Infinitefreefall - Beautiful People
/ Maxton Stenstrom needed to vent a little bit. I feel that. That’s what I’m here for, folks. Stand up, shake it off, pick up your synth modulator and whale away.
do you ever feel like connecting with people is way harder than it has any right to be? or maybe that the world is so rife with invisible barriers between everyone that, hell, maybe it’s even not worth attempting to reach out at all?
i’ve been struggling with this emotion for some time now. i think a bit of it stems from the fact that i’ve always felt a little like an outsider. i’ve spent most of my life thus far cycling between various interests, friend groups, homes, identities, and the cloud hanging over me asks “how can you expect to get close to others if you don’t even know who you really are?”
i grew up in charleston, south carolina and moved to los angeles last year after falling in love with many of their music scenes. when i moved here, i was able to start seeing tons of my favorite acts perform, not only at standard venues but at after hours shows. these shows would often take the form of the elusive warehouse party, which are exactly what you think they are: everyone is doing drugs, everyone looks incredible, red bull and vodkas are $10, the crowd is made up of one-half die-hard music fans and one-half people trying to forget what day of the week it is. it’s simultaneously superficial and spiritual.
these first parties i went to were where i became hyper-aware of these invisible barriers. at these parties, i’d watch swaths of people with money, people with prestige, people with style, people who are connected, people with more friends than you, people who fit in better than you, people you think you’d like section off into their own equally impenetrable cliques; each dividing attribute adds yet another barrier to the space between myself and the silence. i saw them and wanted to feel like i belonged to something as much as they all seemed to; i thought about how wonderful it would be to fit in here. and then i looked at myself and wondered how much i’d have to change the person i am now in order to do so.
and these emotions became the impetus for this song. i’ll never underestimate the ability of art to turn even your most deeply hidden insecurities into a something of harmonic mantra for yourself… i think putting these emotions on full display helps me better deal with them. after all, therapy’s expensive.
p.s.: this is one of the most wonderful, personal, and honest blogs i’ve come across in a long while. thanks for what you do. it’s incredibly inspiring.
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