Domi & JD Beck finally released their album. Listening to that today. Here's a cool one:

In this post, however, I intend to talk about this song:

Some of my friends might excommunicate me when they find out I like Tame Impala -- look, they have maybe 3 or 4 songs that I'm really fond of, and I don't listen to anything else they've made.

Anyway, when this song was suggested to me, at first I loved it, and listened a few times. I am pretty happy about being male, and I really appreciate media that defends or celebrates the nobility of distinctively masculine traits. And, for the record, I believe that women can and should, to the exact same degree, be proud of their femininity -- all God's creation is good. Let's all be happy about what we are.

Well, at a glance, this song seemed to be doing something like that -- "I'm a man; I answer to a higher force". After a couple of listens, I realized that the subtext here is that the narrator is cheating on his wife and has substance abuse problems (the music video appears to contain a wedding scene and some substance abuse; the song implies the rest) and is blaming his actions on his masculinity. The "higher force" is the collection of physical urges to which he has allowed himself to become enslaved. The lines "I'm as pathetic as the reason why" and "I'll never be as strong as you" make me think that the author recognizes the narrator's depravity, but there's no redeeming element in the song to indicate that the author disagrees with the narrator's rationale. It remains a plausible interpretation of the song that the author intends to present masculinity in a strictly negative light in contrast to an apparently more fragile presentation of femininity.

I'd love to walk through Romans 8 and explain how the song is actually spot-on with respect to atheistic materialism, and how Christianity ennobles masculinity, but I haven't the time.

In any case, the song is a major bummer, and I'm left wondering whether there are any actually good songs about being a man, other than those which seem to have been written by John Deere. 

And that's all I have time for today. I just wanted to get a blog out there. There's not much to update on anyway -- all the projects I mentioned in prior posts are still basically in progress.

"You don't have to rob me. It's not really worth it. I only have credit cards, and I can just cancel them."

My back opens up like a book filled with autumn leaves. My head is an asteroid full of broken glass, and if I don't keep shifting it will pour out and ruin everything. The room is thick, and I can barely move in it. The floor tilts this way and that; every step takes me to a new and unexpected altitude. My mind is a leaking boat; my chest a choking tangle of vines. The room shrinks and my body stretches long and thin. I have things to do, like brush my son's teeth, but can I walk to the toothbrush safely? How can I read this book when my environment consists of a series of inexplicable disasters? What would a bedtime song sound like if it came out of my mouth? How much longer until I can lay down in bed?

Yesterday I either experienced several related episodes of hallucination over the course of the night, or one exceptionally long episode. I can't tell. There was an interval where I thought that the hallucination stopped, but then much later in the night, around the time the first birds in the morning began to chirp, I realized that a certain detail which I believed to be true about my immediate environment, and over which I was very distressed, was actually imagined, and I wasn't able to be sure how long that night I had believed it (the thing was truly absurd, and I'm a bit shocked by how much time last night I sustained belief in it). I hardly got any sleep. 

What a nightmare.

I don't think the scenario presents a significant epistemic problem for me, because it was temporary, and the methods I cling to for determining true and false grant that falsehood may be believed for a period of time pending analysis, and so find themselves valuable in light of my fallibility rather than in spite of it.

The events occasioning this stress, however, continue to proceed apace, and I worry very much about how long they will last, and how well we will recover. Nonetheless, time is passing and the future seems to unfold without much regard for my plans. Everything has always worked out for the best; everything will work out for the best this time as well.

I've been praying all day for peace... but I know that God's plan is better than my temporal peace, and so I pray, most of all, that whatever the case, God is glorified by my family and our handling of our circumstances.

"It's not just that. It's more outrageous than that."