this is pouring rain

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me

would you really rush out?

Bike down
Down to the downtown
Down to the lock down
Boards, nails lie around

I crouch like a crow
Contrasting the snow
For the agony, I'd rather know
'Cause blinded, I am blindsided

Peek in
Into the peer in
I'm not really like this
Probably plightless

How come the window
I'm crippled and slow
For the agony, I'd rather know
'Cause blinded, I am blindsided

Would you really rush out?
Would you really rush out?
Would you really rush out for me now?

Would you really rush out?
Would you really rush out for me now?
Would you really rush out for me now?

Would you really rush out for me now?
Would you really rush out for me now?
Ooh, for me now, ooh, for me now

Taut line
Down to the shoreline
The end of a blood line
The moon is a cold light

There's a pull to the flow
My feet melt the snow
For the irony, I'd rather know
'Cause blinded, I was blindsided

Blinded, I was blindsided
'Cause blinded, I was blindsided

and I could see for miles, miles, miles

I would be extremely hard-pressed to select my one favorite Bon Iver song. But these are my top 5:

- re: stacks
- blindsided
- holocene
- blood bank
- The Wolves (Act I and II)

Next month, live. <3

"Success, Grit, Sacrifice, and Not Doing What You Love"

Repost of an essay written by my twin brother, Karlo:

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Success, Grit, Sacrifice, and Not Doing What You Love

What makes a person successful in their own eyes and in the eyes of others? Is success a high-paying job? Recognition and respect from one’s peers? Being one’s own boss? Being able to do what one loves? How should we measure professional success in this day and age? These are some of the questions that spring up when I think about the tired platitude “Do what you love”, and the elevation of “Do what you love” as the greatest value to which a professional or employee can aspire. While doing what one loves is certainly a wonderful thing, there is a real danger in presenting this particular type of self-fulfillment as the peak towards each working person is striving.

Miya Tokumitsu wisely pointed out that this kind of ethos, revolving entirely around self-curated bucket lists and desires, degrades actual, anonymous, atomic, unglamorous work, work that in all likelihood makes “Do what you love” possible for those lucky enough to be in a position to do so. “Do what you love” thus is inherently elitist, creating an impulse to pursue activities that one loves as vocation, to the exclusion of things that, while not loved, may create actual, undiminished value for persons and communities. We are told: “Do what you love, and what you do will not be work.” But there is something wonderful about earnest work itself, as the point of convergence of talent, exertion, and duty. There is at the core of dedicated work a kind of selfless love that deserves recognition as well. Passion is one thing, but our needs, and the material circumstances we find ourselves in, and the constraints imposed by reality are part of the discussion as well.

Sometimes, doing what one loves is simply not a tenable option, but that doesn’t mean that foregoing our passions to “Do what needs to be done” is any less worthwhile an endeavor. In fact, doing what needs to be done, which in many cases will involve putting aside some of our desires and passions, may very well reveal a greater capacity for love than “Do what you love” ever could.