July 20, 2022.

It's another uneventful day here in the suburbs of California.

I am sat at my computer, shuffling through a playlist of my favorite songs, not looking for anything in particular.

I hear the beginning chimes of Owl City's Beautiful Times. It's a wave of nostalgia for me -- something that dates back 8, almost 9 years for me now, back to the beginnings of my journey through music and who I am today.

Now, if you looked through my Spotify history, you will find that among the many things I listen to on the daily are artists or genres that are considered more generally "sophisticated". Those that come to mind upon writing include Charles Mingus, The 1975, Klaus Schulze (RIP), FLOCKS, Green Day, Justice, Kiyotaka Sugiyama + Omega Tribe, The Blue Nile, and so on. All these artists here hold a special place in my heart for many different reasons, but they are all tied back to the feelings that this song (and a good section of Owl City's discography, really) has given me.

I have a dubious recollection of things I felt then at best, but as I remember it:

So there I was, 9 years old, with a very cracked, very busted iPhone 5 that would very soon need to be replaced, Apple earbuds, and I had just gotten full access to my first ever music streaming service: a shitty third-party app that ripped all its music from SoundCloud. I can't remember the name of it now, but suffice to say, it was also dubious at best. While I had experience with Apple Music before, I had only heard snippets from just exploring the 30-seconds-or-so previews of music I was interested in (which really was anything at that time -- I had Shawn Mendes and Imagine Dragons on the same playlists as Big Sean and Kanye. I don't listen to any of them anymore).

My first experience with Owl City was (and most everyone will know this one) Fireflies. I don't think I have to tell anyone what that song really is, I hope. I personally was exposed to the distorted "ear-rape" versions of the track that were played over chaotic Roblox videos. Despite that, I really do enjoy the song, and I believe this is where it started -- a light and snappy beat, along with noodly synthesizer lines and the high-register of Adam Young's voice. I think his voice is where I connected best; having not hit puberty yet, I found myself singing along and hitting his higher notes better (something that takes more effort as time goes on. I sadly do not have that kind of vocal range anymore).

But it is his lyrics that planted a sort-of seed in my brain, something that would lay the foundations for how I interpret music today. It is the chorus of "I like to make myself believe / That planet Earth turns slowly / It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep / Cause everything is never as it seems" that has stuck in my head despite not having listened to the song for years now.

At first, I didn't notice any major change. It was more like a blossom, a flower that had sprouted but wouldn't unfold and reveal its true colors until the time was right. It was the openness of the lyrics, taking your hands and speaking softly, and every word is like a star twinkling in the night sky, or birdsong made manifest in your heart. For whatever reason, it felt right that these lyrics existed, that these words meant something that I couldn't quite explain.

Jacob Geller has made a fantastic video essay regarding the adult themes of primarily childrens' media and how these pieces of media "weren't talking down to him" as a kid. Of course, he was talking about Zelda when he wrote the essay, but the ideas he expounds upon and talks about in the video can be applied just as easily to music.

How so? Easy. Owl City's music, generally speaking, is for kids.

I don't mean that in a bad way, I love Owl City to death. But I also don't wanna mince my words here; Owl City's music, lyrically speaking, doesn't say very much that applies to real life so specifically. Especially recently. 2018's Cinematic turns to this nostalgic folk-inspired pop schmaltz that even I, as lost in the clouds as I am constantly, can barely stomach. To make a somewhat niche comparison: If Linus from the Stars is Disney music, then Cinematic is bad Disney music. Just listen to Cloud Nine from that album and tell me how far you get before turning it off. How the hell does it go on for so long?

And yet I have found myself coming back to material from that album over and over again. Not All Heroes Wear Capes? A beautiful country-folk ballad. Firebird (Alt)? Absolutely. But then the lyrics of both of these songs feel more personal, more relatable to me than anything else on the album. When Adam Young sings about road trips to New York City or buying a cabin in Montana, I'm not sitting in the melting California heat thinking "Ah yes, I remember doing these things. Owl City is really speaking to me here." No! I'm sitting there completely disconnected from the feelings he's trying to evoke, wishing the fucking heat would go away.

What does that say about the first two songs, though? Not All Heroes Wear Capes is dedicated to his father. It's all the good memories, the caring, the heart infused in the lyrics. It's kinda cheesy when you listen to it, but there's an earnest quality to what he's saying that makes it endearing anyway. And I mean, c'mon. I love my dad too. Firebird, I think I just like the instrumental more than anything.

But haven't I just established that media for kids has adult concepts and philosophies that tie in to our understanding and interpretations of them later on? How then, can Cinematic be rated so poorly, labeled as "shallow" and "surface-level" and even "cheesy"?

Being a kid means you have the whole world in your hands. Anything is possible when you're 5, right? The sun smiles upon the Earth, the grass is green, the sprinklers in the yard are on and it's time to run through them. There's no end to the fun! It's practically a dream.

Being an adult means you leave that behind. You are no longer the master of the world you once held in your hands. You have to pay taxes, buy groceries, watch as the world burns itself down through an endless cycle of capitalist destruction, right-wing ideals, and climate change, and worst of all you STILL have to go in to work. The fun's over, bitch! It was all a dream.

Being a teenager?

I am 17. In 3 months I'll be 18. In 13 months I will be graduated from high school, and officially be under no one's rules but my own.

A lot has changed in almost 9 years. I'm now bisexual, I'm now aroace. I first changed the gender, then took all the gender, then ditched the gender entirely. At 9 I first discovered what a furry was; at 17 I fully embrace the implications and I'm not so scared to call myself one. I am often terrified of what lies ahead, paralyzed by choice, and the only comfort I find is through creative mediums like music, or writing. I look out into the world and find myself completely overtaken with nervosity. I know the world will hate me for who I am. So, I flirt back with the dreams of childrendom. Memes about listening to a song and visualizing a whole music video for it in your head are basically what I'm doing in most of my free time. All of my life, and especially over quarantine, I have been dreaming.

Sometimes the sky is black, dark as coal and relentless in its oppressive bleakness. Sometimes, I am overtaken with a passion to write, locked in my room for hours, every inch of my brain dedicated to putting thoughts and concepts I can barely explain myself onto digital paper. Sometimes, things happen that hurt me, terrify me into panicked breathing and a rush of thoughts that just doesn't stop. But always am I going to get back up again, waiting for the sun to shine through the clouds, to grace my eyes once again and make me feel whole. And everything will be alright.

...does that make sense?

Probably not too much. Even now I am trying to put words to feelings that aren't so easily explainable.

Being a teenager means you have both feet in both worlds. The dreams and visions come easily to you as they did then, but they're different. They're of finally being able to express yourself in ways that you never thought were possible. They're of leaving this god-forsaken town that you grew to hate as time went on. They're of finally being free. All the while, discovering what exactly you are, and learning just as quickly that the world will not take kindly to you. It means grasping on to the last scraps of your childhood while being pulled away to prepare for the unforgiving adult world. It's the very end of a dream.

Is that what escapism has been, for me, all this time? Has it been the last scraps of a dream that I can barely remember?

Man. All this to say that escapism is just a way to leave reality behind for a second. But I don't think it's so simple. The existence of my reality is so oppressive on me. There's no way I can possibly escape, because every door in my house just leads to another room. Try as I might, I am always pulled back into reality by some external stimuli, whether it is the call downstairs to get dinner or being asked by a teacher to put my headphones away. I cannot escape.

Life is too cruel for that. I mean, c'mon. Music is one of my favorite ways to really portray some sort of internal or external struggle. Some of my favorite albums of all time are intensely good at portraying these things; Nurture talks about the loss of inspiration and identity through a 7 year process of redefining yourself and figuring out who you are. OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES is a stunning portrayal of the fluidity of the gender spectrum and its experiences, told through a vast and stunning array of sounds, all designed intricately and beautifully, as graceful as they are abrasive. American Idiot portrays a lost and disillusioned suburbanite who has to find himself again after spiraling into a world of depravity and self-destructive glee, all the while throwing its criticisms of the US government, the military industrial complex, and more.

...you know what? That's funny; all of those albums deal with a loss of identity, told with three different contexts but all detailing the same feelings.

Escapism is the knowledge that reality holds no small amount of trouble for anyone living in it. It is simply defined as "the tendency to seek distraction (...) from unpleasant realities (...) by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy".

I guess those fantasies change as we grow up. In a way... that's kind of sad.

So when things become less than ideal? I'll always have the music of Owl City to cheer me up. I'll listen to the sweet chiming synths and the slow, almost comforting, dubstep (that's 100% an oxymoron) beat and I'll be at peace for just a moment.

Escapism isn't just wanting to escape for me. It's wanting to no longer exist. Even for a second, to feel nothing but a calm, uninterrupted peace, even without being conscious to know what nonexistence feels like, it would be marvelous.

What's escaping reality to you?


September 5, 2022.

I've put the final touches down and prayed to whatever god there is up there that I've articulated everything correctly. I haven't touched this writeup in 2 months, thought it sounded wrong and like it wandered from one topic to another a little too quickly, without making connections. And it's also a little inaccurate (I listen to Kanye now). But now, rereading it with a fresh viewpoint? I think I didn't have to worry so much. And now that I officially turn 18 in like, 3 days, I can say this: I guess once it's there, right in front of you, being officially an adult seems less scary. Thinking about it, I've persevered this long, haven't I? What's another... 50, 60 years, right?

I guess I'm still a little cynical. But my point still stands. I've gotten through almost 20 years, when 5 years ago I would probably have considered...ending things prematurely, to put it lightly. I'm frankly still amazed that I got through that, and that I'm still getting through it. Maybe that's what I was channelling. Thinking about old escapist fantasies that even 9 years later I still haven't forgotten. Making music videos in your head, laying in a field staring up at the sky, letting the mid-dawn light filter in through the window even as it fades.

...It's still not so easy to put these feelings into words. There are just some things I'll never be able to put into words, really.

But what's stopping me from staring at the stars now? I can go outside and admire the flowers. So what if every door in my house leads to another room? At least one of them is my room, right? I painted all the walls green, impulsively if I'm being honest, but it fits the metaphor. It's my own green screen room. My own little space to dream. 

I'm still trying to escape reality today. I don't think I'll ever stop.

But maybe reality is a little more moldable than I thought. Maybe reality's not as tough as I made it out to be, even just 2 months ago. Even if the heat is still there.

Good morning. I hope you're having a fantastic day. I hope reality is just... a little easier on you today.