#apophenic rambles

[dial-m-for-movies]

Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd - Appreciation

“The world’s very own soliloquy.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXdNnw99-Ic

While listening to this song by Pink Floyd today, I recollect the memories of hearing it for the first time, back in 2014. I was working at a construction site back then, quite unhappy and disgruntled with my life with a heart pensively weeping over the past that was lost in the worries of the future and an eye on the future seeking solace in the fact that someday, a corner of mind will find the peace of the past that had remained unfelt back then.

The song, despite all the abstract context associated with it, had a profound effect on my psyche and inevitably, I started developing a longing towards introspection – the art of overthinking glorified by the elite strata of society and interpretation – the apophenic art of the intelligentsia much cherished by the art-lovers of the times. I think this must be the first English song that I dug deeper into, but never really wrote a tribute for.

Many people associate this song as a verse written in the fond memories of the British rock band’s pioneering musician, Syd Barret who suffered from the artistic alienation in his career, while on the other hand, there is a fraction of the fan-base that would relate the lyrics with a lost loved one or a lover lost to the circumstances of life. Invariably, the words, how I wish you were here, certainly warrant for these interpretations.

However, what seemed to me like a song written in the memories of one’s own self – the innocent self that was once blessed with a heart that feels and a soul that emotes bazillion of feelings, now entrapped in the pursuit of emotional security and worldly manipulation, has now turned out to be “the world’s very own soliloquy” as it not only portrays an individual’s (Roger Waters) longing to restore his past self, but also the world’s very own heart-rending transformation from being a free soul to the one caged in the bounds of limited dreams and unlimited limitations only left to suffer and sulk over the choices that has to be made – choices that are not really “choices” in the sincere sense of the words. That being said, this song has a lot to say or shall I say, “Talk?”

Starting with an excerpt from the radio, which attempts to parody the functionality of the music industry in the 60s and the 70s, followed by a cool riff played by David Gilmour played on an acoustic guitar that segues to words that convictionally try to raise questions, which stir a gamut of emotions and inspire perpetual contemplation while also triggering your cognitive senses that make your mind construe the true meaning of the song or read between the lines, if there are any, Wish You Were Here, just encloses your soul in the dreaded dungeon of persistent pondering only leaving an aching aftertaste of the song.

There are two particular excepts in the song that leave a lasting impression on the mind of listener –

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for the cool breeze?

Cold comfort for change, did you exchange

A walk-on part in the war for a lead role in the cage?  

In this stanza, Roger Waters is commenting on a myriad of conventions of the world that include the transition of a free mind into the one confined by the bounds and boundaries of “supposed-to-bes” represented as “ghosts” and the industrial transformation of the world (hot ashes for trees), which is to say that the world we have today is built at the irrevocable expenditure of the nature. And after that line, he again slithers into his innermost thoughts of a man’s inevitable journey from walking on his own path to submitting to the situations of life – a lead role in the cage.

The next excerpt that inspires contemplation is, “We are two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year”. These particular words portray the putrefaction of your past self – something that led to your present self. However, somehow, you are the fish bowl that still owns both the souls – the one that is alive today, dying one minute at a time, and the other which is somewhere living in the hopes that someday, the decaying soul will die and let it come to the fore again only to triumph over its own universe oppressed by the worldly venom it is filled with today.

From another perspective, I also associate these words with the concept of war; to be precise, the never-ending war of India and Pakistan – two souls losing themselves year after year in a rather passionate pursuit of exterminating rage and never-ending belligerence, which is only vandalizing peace in both the countries.  

This is followed by, “Running over the same ground, have we found? The same old fears, wish you were here…” – a line which again translates to the undying urge of an individual to find his much cherished and lost self again.

Wish You Were Here, a song which was supposed to be or at least, interpreted as a personal note to self, through a mélange of words that speak emotions aplenty, becomes a harrowing elegy that encapsulates the repressed ramblings of the lost souls jeopardized in a perennially perilous pensive pursuit paralyzing the people on the earth, which truly makes it a melancholic and anthem-esque soliloquy of the world.

I listen to this song on loop today – August 3, 2020, while seeking a world we had just six months ago – a healthy world free of crippling concern and a fear perpetuated deep into the spines of its own people.

A note on the album cover –

I think this is an album cover has the simplicity which is not indigenous to Pink Floyd’s discography but at the same time, has a sense of abstractism that reflects the band’s other works. Subjectively, the picture describes the past and present of a man meeting at a juncture where the past can see the present burning to ashes on the path of worldly pursuits or shall I say, burning desires?

I would let you decide that. 

#pink floyd #wish you were here

[longwindedbore]

Submitted for your Consideration an Apophenic alternative:

Can we blame Trump for being irate? For what SPECIFIC Federal statute is he being investigated for his ONE ACTION upon which the impeachment is based. One incoherent sentence in one phone call.

He thinks he’s being played. I think we are all being played. Trump voters and Dem voters.

All I hear - and I was part of this choir - is that this Impeachment is part of a paralysis in Washington and the complete collapse of Our Democratic Experiment. Sic Semper Gloria Civitas Publicus.

Except that while this SPECTACLE is tearing apart families, friendships, communities, social media - the politicians at the center of the spectacle- seem to be able to turn it on and off.

Pelosi, Schiff, and 185 other Democrats joined Republicans to pass legislation that violates the Dems precepts as bleeding hearts for a better world and the oppressed common people. As well as more Dem campaign promises than I care to count.

These Democrats joined with their arch-enemies last week twithout rancor or posturing or barely any media notice to

Ignore the Federal Budget Deficit of a measly Trillion$$$ per year

Raise the already bloated military budget.

Create the “Space Force”.

This along with 70 other bi-partisan bills this year signed by Trump.

So what is the purpose of this Circus? This impeachment wouldn’t pass even if the Democrats held the Senate.

He’s being impeached for something that is NOT directly a felony or misdemeanor. Nor is he even being investigated for what he spent most of the phone call on - the Watergate-like request for the 2017 DNC hacked server our Adderall-sniffer-in-Chief believes has been hidden in the Ukraine by Crowdstrike, the DNC’s. Cyber Security consultant (The Ukrainians on the call must have s**t their pants! To get the funds released they’d have to seize and produce something that doesn’t exist).

Don’t get me wrong/ Trump is an epic piece of effluvium. A career criminal handed the keys to the Treasury by an idiot electorate.

Definitely - He’s committed umpteen violations of the emoluments clause PLUS witness tampering and obstruction in plain sight. Which are felonies under Federal Statutes. Already investigated by Mueller.

But he’s not being impeached for those felonies Or dozens of others.  As far as I can tell he’s not even being actively investigated by the Democrats for those crimes.

Nor investigated for his obviously dangerous mental lapses. I’m not talking about his dyslexia (Bahama misread as Alabama; Balkans as Baltic). I’m talking the wandering off until he is corralled by an aide and brought back looking confused. The incoherent ramblings. Obvious drug use: Irises wide dialated even though looking at bright lights of the camera. Old pictures of his office with an open drawer on his left with a illegal stash of Prescription pharmaceuticals.

WTF is my question. Why not investigate ten of his past crimes where potential White House witnesses have already been fired by Trump? More than willing to testify.

Nooooooo. Only the very latest where he still exerts control over potential witnesses because he hasn’t said those magic words to them, “You’re fired!”

Is this an Impeachment designed to fail. But oh it rallies the voters. For both Parties. Bi-Partisanship?