I haven’t listened to Deadsoul Tribe much yet, but the first song of their 2005 album The Dead Word came up on shuffle, and I decided to listen to the whole album through. I’m glad I did. I could have picked any song from the album, for musical content or for the lyrics so feel free to check out the rest of them on darklyrics. They’re a progressive metal band, and Some Sane Advice is a ballad so it doesn’t really represent the album very well, but at the moment it feels the most relevant to me. So that’s why I’m posting it, specifically.

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/deadsoultribe/thedeadword.html#5

Hey man, while we’re passing through,
Mind if I confided in you?
Can’t stand the grappling hands,
Clawing away at everything they can,
Holding on to a ludicrous plan,
A day in the life of a modern man.
Where do we go from here?

—–

Hey man, in the civil life,
Everybody’s scared,
And hanging on to broken promises.
The whole damn thing is coming unwound.
Isn’t it disillusioning?
Every day the same old thing,
And only closer to the bitter end,
Searching for something to never be found.

Am I mistaken,
On the path I have taken?
Am I forsaken?

        So here I am, packing up stuff to get it shipped to Ottawa, telling people I’m going there just because I don’t have a better idea of what will make me happy. Maybe if I’m feeling brave I’ll throw an “I dunno though…” at the end. Logically, I can plan out the “best” life for me right now: going to Carleton, getting my fancy shmancy degree, finding a job with it or maybe doing awesome research (likely not in Canada, there isn’t much money here for research right now… could be different in 4-6 years though), then marrying someone or otherwise finding myself a purpose in life after becoming “successful.”

        Emotionally speaking, I simply cannot plan out the happiest life for me. I don’t know what will make me happy. Right now, there are a handful of people who make my life an unquestionably better place, but there’s only one I can see myself living with… Unfortunately, neither of us is really comfortable with that kind of dependence given our current relationship, and she doesn’t want to make this decision for me. To make matters worse, she’s planning on leaving here when she can afford it, which would mean I’d work somewhere and save up money for however many months, then have to choose between: whatever crappy job and apartment I’ve got, or following her like a lost puppy. We could look at that in a more forgiving way, but it still leaves me with the same problem: what am I going to do with myself forever? I might be happy as long as we’re supporting eachother, no matter where in the world we might be living, but I’d still need work, and money, and essentially all of the logical things offered by university.

        The reason I only mention people as a source of happiness is because I don’t really have any talents or hobbies I could make into a career. I like to write, but I just don’t believe I could be a professional writer. All I really need is something that wouldn’t have me leaving work at 5 pm and collapsing onto a psychiatrist’s chair so I can cope with the stress. That’s not really something you can evaluate a job on, although a broad generalization would be to assume that most jobs I get from a university degree won’t lead to super-happy-fun-times.

        The more I think about it, the more I want to wait it out and make a move when I find out what I truly enjoy. The more I go with the flow, the more I want to get it over with and just go to university. Until I flat out say “ok, I am going to rent an apartment here and see how things go from there” and disappoint everyone, I won’t stick with it. Now’s not the time to be making that decision public, but time is running out to make it… Course registration is June 24th.

        Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Time is running out.