I've been thinking a lot lately. About politics, mostly. And music. Religion. Anything bigger than myself, I suppose.
Politically I'm becoming more and more of a moderate. Many of my views are still quite extreme, and I don't see that ever changing, I've just been adopting more and more conservative views, and have been dropping more liberal views. I'm starting to understand the importance of business to an economy and individual lives, mostly. I still don't support Big Business at all, and think the distribution of wealth at present is ridiculous, but I believe that small businesses are really brilliant, essential things, and that their lives really ought to be easier to sustain than they are currently. I haven't figured out how yet, but I am thinking. I need to read and learn a whole lot more. Because I know a good deal about social issues, but the economics have always been my weak point. I shouldn't have a weak point. Not when I can see my faults and know how to fix them.
Musically. Musically, I've figured out what I've been looking for and listening to with music lately. It isn't any particular sound. I go from genre to genre and band to band looking for it. I skip songs on almost every album I own, because so much is becoming inadequate.
I'm looking for changes in dynamics. For intensity. For complexity to a point, but only to a point. The music doesn't have to be terribly intricate, it just has to have enough going on to hold my interest. It can't repeat and repeat and repeat. Simple choruses have come to annoy the fuck out of me a lot of the time.
I guess I look for bands who sound like they challenge themselves and their listeners, who are always expanding and experimenting. Finding new ground and fitting it into their preexisting style. Drastic changes within a consistent stylistic leaning. I really don't know how to articulate this, but I know it when I hear it.
I like when bands remind me of people like Stravinsky and Charlie Parker, basically. And I find bits and pieces in so many places, but perfection is hard to come by.
My mood is currently pretty centred, as in I'm having downs and ups within the same day. I think I like this best. I can be a sad fuck, I'm a sad fuck now, but I can be happy, entertaining, and coherent as well. And I value those things. (If medication could keep me here all the time, I think I'd like to have it. Because I still have a variety of moods, and they are quite intense, but they're not extreme to the point of being incapacitating, and It Is Good.)
This relative balance has let me start writing again. Music, mostly. I've been reading intently, but my interest in words isn't going much past that. It's more of a desire for understanding, for knowing. It's influencing the music I'm writing, no doubt. Concepts can do that. And the sounds in my brain have been quite dark and intense, but I love them, just as I love the book I'm reading.
What else? Mentally, not much. Books, music, politics. My base state. I wish I could be here all of the time.
revoless.
11:56 p.m.
July 08, 2003.
Listening to: Dir en Grey.
Drinking: Water.
Eating: Nothing.
I really must start wearing jeans again or Scattered thoughts