mismatched pairs of Chucks. These memories quickly turn into just that as we now cut to Miller describing this child being kidnapped: “He's a sitting duck, didn't hear the car pull up / Thought his arm broke when they shoved him in the trunk.”

This story continues as Miller further describes the child’s circumstances after being thrown in the trunk at an almost breakneck pace, seemingly trying to through the story as fast as he can before he breaks down. It’s all extremely traumatizing to hear, as the child begins to fear the worst as he looks back: “He miss his mom's affection / He miss the dinosaur blanket on the bed that he slept in / Miss throwing sticks so the dog would go fetch 'em / Missed makin' forts in the woods with his best friend.”

In the third verse, the car eventually reaches its destination and the child is carried to the kidnapper’s shelter, being led down into a dark stairwell into a lair, the only thing he can see being the “bluish glow of television flickers.” As the child continues to describe their worry at what’s to come, the listener is hit with a gut punch as “he” becomes “I,” as the child Miller was describing the whole time was really himself, revealing the origin story of where his battles with mental health begin as the hook plays on with Miller asking himself questions about this event, with all the answers being “I just don’t remember,” as he has repressed his memories of the kidnapping.

While “man wearing a helmet” looks at his past, “stoop lights” cuts to the modern day, with running static/crinkling, a dizzying string sample, synthetic bass, hi-hats, bass drums, and hand claps building the song’s foundation, as Miller begins rapping about what it’s like to be inside his head with no pretensions or greater abstract meanings. His self-hatred has evolved beyond hatred, as Miller simply wants nothing to do with himself any longer, retreating to alcohol and substance abuse to take away the pain of living, pushing himself towards death. The only light he sees are literal ones, as his description of watching them flicker in the hook leads further describing his problems with alcohol and how it’s led to his family leaving him behind.

Miller’s descriptions of his deteriorating mental state are as compelling as they are downright disturbing to here. It’s still slightly jarring to hear the man who rapped “Slick Rick said treat 'em like a prostitute” talk about alcohol abuse and depression so openly, but that’s what makes volume 1 so fascinating, as it’s essentially Miller throwing in the towel, no longer resorting to an exaggerated gangster persona or gross abstractions, but trying to describe what’s happening in his head and around him without any bullshit.

This no bullshit approach is best put to use in “haze of interference”, which starts off with a repeating sample of a man sing-talking “I’m not sure what it was,” with the rest of the song seeing Miller at not only his most angry, but his most desperate, backed behind menacing synths, distant piano chords, boom bap drums and rattling hi-hats that go back and forth in intensity. One of my favorite lines of the whole album comes out of this first verse and it’s such a simple, but perfect description of crippling depression, as Miller raps towards the end: “Greener on the other side, how about nothing's green.” The second verse sees Miller spitting with more fury than we’ve ever seen, rapping at himself expressing his anger with himself at how he deals with his problems, how he shows himself to his friends and family, and most importantly how his fans see him, with Miller breaking from rapping at “you” to rapping the line “You're treated like a muse, are you happy now, Travis?”

The whole song could end there and still leave a massive impact, but Miller keeps going lamenting the fact that he could disappear and almost no one in his immediate life would notice or care, going from referencing the Jonas Jonasson novel The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared to straight up saying “If I was glass I'd revert back to sand.” Miller ends the verse by completely shattering the fourth wall he previously damaged with the final lines “I'm standing by a microphone and yelling at a wall / Pick a thousand names, you're still nobody at all,” delivered as Miller’s voice finally cracks as the song plays out for another two minutes with a fuller Jandek sample seen in the song’s intro, before sourly fading out.

And that’s the last we hear of Miller on volume 1, as the second-to-final track “this in not my stomach” features a bizarre and disturbing whisper behind a brooding instrumental, with the lyrics possibly hinting that the song is written in the perspective of the depression itself, trying to convince the host body it’s inhabiting to cut out its stomach, almost like an entity from the Black Lodge. Then, the album ends with “cave yourself over,” a lo-fi piano ballad that simply allows you to sit there and think, taking in all you’ve heard.

volume 1 sees a man afraid. A man backed into a corner. A man calling for help. A man who simply just wants to be understood after purposefully obscuring himself for so long. Music was always the thing Travis Miller could resort back to, something to distract him from his mental troubles. Travis Miller the person and Travis Miller the musician were always supposed to be separated. Then, he finally tried to get help and was humiliated, forcing the two to converge in what became Bedwetter. While mental health awareness is at an all time high in America, there’s still a ton of progress to be made as can be seen by Miller’s story. The final note I want to leave this review on isn’t my own, but Miller’s, as it’s the final paragraph of the album’s Bandcamp description:

I really thought today someone would recognize my courage, as i handed over power just to reconcile my purpose, that I needed something urgent. I was eager just to learn it. I just wanna person, lord I'm weary from this burden.

Favorite Lyrics

Crouched down by the tree at his neighbors

He liked the way the bark ripped off like paper

He pretended he was Superman, eyes had lasers

Every step he took turned earth into craters

Little brown jacket, Lee jeans with a cuff

Bowl cut, blue and yellow mismatched Chucks

“man wearing a helmet”

Waking up in situations

Feeling like I'm living in suspended animation

Guess I'm still sober on occasion

And that's enough for me to rationalize inebriation

“stoop lights”

I told you I ain’t right, you knew it going in

Just shut the fuck up if you wanna be a friend

I don’t want to stretch you more than you extend

I don’t want to spit in the hand that you lend

I did it to myself, I get what I deserve

Thoughts in my head, feel like a raw nerve

I’m lookin' for an answer, I don’t want to hurt but

I just want to sleep when I’m tired of earth

“stoop lights”

Foggy little planet where your groping hands to touch a scream

Greener on the other side, how about nothing's green

Bashful baby boy, so distracted by my toys

Rode a tractor from Wyoming to Chicago, Illinois

On a carpet of the 50 states, part of me disintegrates

The only thing I'm left with is the part I can't articulate

“haze of interference”

You're never getting better, you're addicted to the madness

You're treated like a muse, are you happy now, Travis?

“haze of interference”

If I was glass I'd revert back to sand

Scattered through the sea, I could pass through your hands

None of this will happen, nothing will ever

The things that I believe can never ever happen

I'm standing by a microphone and yelling at a wall

Pick a thousand names, you're still nobody at all

“haze of interference”

Talking Points

How does volume 1 hold up to Travis’ work as Lil Ugly Mane? Is it better, worse, or a whole new beast entirely?

What are your thoughts on the production? Is it a natural evolution from Oblivion Access?

What do you think about the album’s lyrical content? Does the album’s desperate origins come across in the writing?

I also want to open up this thread as a discussion for mental health. How have you dealt with your own mental health troubles? Are they similar to Miller’s experiences?

And finally, where does this album land on your year-end list?

Thanks for reading and big thanks to /u/TheRoyalGodfrey for letting me do this again this year and for bringing Album of the Year over from /r/hiphopheads! We’re currently in the midst of our third Album of the Year series over at /r/indieheads, so if you want to come over and give us some love, that’d be greatly appreciated! You can view what we’ve done so far and what we’ve got coming up over here, and make sure to come back tomorrow on this subreddit as /u/ImWaal talks Rick Ross’ Rather You Than Me.

Artist: Bedwetter (Lil Ugly Mane)Album: volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present.Label: Self-ReleasedRelease Date: January 29, 2017Listen:YouTubeSpotifyBandcampApple MusicBackgroundBedwetter is the latest pseudonym of Travis Miller, best known as Lil Ugly Mane. For a more extensive history of Miller and his work as Lil Ugly Mane before the release of this album, check out my /r/indieheads For Your Consideration write-up on Oblivion Access, as this background is going to mainly focus on what led to the release of his debut project under the Bedwetter album.After releasing Oblivion Access in late 2015, Miller, as Lil Ugly Mane, formed the group Secret Circle with frequent collaborator Antwon and Wiki (of Ratking) in 2016 and the group has released a few singles, including “KEEP IT LOW”, “SATELLITE” ft. Despot and “Tube Socks”, since the formation of the group. The Bedwetter project was teased in December 2016 with this Facebook post and the release of the singles “selfish” and “stoop lights.”Finally, volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present. was released on January 29, 2017 on the Lil Ugly Mane Bandcamp after a concerning post on Facebook that has since been taken down. A day after the release, Miller made a new statement on the Lil Ugly Mane Facebook page after receiving a few emails from people asking about the album and what led to its release. The statement is, as below:I keep getting emails from people.I wrote this the day before Bedwetter was recorded.All i could do, all i can do is write poems and basically a polemic yelp review into the notepad on my phone.what else can i do.im not gonna get into my own shit on some specific level because fuck you, i dont know you. pay attention to yourself.but i feel like this is the best way i can explain shit.polemic yelp review of american heath care system:"After a lifetime of avoiding this shit. Ignoring this shit. FInding myself confused.After 3 months of sleeplessly, anxiously glaring into the eyes of an old monster that suddenly grew a new head.3 months of forgetting who i was. What i was doing.I knew something had to happen. I'd known this for a while.I had been reaching outCalling.Emailing.After continuous unsuccessful attempts for months to contact psychiatrists and doctors, I reluctantly checked into the hospital today.I thought maybe i could get a much needed psych evaluation and hopefully receive some sort of treatment, perhaps even simply a referral and/or an appointment to go see somebody else who could provide that.I didn't know what else to do.What else are you supposed to do.For six hours I sat nervously twitching and in a freezing waiting room.Whimpering old men being completely overtaken by their Alzheimer's.Vomiting children.Bleeding Fingers.Ugly loud sagging losers who were obviously constantly there.Begging for attention with some new ailment and concern.Their broken humilated spouse at their side.I was anxious and horrified by the idea of a potential forced or even voluntary intake to a psychiatric facility.Surrending my freedom.Surrender of my routines.After six hours of constantly reassuring myself I was doing the right thing, I was finally seen.Led down a hallway into a bare concrete cell with a small bed in the center. Dim lights. scratches on the drab walls.Grates in the floor to catch whatever bodily fluids they have to hose out of there.One of the walls was one of those steel doors that the corner store pulls down at the end of the night.Not sure what that was about.Empty though.A bed and a chair.Somebody had carved "slipknot sucks" into the plastic bed that was bolted to the floor. Seems fitting.You're the same, you're basically just a stupid fucking sad teenager right now. You're pathetic. Good luck getting better idiot.I was given a gown and my belongings were inventoried and confiscated.I sat and waited in my gown.Eventually, Two skittish nurses and some community college educated social worker baby-talked their questions to me as a lurching police officer glared at me disgustedly over their shoulders.I'd chosen to go in at a time where I was feeling okay so i would be fully able to articulate and describe the symptoms I was experiencing so I could potentially receive the most accurate treatment. I thought that made the most sense.I didn't want to wait until I was in the midst of some anxious episode and having to hyperventilate my troubles out thru a salty humiliated fog. I thought that made the most sense.I sat and calmy described my symptoms. I tried to convey how terrified i was. I tried to tell them i couldnt do it anymore.This was received with a couple bored nods and sparse notes being jotted down on a clipboard.Eventually i was hurried along and any complexity of my disease was all quickly reduced to two simple questions:"Are you suicidal? Do you wanna hurt anyone else?"No.No I don't. I can't think of anything I wanna do less than die, I can't think of anything that frightens me or gives me more anxiety than the uncertainty of what happens when you die.No.No I don't actively want to hurt anyone, to be honest, the fact that I voluntarily came in here could be seen as an indication that I'm absolutely exhausted and desperate to stop hurting myself and everyone else by not confronting this shit for so long.wrong answer.I was discharged. handed back my clothes, given a xeroxed list of some websites about suicide prevention and a "feel better" or some other equally patronizing verbal pat on the back.Back right where I started.Nobody is gonna help me.Our current mental healthcare system is absolute shit.Absolute shit that absolutely incentivizes violence and self harm by categorizing it as the sole interpretation of "severity" worth treating.By making the idea of treatment feel so utterly hopeless to people who already exist and drown in their hopelessness.Fuck your resources. Fuck being understaffed. Fuck your stupid priorities. You're incompetent .Here let me clear out some space for you. Free up some of your time. Empty some rooms.On hurting yourself:This is a complex issue, but to briefly put it, I believe a suicidal individual should not only be afforded that right, but after some legislatively decided period of time and therapy and education to ward off impulsiveness and melodrama, the same way they treat anybody undergoing assisted suicide. A process. they should be given a safe clean environment and chemicals to facilitate their decision, no matter the reasoning. grow up.On hurting someone else:This is not a complex issue. As far as recidivist violent degenerate squealing psychopaths...rabid dogs just need a bullet to the head.I've read old yeller.They dont care. Neither do I.boo hoo.Conversely:lock them in a room and keep them safe.Is this really that hard?"Are you an immediate threat to yourself or others are you?"How about instead of prioritizing that question we focus more on:"Im so tired and exhausted of constantly hurting myself and everyone around me"Be passing over someone like me, a person who, on their own volition, came to you for help. A person who desperately wants help. You are simply and plainly creating more and more and more people who will eventually be slobbering immediate threats to themselves and all of mankind.It creates that understanding.In an already fractured damaged mind it is an entirely reasonable assertion that you would potentially have to commit an act of violence against yourself or others just to receive treatment. even if you didn't want to.even if that wasn't a real compulsion.a last resort.This system has a very real potential to turn people who voluntarily seek help, people who aren't yet completely overtaken by their illness, into violent suicidal monsters because you are dangling their own treatment on a string in front of them, scoffing at their pitiful attempt at recovery and demanding they need to do more."well shit, if you want help yr gonna have to try a lot harder than that buddy, haha, comeback after you snapped a random person's neck in a grocery store and cut off all the fingers on your left hand with some scissors, fucking poser".I'll get better one day.Not today.Maybe I'll have fingers.Maybe I won't."thanks for the well wishes.i'm fine.i'm just angry.i'm not the only person dealing with this and i've lived a full, somewhat interesting life.i hate that you are dealing with this.ReviewI don’t really know where to begin with this. volume 1, since its release, has been an incredibly difficult album to listen to due the the background and the depressing lyrical content. This isn’t the first album of 2017 to bring out a similar reaction in me, as the same can be said about Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me. Both are extremely painful looks at the narrator’s mental health and the events that led its deterioration. For Phil Elverum, it was the death of his wife, Geneviève, after her battle with cancer. For Travis Miller, it was the failure of the American healthcare system when his cries for help were silenced.Miller’s music, specifically his work as Lil Ugly Mane, is deeply important to me. MISTA THUG ISOLATION and the singles he released before Oblivion Access were all extremely formative in developing my music taste and opened my ears to a lot of new sounds and expressions. Up until the release of volume 1, Miller had always took a more abstract approach to his mental health struggles, and even outright denied his music as Lil Ugly Mane held some deeper meaning. I implied in my write-up for Oblivion Access that it was the first time we were truly hearing a Travis Miller project, but it’s safe to say after listening to volume 1, I might have jumped the gun.The album begins with the short but cryptic “john”, a remixed and chopped up reading of the Bible verse John 1:1, repeatedly fixating on “was God” before roughly transitioning into “man wearing a helmet.” Distant piano chords, rain, a chopped up female vocal sample, a father talking about his child, a jury reading out a verdict, a man asking another if he and his wife have thought about moving, a father now being interviewed about his child being kidnapped, another female voice that’s hard to decipher but is definitely talking about this child, and a drone playing behind all these people talking leads into the album’s first verse, as Miller describes another person’s childhood memories like ripping bark out of trees, pretending to be Superman, and wearing mismatched pairs of Chucks. These memories quickly turn into just that as we now cut to Miller describing this child being kidnapped: “He's a sitting duck, didn't hear the car pull up / Thought his arm broke when they shoved him in the trunk.”This story continues as Miller further describes the child’s circumstances after being thrown in the trunk at an almost breakneck pace, seemingly trying to through the story as fast as he can before he breaks down. It’s all extremely traumatizing to hear, as the child begins to fear the worst as he looks back: “He miss his mom's affection / He miss the dinosaur blanket on the bed that he slept in / Miss throwing sticks so the dog would go fetch 'em / Missed makin' forts in the woods with his best friend.”In the third verse, the car eventually reaches its destination and the child is carried to the kidnapper’s shelter, being led down into a dark stairwell into a lair, the only thing he can see being the “bluish glow of television flickers.” As the child continues to describe their worry at what’s to come, the listener is hit with a gut punch as “he” becomes “I,” as the child Miller was describing the whole time was really himself, revealing the origin story of where his battles with mental health begin as the hook plays on with Miller asking himself questions about this event, with all the answers being “I just don’t remember,” as he has repressed his memories of the kidnapping.While “man wearing a helmet” looks at his past, “stoop lights” cuts to the modern day, with running static/crinkling, a dizzying string sample, synthetic bass, hi-hats, bass drums, and hand claps building the song’s foundation, as Miller begins rapping about what it’s like to be inside his head with no pretensions or greater abstract meanings. His self-hatred has evolved beyond hatred, as Miller simply wants nothing to do with himself any longer, retreating to alcohol and substance abuse to take away the pain of living, pushing himself towards death. The only light he sees are literal ones, as his description of watching them flicker in the hook leads further describing his problems with alcohol and how it’s led to his family leaving him behind.Miller’s descriptions of his deteriorating mental state are as compelling as they are downright disturbing to here. It’s still slightly jarring to hear the man who rapped “Slick Rick said treat 'em like a prostitute” talk about alcohol abuse and depression so openly, but that’s what makes volume 1 so fascinating, as it’s essentially Miller throwing in the towel, no longer resorting to an exaggerated gangster persona or gross abstractions, but trying to describe what’s happening in his head and around him without any bullshit.This no bullshit approach is best put to use in “haze of interference”, which starts off with a repeating sample of a man sing-talking “I’m not sure what it was,” with the rest of the song seeing Miller at not only his most angry, but his most desperate, backed behind menacing synths, distant piano chords, boom bap drums and rattling hi-hats that go back and forth in intensity. One of my favorite lines of the whole album comes out of this first verse and it’s such a simple, but perfect description of crippling depression, as Miller raps towards the end: “Greener on the other side, how about nothing's green.” The second verse sees Miller spitting with more fury than we’ve ever seen, rapping at himself expressing his anger with himself at how he deals with his problems, how he shows himself to his friends and family, and most importantly how his fans see him, with Miller breaking from rapping at “you” to rapping the line “You're treated like a muse, are you happy now, Travis?”The whole song could end there and still leave a massive impact, but Miller keeps going lamenting the fact that he could disappear and almost no one in his immediate life would notice or care, going from referencing the Jonas Jonasson novel The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared to straight up saying “If I was glass I'd revert back to sand.” Miller ends the verse by completely shattering the fourth wall he previously damaged with the final lines “I'm standing by a microphone and yelling at a wall / Pick a thousand names, you're still nobody at all,” delivered as Miller’s voice finally cracks as the song plays out for another two minutes with a fuller Jandek sample seen in the song’s intro, before sourly fading out.And that’s the last we hear of Miller on volume 1, as the second-to-final track “this in not my stomach” features a bizarre and disturbing whisper behind a brooding instrumental, with the lyrics possibly hinting that the song is written in the perspective of the depression itself, trying to convince the host body it’s inhabiting to cut out its stomach, almost like an entity from the Black Lodge. Then, the album ends with “cave yourself over,” a lo-fi piano ballad that simply allows you to sit there and think, taking in all you’ve heard.volume 1 sees a man afraid. A man backed into a corner. A man calling for help. A man who simply just wants to be understood after purposefully obscuring himself for so long. Music was always the thing Travis Miller could resort back to, something to distract him from his mental troubles. Travis Miller the person and Travis Miller the musician were always supposed to be separated. Then, he finally tried to get help and was humiliated, forcing the two to converge in what became Bedwetter. While mental health awareness is at an all time high in America, there’s still a ton of progress to be made as can be seen by Miller’s story. The final note I want to leave this review on isn’t my own, but Miller’s, as it’s the final paragraph of the album’s Bandcamp description:I really thought today someone would recognize my courage, as i handed over power just to reconcile my purpose, that I needed something urgent. I was eager just to learn it. I just wanna person, lord I'm weary from this burden.Favorite LyricsCrouched down by the tree at his neighborsHe liked the way the bark ripped off like paperHe pretended he was Superman, eyes had lasersEvery step he took turned earth into cratersLittle brown jacket, Lee jeans with a cuffBowl cut, blue and yellow mismatched Chucks“man wearing a helmet”Waking up in situationsFeeling like I'm living in suspended animationGuess I'm still sober on occasionAnd that's enough for me to rationalize inebriation“stoop lights”I told you I ain’t right, you knew it going inJust shut the fuck up if you wanna be a friendI don’t want to stretch you more than you extendI don’t want to spit in the hand that you lendI did it to myself, I get what I deserveThoughts in my head, feel like a raw nerveI’m lookin' for an answer, I don’t want to hurt butI just want to sleep when I’m tired of earth“stoop lights”Foggy little planet where your groping hands to touch a screamGreener on the other side, how about nothing's greenBashful baby boy, so distracted by my toysRode a tractor from Wyoming to Chicago, IllinoisOn a carpet of the 50 states, part of me disintegratesThe only thing I'm left with is the part I can't articulate“haze of interference”You're never getting better, you're addicted to the madnessYou're treated like a muse, are you happy now, Travis?“haze of interference”If I was glass I'd revert back to sandScattered through the sea, I could pass through your handsNone of this will happen, nothing will everThe things that I believe can never ever happenI'm standing by a microphone and yelling at a wallPick a thousand names, you're still nobody at all“haze of interference”Talking PointsHow does volume 1 hold up to Travis’ work as Lil Ugly Mane? Is it better, worse, or a whole new beast entirely?What are your thoughts on the production? Is it a natural evolution from Oblivion Access?What do you think about the album’s lyrical content? Does the album’s desperate origins come across in the writing?I also want to open up this thread as a discussion for mental health. How have you dealt with your own mental health troubles? Are they similar to Miller’s experiences?And finally, where does this album land on your year-end list?Thanks for reading and big thanks to /u/TheRoyalGodfrey for letting me do this again this year and for bringing Album of the Year over from /r/hiphopheads! We’re currently in the midst of our third Album of the Year series over at /r/indieheads, so if you want to come over and give us some love, that’d be greatly appreciated! You can view what we’ve done so far and what we’ve got coming up over here, and make sure to come back tomorrow on this subreddit as /u/ImWaal talks Rick Ross’ Rather You Than Me.

Seeking Equilibrium

Finding the still axis within rotating turmoil  

I. Introspection 

The examination of our own conscious thoughts and feelings are intrinsically good, opening doors to mindfulness, transformation and better decisions. Yet, it is also the root of my anxiety, a darkness I've learnt to accept and find stillness from within.  Come to think of it, if I were to describe the unsettling landscape of this anxiety, I'd sum it in a word - trippy. A really bad trip. One you'd do everything within your means to get out of: drinking more water, alcohol, eat more, not eat, keep your eyes focus, whatever. Except that you don't know if this bad trip will ever end.  How anxiety feels like (for me at least): 

Picture yourself floating within  A cage walled with vibrating threads Blurring the motions of reality. A looking glass Warping everything on the other end. Closing in, expanding outwards, In a slow, grotesque breathing motion. Upon closer inspection, These seemingly alive, twisted fibres Are made up of words. Dark thoughts, doubts, mental self-flagellation Constantly mutating, growing Like a tumour. Take a closer look; I dare you. And feel yourself shrivel up like how smoke gets into your eyes. Upon instinct, You'd try to pry your way out of this monstrosity. But this mental prison wasn't built in a day. This darkness feeds itself Layers built upon layers. Pulling you further away from the world Into a deafening void Where screams are silent. And dense, 'electromagnetic' waves Vibrate molecules in your body With increasing heaviness Along with bouts of uncontrollable jitters. It sounds like my mind's encapsulated in a microwave oven. It isn't pleasant, but it wouldn't kill if you manage to find that elusive stillness within all that turbulence and noise. For the last few years, I guess I've learned to take most situations with a pinch of salt. Overreacting and making sense of circumstances that's clearly out of my control leads to more existential nausea. But this perpetual questioning doesn't seem ever to go away. Too many "what ifs" and self-fulfilling prophecies. But acknowledging this irrational fear of practically everything does offer some perks - I guess it's conditioning to think more clearly, taking extra measures to avoid failure and treasure everything a little more. II. Retrospection Confucius is right. Acquiring wisdom from experience is most bitter. I've learnt many harsh, and perhaps invaluable, lessons from each and every encounter. I remember, once during a moment of heightened senses, I was made an offer I almost couldn't refuse - my soul for my deepest desire. Which is? Love? I thought so. But nope, after minutes (which felt like hours) worth of deep introspection, I discovered that what I truly craved, was knowledge. Dr Faustus? No, not of elitist or forbidden nature, but probably to feed a constant lack of and incompetence. Hallucination or not, my ever-present, subconscious ability to overthink stopped me at that. But be careful of what you wished for. I never stopped wondering if it's this thirst for experiences and perspectives that ushered in these crippling torments. Each in different forms, offering different lessons and changing something in me.  First // A promise of eternal love, a beautiful bloom that withered with drips of poison and disintegrated through betrayal. This was the relationship that changed every belief I ever held, leaving hints and premonitions of others that have yet to come my way. The crushing blow where 'forever' was abruptly shorten to 6.5 years taught the lesson of impermanence. The only thing that was enduring was the everlasting pain. But ironically, losing the relationship I grew up with, opened doors to new experiences: the love for solo travel and shedding that chrysalis of introversion. Second // Misplaced feelings stemming from guilt and social pressure. Malicious, this was. I've never experienced this dosage of ugliness in my life and was definitely an appalling eye-opener. A year wasted dragging each other along, with nothing but deceit. Just a whole lot of doubts, lies, misunderstandings and toxic peer pressure. Communication here was two cans and a string with zero cooperation. Oh, and the art of deciphering passive-aggressive social media captions and 'likes'. Nothing learnt, just that some people are better off left at hello and you wished that you've never agreed on that damn cake date. Third // Falling for the least expected one that was never meant to be. 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.' I was never a firm believer of that until I've experienced it myself. Far from the prettiest and not forgetting to mention, possessed unrivalled anger issues. Hella rude and punctuate every sentence with profanities. But what was so attractive was her willingness to learn, to pick up new interests, had no qualms leaping into unexplored territories, giving no shits and acted like she owns the world. Along with my wanderlust-prone heart, I pictured a lifetime of adventures with this one, leaving no peaks unconquered and no paths untrodden. Quite an exhilarating fantasy. Those 6 months taught that contrary to my own beliefs, I could actually fall for someone's soul and openness. Forth // Admiration, acceptance and ideals VS underlying apathy and perpetual contradiction. A complex, multifaceted gem, surprising me in every unexpected moment. Beauty came in so many forms that were almost impossible to count. Once, a Reiki friend told me that to manifest your ideal partner, list out all the qualities you seek in them by writing them down, and the universe would reciprocate by channelling those energies towards you. Though I've never penned a physical note for that, I did make a mental one. I knew exactly what I seek - someone who appreciates and exudes genuineness, honesty, kindness, empathy, respect and selflessness. Someone I can spend my life having deep, insightful discussions, maybe read a book with at every cafe, co-write books with and just fill each others' minds up until it's time for our souls to leave our degrading vessels. A slow, fulfilling life. A mature love without inflicting hurt. So, this one came forth extremely authentic, with most of these desirable qualities, but also the most baggage I've ever seen in a person. But that's just life, it happens, everyone is healing from something, and no one really attains emotional nirvana. Not when you're having a quarter life crisis, with deadlines to meet and bills to pay. So I thought that this may work, I just need to be patient with no expectations. "What's the point in that?", says practically everyone else. But what can I do? I'm never the sort who'd be able to walk away with a ‘what if’ (alright, I’m clearly contracting my stand on the sunk cost fallacy over here), so I just need to let it run its full course. Let be. III. Prospection As much as I'd desire a surreal, all head spinning and lovely sorta romance, I've come to terms with certain things. Passion is meant for Hollywood, and all that 'Qualities and Truth about Love' are great for listicles. A good read, but all in theory. Nothing matters more than finding extraordinary from ordinary. There is more wealth from the immaterial than material, which stems from sharing and fostering new ideas with each other. Happiness comes from contentment and appreciation of inward gains from virtue itself. Self-doubt and contradiction deviate us from our goals, leading us further into the dense forest of numbing negativity. If I’d need to name a fundamental trait I’d seek, it’d be selflessness, in actions and words. After all, life is full of opportunities. Plans never seem to keep up with changes. But that doesn't mean we ought to get by blindly. Although every situation was different from the last, I believed that I’ve dealt with each with consistency and growing patience. The universe can keep on throwing challenges to steer me off course; and if I can’t avoid them entirely, I ain’t gonna get stuck in that dreadful sunk cost fallacy. If you did whatever that was best for the moment, that’s good enough. You’re still inhaling 7-8 litres of air per minute. Nothing more, nothing less. But whatever you do, never stop giving solace to those in need or cast a shadow of doubt over the future. Slowly, but surely, everything will get better.