“If I could just leave my body for the night…
Then we could be dancing,
No more missing you while I'm gone.
There we could be dancing,
And you'd smile and say, "I like this song."
And when our eyes will meet there,
We will recognize nothing's wrong.
And I wouldn't feel so selfish,
I won't be this way very long”
-Animal Collective, “In the Flowers”
Animal Collective is one of my favorite bands ever. Not just because of 2009’s major breakout album Merriweather Post Pavilion, but because they are extraordinarily weird. Like, waaaaay out there. I imagine their songwriting process is something akin to forcefully smashing exotic instruments together until something sounds close to music. They make some of the most incredible songs I’ve ever heard; they also miss quite often. That’s not a bad thing, though - it’s a key part of the experimental sound that makes their hits so powerful. Today I want to start with one of my favorite AC songs, “In the Flowers”.
You know me, I don’t do measure-by-measure song reviews. I’m more interested in moments. “In the Flowers” contains one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever experienced in music. The verse lyrics in the first half of the song describe a dream-like scenario with a dancer, set to some relatively haunting guitar. It all builds up to the line, “If I could just leave my body for the night,” and the song explodes into a triumphant dance that describes the writer living out his dream in another reality. Every time I hear this moment in the song, I get chills. I can’t help but ask myself, “Why does this hit me so hard?” Let’s find out.
The truth is that part of me really wants to leave my body. Just for one night. I want to experience other lives and do things I’ve only dreamed of. I want to scale mountains, have crazy orgies and canoodle with the rich and famous. I don’t do any of these things - quite frankly, I don’t even try. Naturally, I have to ask myself if it’s because I’m afraid. Am I afraid of taking risks? Am I afraid of getting out of my comfort zone? I’m happy to report my answer to all of these questions is a resounding “No.”
I could go climb Mount Everest. I could go find an orgy (especially in Brooklyn). I could go do anything I want, but the thing is, I don’t really want to. It all sounds fun, but it’s not in alignment with the direction of my spirit. That’s the thing about desire; it has an incredible capacity to convince us it’s right about everything, and it tells us we’ll feel better if we just give into the temptation. That applies to little desires, like an extra candy bar, to more extreme desires, like getting involved in a scandalous relationship. From my experience and from what I’ve seen from the experience of others, desire never delivers on its promises. The extra candy bar doesn’t make us feel any better than we did before we ate it, and the steamy affair doesn’t address the self-esteem issues that got us there in the first place.
I’ve also found that desires can cause what I like to call ripples. Have you ever seen the movie “The Butterfly Effect” with Ashton Kutcher? I’ll spare the details, but the basic premise of the film is that every single action we undertake effects the sequence of actions in our lives moving forward. That’s pretty trippy (and it’s another knock on the school of nihilism and materialism - hehe). Our actions - all of them - have consequences. Each choice we make produces a different person than we would be if we made the opposite choice. Before you get upset, don’t worry - I’m not using this to take any sort of moral high ground (I’ve made many poor choices, and we all make innumerable mistakes). I just find it fascinating, and this simple fact alone opens up a new landscape of wonder and meaning in the greater mystery of life.
Let’s get back to the orgies. Will the process of seeking out and successfully engaging in an orgy really fulfill the part of me that seeks the orgy in the first place? I tend to think not, although that answer could be different for others. What I do know is that every choice I make is going to have an immediate effect on every choice I have moving forward. So what should I do? For me, this is an area where words fall short and I have to trust my gut and my spirit, and the answer is actually pretty boring. I need to train, I need to write, I need to sing, I need to eat. I need to do all the simple things I love to do. I need to not hurt people. I need to not hurt myself. If I can make the choice to do these things every day, the ripples I send into the future still may not be what I expect, but they will be me, through and through.
Leaving my body for the night would be pretty cool, but, just for today, it’s not something I need. I need the things that fill my soul to the brim, that light my spirit on fire, and I do these things every day. What kind of ripples are you sending into your future? The beauty of all this is you can start today with a different choice. Only you know what you have to do, and if you’re ever confronted with a difficult choice, always remember this powerful little slogan:
Estimable acts build self-esteem.