Victims of Life

So there is thing called Kairos. It is a Jesuit retreat, although many non-jesuit folk have adopted the retreat as their own. Essentially, it is a four day retreat where you hate the first day, cry the second, love the third, and live the fourth. I do not want to give anything away to my younger readers who may want to go on the retreat, as the entire thing is shrouded in mystery. If you want to learn more, I am sure google can provide everything you need to know.

Anyway, on this retreat, at least at the high school I went to, juniors and seniors can attend, but only seniors and staff members lead the retreat. You only have one chance to apply to be a leader of the retreat, and you do not apply to that retreat alone, you apply to be a retreat leader. Therefore, the kids who do not get the ultimate leading experience of Kairos lead retreats like the freshman hiking retreat, urban plunge, or sophomore retreat. I was put on sophomore retreat.

On Kairos, seniors who lead give talks. These talks are like fifteen to twenty minutes I think. You are given a prompt and you write about personal stuff in your life that relates to the topic. I also did this for sophomore retreat, but it was like a two minute talk and no one listened because sophomores are too cool to listen. However, I really liked my sophomore year talk, and it is posted on my blog further down if you are interested in it. My prompt was community, so I talked about the few communities I am in. I did not talk about the LGBT community because I did not think sophomores would really want to hear it. However, if I could redo it, I would absolutely include that community, as I have learned in college that it is way more important and dear to my heart than I ever realized. Anyway, I really wanted a Kairos talk and I never got to do one. After you give your talk on Kairos, you get to play a song for everyone to listen to and reflect upon before they write in their journals. I always wonder what song I would choose.

I think I have three main contestants, although there really is so so so many in the world and I could never choose one. But I was hoping to go through them today, so stick around if music intrigues you! woo! music!

So I think my number one choice is Victims of Life by the Avett Brothers. Okay so those of you who know the song and know the retreat are probably scratching your heads. Kairos songs are usually slow and just scream Kairos songs. They are the slow building songs that make you cry and have cheesy lyrics that you make you feel loved. But, since you are sitting on a retreat chair that you are rubbing four-day-unshowered bum on surrounded by strangers that you suddenly love, the songs become the most profound tear-jerking life-changing things. So Victims of Life may seem out of place. A little upbeat and just kinda wrong. However, the upbeat nature of the song is to mask the morbid lyrics. And that, in summary, is life. The details and days can be murky and sad or hard to get through, like the lyrics, but the overall life experience is happy and blessed and grand, just like the music in the song. Plus, slow Kairos songs just make me depressed post-Kairos. I listen to the CD outside of Kairos and do not really want to hear the songs again because they really are just bad songs. One guy on my Kairos played a Killers song, and it is the only Kairos song I still listen to because it is an upbeat actual good song (the song is All the Things That I've Done). So anyway, let us peek a gander at these here lyrics. O, a friend recently told me that I provide quotes that are way too long. So, sorry friend, you are gonna hate this post. Why am I not listening to her and just providing smaller and more concise quotes? Because life holds a wealth of diversity, and the line that may stick out to you may not resonate with someone else. I like to choose long quotes so that people have options; be struck by whichever line you want, not the line that I enjoy. So, imma do this line by line.

Victims of cycles, victims of life, Victims of wrong, victims of right, Victims of anything, and all the above, Victims of hate, victims of love, Victims of hate, victims of love.

Okay so yeah. Bit of a morbid start, but you were warned. Victims of cycles. We are victims of the cycle of life, yes, as in birth and death, but humans are also victims of the cyclical nature of habit. Humans tend to fall into cycles of love, addiction, and pretty much anything else. All human tendencies are cycles. One day, you are on top of the world, loving everyone in a sober manner, and the next day, you are crying for hours paralyzed by grief and hatred or even drugs. But you always rebound. Humans do not stay knocked down very easily, as there is always more people to meet, more life to live, more experiences to endure. Humans, despite this past political year where I have seen even the most brave and confident men shake, are incredibly hopeful creatures. Silver Linings Playbook is a universal tale. Hope pulls people out of rock bottom. Just like a novel, there has to be rising action to be falling action, and there has to be falling action for you to then again rise. Victims of life. I think this is just a sum-total word for everything humans experience. It includes death. Life can be substituted for story, really. Not a pre-written story, more like one of those books where you have to choose the course of action and that action dictates which page you flip to next. Life is simply a journey of collecting and sharing stories. How will you read your story? Interpretation means everything, hence crazy literal translations of the Bible versus those who believe the Bible to be metaphorical and meaningful. Everyone has an interesting story, but not everyone is brave enough to share their story. Be brave enough to share your story; impact those around you and lift the weight from your chest. You may be a victim of life just because you were unwillingly written into this story by your parents, but make the best of it. Victims of wrong is pretty clear. We will all at some point be victims to wrong doings. Rape, murder, theft, cheating on, heart break ... you get the point. However, how can you be a victim of right? Aren't right actions good? Well, back to my Bible example, not necessarily. According to Christians, I am going to hell. I tell this to people all of the time and they always are like "for what? You literally do nothing wrong," and I think this proves my point quite nicely. I do not rape, murder, steal, pillage, or even act rudely towards others (most of the time, I am still human). However, just the mere fact that I have loved a female, the same sex as me, and acted upon that love, and yes, it is love, not just some weird sex desire as people like to accuse, this deep love for human life sends me to hell. I am a victim of right, because those crazy people believe that being straight is the right way to life, and I am not right. Any social norm that you do not conform to makes you a victim of right. Right is what the majority claims to be normal and good, and thus becomes the national judgement of right and wrong. If you are not right, or normal, it is hard to live in this world. Victims of anything. This to me, speaks to the fact that humans, despite the hope I spoke of earlier, are crippled by these so called higher level brains. We are able to interpret and manipulate anything, absolutely anything, into something bad for us. And all the above. All that I have already said. Victims of hate, victims of love. Victims of hate is obvious, it is similar to being victims of wrong and right. Victims of love, however, is a little more confusing. How can you be a victim of a good thing? Again, like right, it may not be clear. But, unfortunately, love is one of those cycles. For every time you are deeply in love, you will be on the ground writhing in loneliness and pain. Further, often we fall in love with the wrong people. We can be dragged through hell just to hang on to the wrong person. Okay, moving on. 

If you're rich, you're hungry for money. If you're broke, you're hungry for bread. If you're wild, you're bound to die young friend. If you live in fear you're already dead.

I really love this line so much. It is just so awesome and true. When you are rich, you only want more riches, because you have everything else. You become greedy. Now, obviously, there are exceptions, and, as an optimistic human that has faith in humans, I realize that there are philanthropists and good people in this life. Unfortunately, there are also bad people. Trump for instance, who was so bored with his riches he decided, "hell! I've never been president! I should try that." Anyway, when you have nothing, all you want is something. Not the best or greatest, just bread. If you are wild, as in dangerous, you will die young since you are constantly flirting with the line between life and death. However, if you live under a blanket cowering from life, you already resides on the other side, in death. If you are not living you may as well not be alive... I have had a really horrible past three months. People are out here breaking my heart and I feel like I have no one to turn to. I am lonely, bored, and losing my purpose in life when I have no one to hug and tell them I love. As I often say, I believe that the purpose of life is to love people. I do not seem to have anyone to love right now. As Camila Cabello sings, I am looking for some real friends. However, although I am lonely and often feel like shit, literally, because I have diarrhea nonstop when I am sad, I choose everyday to get up and live passionately and fully, throwing myself into activities and hoping to find someone or something that gives me purpose. I will not cower from life, even when it knocks me on my butt.

Victims of cycles, victims of life. Victims of wrong, victims of right. Victims of winning, victims of loss. Victims of payment, victims of cost.

Most of this I have already discussed in detail. Let us skip to another confusing one, Victims of winning. Again, how on earth can we be victims of a word with positive connotation? Sometimes we win things we do not want, other times we win things that are bad for us. Winning is also addictive, and can create gamblers. Other times, winning just means that you succeeding in winning over the heart of someone that is dangerous for you. Victims of loss. People die everyday. For only being eighteen, I have seen way too many dead bodies, lost way too many loved ones. This is only the tip of the iceberg, one day I will start losing the people I actually intimately know and love. However, you can loss people to other things than the veil of death. You can lose them to other people, a deep and torturous pain since it makes you doubt yourself while also rendering you alone, to drugs/ bad decisions, which also makes you feel responsible, or just to distance or jobs. Victims of payment and cost goes beyond the monetary value. If you are doing life right, you are investing bits and pieces of yourself into everything you do and everyone you love. Like horcruxes, but without the killing. This however, leaves you less whole. We slowly give away pieces of ourselves until we pass away, nothing else left to give. This can be a painful experience, but it also is the beautiful nature of life and sharing.

You got the victims of violence, victims of peace. You know we're all victims, exactly like me. Victims of anything, and all the above. Victims of hate, victims of love.

So, victims of violence is quite clear. Victims of peace? The best intentions can wield the most dangerous weapons. Even donating clothes can put people in poor countries out of a job... In a different light, peace in a corrupt country is not good. You would not want Hitler to be in charge and killing people with the country still existing in peace, you would want the people to be fighting for what is right, not being compliant. And then we stumble onto another great line. The universal binding between all humans. We are all victims, exactly like me. Kairos is all about learning that everyone has something hiding behind their smiles. Everyone has something. Just like me. For me, it is a sick mom, dying relatives, constantly investing my time in the wrong people who end up screwing me over, and being an outcast in society with no one around me. Everyone has a bullet point list of shit they have endured. No one frolics through life unscathed. Everyone has a story, just not everyone is brave enough to tell it. 

My soul's got a shovel, mind's got two arms, They're digging a trench, right through my heart. They can't agree, except on one thing, They've gone too far now and they're too close to leave.

This goes back to the victims of anything. Unfortunately, humans are capable of an enormous amount of thinking. We think too much. We make ourselves sad by dwelling on terrible things that happened. We are often the perpetrator of our own heart. Yes, circumstances play a role. But, ultimately, our minds wield the swords that attack our hearts. And, at some point, we all reach that moment of, "well shoot, too much has happened and I am too deep in this ... might as well just stay here on the ground sad for a bit." In other terms, at some point, we will feel like giving up. We will feel like our minds have gone too far and hurt our hearts too much for us to even try to fight back. But, just when we start to feel that way, someone or something happens, and the cycle kicks back in, flying us right back onto the track of rising action. Right when you acknowledge that you are experiencing the lowest point in your life, it snows a record amount in Erie. Someone is always looking out for you, whether it be fate or God or whatever you believe in. You are never truly alone, and you are always somehow provided exactly who or what you need.   

Victims of cycles, victims of life, Victims of wrong, victims of right, Victims of anything, and all the above, Victims of hate, victims of love. Victims of anything, and all the above. Victims of hate, victims of love. Victims of hate, victims of love.

This is way longer than expected, so I will create separate blogs for the other two songs.  Heck, there may even be more than two. I am listening to music right now and have found meaning in every song. Like, right now, I am listening to Mama Mia and genuinely thinking it is worthy of Kairos. I am way too much of an English major. I find meaning in everything. It can be great, but it also destroys me. Who finds meaning in a record snowfall? Who finds hope in a song played on shuffle at the exact time that they need that song? Only a hopeless romantic who is bound to throw their entire selves, instead of a conservative bit as discussed previously, into everything and everyone. I experience the deepest love, but also the deepest pain. The other two songs I will for sure discuss are True Sadness by the Avett Brothers and Do You Realize?? by the Flaming Lips. So stick around for those. There may be more though.