Minor Keys, Major Feelings.

byKarolína Fratriková

It’s almost like the world keeps spinning faster and faster. The way we are and the way we “should” be is changing way too quick for one to catch up. In the constant race with time we have been groomed to become something numb, in absolute control of itself, in pursuit of stability and power. We have become people at the expense of being human.

Even before we started getting tips on how to act from the internet, telling us both loudly and silently that the coolest way to be is “unbothered” were we expected to function as spare parts running a much bigger machine. But all our intelligence, advancements and structure aren’t enough to bury what’s still hiding in our core. The messiness, naivety and longing to be touched.

Now more than ever are we actively ashamed of what makes us so much more complex than all the other life around us. The human mind has the ability to imagine never-seen-before worlds, channel pain it has only read about and make something beautiful out of it, but it also so desperately wants to survive. And there is no place for made up worlds in our small, deeply flawed one. Until one learns how to shed that shame of wanting more, being more, they can never be free. All that we constantly battle (and constantly lose against) will never leave though. All the chaotic emotions, the need to belong, the animalistic desire for love and sex and understanding.

As I was trying to decide on the direction I want to take this piece in, I approached a couple of my friends with a simple question.“Why on earth do you listen to sad songs when you are already sad, knowing it will make you feel worse?” I could’ve answered it myself, since this behaviour isn’t a stranger to me, but if I want to talk about people, I need to talk to people. My personal experience is after all just a speck of dust in the big picture of things.

During my profound research I have also come across a term that finally changed my whole perspective. A hedonic set point. The simplest definition being “a genetically influenced base-line for one's happiness and well-being.” This, combined with my friends' answers to my question, gave a  much clearer idea of everything. People are just sad.

There is something unspoken about human nature, perhaps because nobody has yet found the right words to say it. It’s in all of us and everywhere around us, this unexplainable melancholy. From simple nostalgia you feel while scrolling through your gallery in the middle of the night to blockbusters with devastating plots you watch for fun. Humans like to feel, and even more than that they like having their feelings entertained.

Art is one of the last things keeping us, as a whole, human. It is and always will be a direct mirror image of who we are at this moment in time, how we think, what we care about, how we feel about ourselves. It is the last abyss you can look into and truly have it stare back. It’s full of all those desires we aren’t bold enough to express.

Music especially, with the unlimited access we have to it now, has become the quickest and easiest way to get that hug we all sometimes need. No matter how strange, hopeless or disgusting you feel, somebody has felt it before and put it into words. All our emotions long for validation, but the bad ones need it. And hearing your thoughts sung back at you is an almost divine gift. It’s comfort, hope and sometimes a needed slap in the face. Because while everyone is valuable and unrepeatable, nobody is that special. You are a tiny piece in a world that has existed long before your oldest ancestors and will exist after our time is done and to think even your worst demons are unique to just yourself is nothing but foolish.

Nobody is alone in their head, ever. And as long as we keep art, this tiny but so so important piece of humanity alive, we’ll be reminded of that. And perhaps that’s all we need to keep the bigger machine running.