This is quasi-music related, more a social commentary/review. I should write about my progress in the semester, maybe after the concerts this weekend, but right now I am pretty inspired to write something. Okay, shut-up just say what you intended to say... HA! I just got back from seeing Rent, which I have never seen before and yes it was the movie not the on-stage show but nonetheless the impact is quite dramatic and great. Finally a movie/musical that made me think, seriously made me think about life. It seems like a number such as 525,600 is huge, and it happens to be how many minutes we get in a year. How many of these minutes have we utilized, slept, thought, realized, acted really really stupid, laughed, cried, reflected, stared in awe, wanted to be something, or someone for that matter, made decisions, lied, ran, gave up all feeling, felt sad, felt happy, or lived; hopefully every single one of them for the latter. Sure, the song is about seasons of love, but its about life, and it made me realize how lucky I am. I think back over this past year, and how incredibly PHENOMENAL it has been, what I have learned, seen, been, felt - seriously one of the best years of my life. I think of how, I could be in a worse situation or be sick or be dead, yeah all those are quite drastic but think: worse case scenario. Maybe its the human condition, maybe its the stark reality of life or death. Emotional feeling or labels we put on people doesn't justify who they are, they are just the same as each and every one of us, other than the fact that they are completely different. Woah, just think about it openly for a second.
And for another realization of mine, I have no idea where the state of AIDS is in America at the moment, and I feel incredibly embarrassed to actually admit this. Living in Maine doesn't really help, though its a bad reason to state (no pun intended there). It just seems like its not there (the message and the presence) as it would be in Boston, NYC, Washington any major urban area. Isn't this a little odd? And I know World AIDS day just passed us by, and I didn't even realize it. I want to become more socially conscious of this epidemic. When I lived in NH my mother worked for the state and was involved in the epidemiology with HIV/AIDS. I was a little too young to fully understand the social connotation connected to it; this was in the early and mid 90s I know they didn't have the medicine nor the technology to treat and suppress some of the symptoms like they do now, it was (still is) major. Rent just in a way brought these thoughts into my head, made me think of other diseases such as cancer/leukemia that are so close to me. Its a scary realization that in this day of age with the technology we have, the human body is still one of the most powerful machines ever, and our own brain can't even match its power (unless we learn how to unlock the dormant areas of the brain but thats a huge other topic I would love to get into/research but not here....) So, I am really glad there are movies and art is out there (yes music too) that makes me think and inspired me to have an open mind and the ability to change my life. 525,600 minuets from now I hope this realization sticks with me.
