Picking Flowers

I have been thinking a lot about the path that my life is traveling down.  If life we just one road, continuous from start to finish, it might be easier to weather the journey.

I feel like once my life was one, long road.  Each important life event is a mile marker. Walk, talk, start school, finish middle school, start high school, end same.  Start on some path to a career, keep on, and on, and along the way you may gain and lose travelers, but on the road continues.

But I don't feel like that anymore.  I once was on a long road.  I had a map, and plan.  And I set my journey to follow those until the end.  But I turned a corner to find, instead of continuing along ever fainter into the distance, that the road ended.

Where that road ended, a whole city of roads opened up.  I knew not where to set my feet again, so I wondered the roads of this city, trying many but staying with none, until I found another path to take.

I took this path, expecting to find that it would finally lead me into the horizon.  A path is never easy, and you cannot see what lies ahead, but at least if you put on foot in front of the other, you can make it down the path, and encounter everything along the way.

But again I found this path did not lead me where it should - where I want so desperately to be.  There is no road ahead for me to follow.

Instead, this new path lead me to a field.  Try as I might to find another road to take, all around me is a vast empty field.  Even the road that lead me there has vanished, never to be traced back to where I began.

I know this field wants me to make it something, wants me to carve my own path through it and lead myself on other journey.  I cry out to the field, tell me what you want to be!  Give me direction so that I am not the one who decides your fate.  Yet the field remains stubbornly silent.

I wait for guidance.  I wait for another traveler to place a path beneath my feet so that I may follow.  I have no preference for where I will go, and how I will get there.  And that's why the field remains so.

Perhaps I'll stop, and pick some flowers.  And with their colorful distraction, perhaps luck brings inspiration.

Why Is iTunes So Judgemental?

Like many people who have embraced the 21st Century, I almost exclusively by my music from iTunes.  I find it very convenient.  I can sample the music before I buy it - if only I could have done that when I was younger, I would have saved so much money on cds I only bought for like one good song. Also, given my awesome, yet specialized, taste in music, I can actually get artists that you may only find in large cd stores, which are inconvenient to go to.

However, I am not a fan of some of the artist bios and album descriptions that are on iTunes.  I get that my taste in music is not mainstream, but that doesn't mean iTunes can be a jerk about the bands I love!

I am a big fan of punk music, particularly pop punk, in its various forms.  Idk how many times I have read some not nice things about the genre from descriptions on iTunes.  Like how the like to mention the genre has no range, and that band's album is surprisingly good given the limitations of the genre.  To that, I say "Screw You!"  A genre is only as limited as the artists chose to make it (and I think they are awesome, so bite me).  Or maybe the iTunes editors are just limited in their exposure to the music, so they don't know what they are talking about. Booooooooo!!

Or like today, I purchased the Black Veil Brides "Wretched and Divine" album (because it's awesome!). And yes, eventually the editor got to just how good the music is and that the band is freaking awesome.  But first, they have to take a dig at their appearance.  After the long winded, and rather rude description of how the band presents itself physically, the praise of their music seems more back handed or incredulous.  Frankly, I find this uber insulting.  BVB has a very dedicated fan base (which is very much deserved, and one of the reason I checked their music out in the first place).  An album description is not the place to make such insulting comments.  Granted, if someone's music is bad, then make an objective observation of that.  But don't be an ass hole just because you don't understand a style of music or an artist.

So basically, that's my rant.  I get I don't listen to the most popular music, but for those of us that like it, we are very dedicated, perhaps more so than many other types of music.  Maybe instead of letting their editors be uneducated douche bags, iTunes can actually hire someone to edit the info who's not lame.  Instead, have someone who actually gets it make these descriptions, so at least they can be accurate, and give great music its fair dues.

:^P