I wrote this song a few months ago. I was having a hard time because things that had been working really well up until then suddenly stopped working. Specifically the amount of money I was making when performing in the subway stations in Vienna dropped drastically. And the harder I tried, the worse it got. At some point I was feeling so bad that I allowed myself to follow my friend’s advice and read a self help book about the law of attraction.
I’ve always had a strong resistance to this kind of thing. For one, because i’ve often observed a lot of insincerity in people within the esoteric/spiritual community. I greatly value authenticity. And when I sense people are pretending like everything is love and light while just suppressing all the darkness it gives me the creeps. And another reason I’ve avoided self help kind of books is a certain degree of pride - I am ashamed to admit. 😆 Like I went my whole adult life just kind of going with the flow and being in the flow and succeeding without trying. And I guess I felt like reading a self help book without mean admitting to myself that I am no longer killing it without trying and I am therefore a complete failure or something. 😅
I probably didn’t think that thought out clearly like that but it’s kinda the vibe I think I felt at the time.
But after many weeks of going out busking and coming home day after day with less than half the money I had become accustomed to making I was getting more and more drained and mopey. And the longer that went on for, naturally, the worse it got. And once you start expecting things to be bad to spare yourself the disappointment, then it becomes almost guaranteed that they will in fact be bad.
A third reason why I avoided self help books like that is that I felt I had already internalized the principles of how to live a happy life many years ago. I had been the one who went around telling people the secret to happiness is focusing on the good things in your life, no matter how small they are. How embarrassing would it be to find I’m not able to practice what I’ve been preaching all these years…
But like I say in one of the lines in the song “Just like a muscle is a thing you gotta train”
At some point it got bad enough that I had to accept that continuing to actually feel like shit is worse than admitting that I feel like shit, so begrudgingly I read the damn book.
Essentially what it comes down to with the law of attraction is that if you are actively and consciously grateful for the good things in your life, that puts you in a better headspace. And when you’re in a better headspace people react more positively to you, your brain works better so you make more progress and if one is to believe the gurus, the whole universe aligns in your favor.
Essentially it is basic psychology. But the esoteric/spiritual people like to sell it as magic. For some people it’s helpful to see it that way, but for me it just makes me roll my eyes till they hurt. I find that over the top talk of magic and the universe and all that so annoying. But the most annoying thing about all that is that it fucking works. If you manage to overcome your resistance and suspend disbelief and just do the stupid gratitude exercises… they fucking work. Fucking hippies were right all along! nooooo 😆
Now a lot of ultraspiritual dumbfucks take this shit too far and start thinking that people who are in less fortunate and privileged positions only have themselves to blame for their misery ignoring the structural inequalities that keep some people poor and some people rich. That’s a forth reason why I have tended to avoid this type of material.
But if you have your basic needs met and are not, you know, clinically depressed, or being exterminated, or being prevented from being yourself by a conservative heteronormative patriarchal society … ramble ramble … if your basic needs are met, then … this spiritual nonsense actually fucking works. 😅🙈
But it is a process. It’s not like you push a button and suddenly you’re happy. If you’re feeling like shit you will still feel like shit for a bit, but also feel like an asshole for feeling like shit despite your privilege. But if you manage to stick with it… something something … i’m tired of writing. peace ✌️😅
