|
Not a huge fan of the band (or their main genre), personally, but there's a few songs I like a lot. I've just always felt a strong kinship with "broken" people, especially ones who've killed themselves. And I find a lot of beauty in their art. It speaks greatly to what they were feeling, and most often people don't notice or care until it's too late.
Like people generally stigmatize suicide and say that those people are "weak" and "cowardly" or whatever, but I really don't see it that way at all, not even a little bit. I think it takes far more courage to march headlong into the unknown at your own volition than it does to merely "exist" in a life that no longer holds any meaning for you. I think those words are just things selfish people say to try and deflect from the fact that they didn't do more to make the person's life more tolerable. They don't want to feel guilty, so they deflect. I understand it, but they're wrong. Committing suicide is the exact opposite of "cowardly". There's no promise of an afterlife, or a Heaven or a Hell or a Limbo, or anything. But for a person to say, "I don't know, but I also don't care," and take the power into themselves ANYway... well, that's courage, not cowardice. I very often feel like they're the true brave ones, and the ones they leave behind are the cowards. Most of those people could have done more to prevent the incident, after all, but they didn't. It doesn't take "courage" to ignore or diminish another person's pain, or to stay alive just because you're scared of dying. That's fear, not power. Courage is deciding that only you are the captain of your own destiny, even if that "destiny" is oblivion.
I find this one pretty poignant.
I find it very interesting that it's one of the last ones they did before Chester killed himself, and one of the first to come out after.
I know there's all those conspiracy theories and everything about what "really" happened to him but I kind of don't buy that. Everything I've ever read suggests that he simply had a really rough go of things and simply didn't want to be here anymore. I'm not glad that it happens, but I will never, ever say that anyone who killed themselves was "wrong" to do so. That's ultimately their decision. Frankly, if they're unhappy, then I find it arrogant and narcissistic to try and argue with their decision. Nobody ever really knows what a person is feeling. "I wish they were still here" is well-meaning, and I understand it, but it's ultimately selfish.
Anyway, yeah, I actually started listening to their music a little bit more after the fact. I feel bad for his family, but... I'm sure he had a good enough reason.
|