My Story of a Weird Month & Becoming a Better Person

Where there’s pain there’s growth.

How weird it feels to get back to this.

What do I mean by “this”?

Well, fellow reader, this is the first personal essay I’ve written in a while.

To be honest, I’m not super proud of my work this past month. I haven’t written that much about myself in June of this year.

There are a few factors explaining this, but the overarching reason is that June has been a weird month for me.

What do I mean by “weird”?

Like the Facebook relationship status, shit’s complicated. I live in a country that has seemingly given up any hope on fighting a pandemic that kills people of all ages. I’m constantly reminded that I have a governor and a president who don’t really see the difference between me being alive and me being dead. I’m reminded that I can die at any moment. Maybe I have the coronavirus right now, who knows?

In addition, the black lives matter movement has brought to my attention a lot of stuff that I did not know about in American society. It has made me more cynical to be an American. It has made me less proud to be an American. It has made me egregiously uncomfortable — uncomfortable for many reasons. For starters, you think the anxiety I have (re: above) is all that unique? Try being a black person in America. They feel like their life never matters. That’s because it doesn’t and it won’t until we make various changes (criminal justice reform, anyone?). Literally reread one of my sentences in the paragraph before this (I’m constantly reminded that I have a governor and a president who don’t really see the difference between me being alive and me being dead.). This is how black people in the U.S. feel every day without a global pandemic.

As Americans, let’s admit it to ourselves: we are under a lot of pain. You can feel it in these words. You can feel it in our music. You can feel it on the news.

Finally, I love the people I’m living with, don’t get me wrong, but they are 100% Trump/Fox News/anything antithetical to progress. It’s torturing my brain. It hurts my heart to see the misinformation they spew and believe in, only after I’ve dedicated my entire independent academic career to studying misinformation and its potential to start political crises like the one in Myanmar. Ironically, as a Jewish family, we don’t let a single piece of food go in the trash because of the Holocaust, yet we are comfortable to see another Holocaust happen in our own country.

I feel like my extremely expensive degree has no use. I took out so many student loans — a decision I made when I was seventeen — to study something that I didn’t even make a career out of. This is something I’ve always dealt with, not just in June. But seeing the shit that I just described of my Floridian family reminds me of this fact more so.

Long story short: I’m in a lot of agony because of the things I cannot change. I cannot change the fact that my leaders are the most incompetent in recent history; I cannot change the fact that much of my family actually agrees with them; I cannot change the minds and decisions of other people just like that, with the snap of my fingers. This is something that I think a lot of young people deal with.

We have to accept the fact that a lot of things in life we simply cannot change. It’s hard for an eager young person like myself to accept this but it’s actually to my benefit. Instead of focusing on the things that I cannot change, I can focus on the things I can.

This week, I started learning how to play guitar (thanks for the present, my beautiful mother ❤) and now I know how to play the riff for Come As You Are. It feels good to finally start playing music.

When I was seven or eight (don’t remember what age), my mom gave me her old guitar for my birthday. I didn’t do anything with it, other than break one of the strings. A few years later, she got me an acoustic guitar for my birthday. The only thing I did with that was keep it in its case. This time things were different. As written before, over the past year I’ve developed a much deeper appreciation for music. The way I feel when someone strums their guitar at rhythm feels euphoric. Some of the best guitar solos have made me tear up.

Since there isn’t a lot to do where I live (and that everything is shut down), I started messing around with GarageBand on my phone. I played Come As You Are from sonic memory, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to learn more songs. I wanted to learn Venice Queen, Creep, etc. I couldn’t play any of those with two thumbs on my iPhone XR (product red!). So I WhatsApped my amazing mother and she bought me a guitar.

I only started playing it on Wednesday and knew how to play the full riff by Thursday. I dove deep into it. Ask anyone who’s ever worked with me, this is how I proceed in life. I get tunnel vision and don’t think of anything else. It’s weird because I’m somewhat eclectic. I think that’s good, as I’m not only interested in a lot of things, but I also get super deep into those things. This writing is an example. Guitar playing is a new example. Now I’m learning Creep. I know the strums and the frets for my index finger though for the other fingers it’s hard. Hopefully I’ll nail down Creep soon. I know I will, because I’m deep into the guitar.

Writing this blog late at night is making me feel good. It’s bringing about perspective. Aside from what’s going on in the United States and around the world, I need to remind myself that I have it quite good. I’m sheltered, I’m fed, I’m emotionally supported by my parents and my friends virtually. I’ve also made a lot of new friends during this quarantine. The Riff, my music magazine (we launched a free newsletter with musician interviews, by the way!) has allowed me to meet and interview artists from places like Toronto, Asheville, the Netherlands, and more. I’m friends with these musicians and keep in touch with some of them at least on a weekly basis. Asking them about their experiences and getting to know them on a personal level has made me love music even more.

It’s also inspired my work as an entrepreneur. It made me appreciate hard work and not giving up. These musicians have been working on their crafts all their lives, in addition to their projects for many years. Most of them have not made it “big” — big in the sense that they work on their music full-time — yet that is the least of their concerns. They make and play music out of love for the craft. They don’t need glitz and glamour to be happy — they have all that they need. The musicians that I know are happier than the rich people I know. It’s just a fact. Happiness cannot be bought.

And for me, I need to remember that happiness comes from within. It doesn’t come from the things that I can’t change, it comes from the things I can. It comes from learning how to play guitar. It comes from writing more personal essays like this and opening up more to my readers. It comes from remembering that, no matter what happens during these times, I have love and support from all around the world.

P.S. While writing this, I was listening to my friends John and Bas (our group chat is called “YouTube Studs” for a reason) play amazing songs such as this.