POL Arida - Between The Rocks

The subtle problem with a backward blog is that even my death seems further away than it did when I first started writing. I seem to have lots to look forward to now! Like getting thinner, looking younger, re-gaining hope and trust, not understanding cynicism, giving my kids back and becoming a virgin. Wow it’s almost exactly the same as getting old and moving forward. And there lies the painful truth about life itself.

There is only one direction for anybody. It is forged with time itself that forward is the only direction there is, made up of millions of moments. It is these moments that we live for, but they only last for zero and zero is an abstract. Depressing that we are all just a waiting train crash, whilst enjoying some tea on the way. Then again, the optimists among us will say those moments and memories are what make us human. The pessimists will say that those moments are just points we cannot go back and change. Both are correct and both should allow us to learn something about ourselves. This is where it will get more complex.

If we understand that everything only goes forward with time we come to also realize that what we really are, is a `third party observer`. Let me explain. If we take two objects and we watch them, then we observe there is a distance between them, but actually the distance between them is only a relationship to us, that we `observe`. If we move a little we create the next observation and that is time. If we do not observe this, then the relationship between ourselves and the two objects does not exist. When we `observe`, we create the relationship and the existence of that relationship. Space and time. Making us all God in our own little Universe of our own observational relationship with our surroundings .

Now you might be thinking this is bar room philosophy and it probably is, but for me understanding the last paragraph enlightened me in many different ways. It defined, at the age of nine that I was an atheist, not because I did not like religion, but because it made no sense as an observation. The numbers one and zero, the idea of black and white, good and evil, the realistic and the abstract, oh and the fear of the abstract, that fear of death, all evaporated.

Some of these ideas are in my songs. I try to stay the observer even in what might loosely be termed as a love song. It has forced me to write about subjects and within them stay focused on the correct wording for an observation. Take the word I, you will find a distinct lack of that word in most of my songs and if it is used it is usually in the context of a third party observer. The point of the above is to ensure my head fits neatly up my own ass and to let you understand my process of writing songs.  After all, it’s always good to know when hot air is coming!