Gotye + Kimbra // Somebody I Used to Know

A friend of mine recently showed me this tune, and I just can't seem to get any part of it out of my head.  The lyrics resonate so soundly with prior life experience.  The best part, though, is the duet composition - allowing both sides of this crumbled love affair to be expressed in the first person.  All too often the stories we hear, whether recounted by friends or presented in fiction, concern only one protagonist's perspective of the experience.  Every story of such has two sides, but rarely are we allowed to empathize with both.  As I always say: it is all about perception.  No one can make another person feel anything.  Our feelings are based on our perception of what's been said to us or how we've been treated.  Here we see two people, clearly hurt, and clearly with their own ideas of what has happened.  What is love's demise if not some dose or version of misunderstanding?

 

Do you think the rose-colored tint on the lens is intentional?

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end
Always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad that it was over

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done
And I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know...

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

I used to know
That I used to know

Somebody...

Journal // Change and New Beginnings

>>i've moved across the country, and i feel happier than ever. after a year of literally every aspect of my life going through an intense period of flux, all of the pieces - at once conflicting, consorting, and ready to combust - have fallen into place. i left my home of six years to start over somewhere new because, in short, i was just... ready for a change. i left a good job to look for a new job, i left great friends to start over with new friends. i left the city i knew like the back of my own birthmarked hand to build a life in a new city i hardly know. time-zones, climates, mentality, architecture, ethnic breakdown, vegetation, and industry - hardly anything is the same from what i once knew. yet somehow, i feel more whole than i have in quite a while. i am fully invested, and my returns are matched on every front. i left a wonderful relationship earlier in the year because, in short, i felt i couldn't commit my life to a person before committing myself to a life. as of now, i don't know what i'll be doing for full time work, i don't know exactly where i'll be living once i find my work, and i'm not even positive i know what i WANT to do for work!  but somehow, everything feels just as it should. when we lose or leave our jobs, we lose our sense of purpose, our sense of worth. isn't that how it usually goes? i feel more alive than ever. i feel ignited and impassioned and in love, once again. we parted ways only to find ourselves with a regained sense of independence and appreciation, and pursuing new career paths in the same state. now my pursuit is happiness. i want to create it, i want to sustain it, i want to share it. rejection is motivating, criticism is productive. i'm reminded again that it really, really is all about your perception. <<

Journal // Comfort

 >>one of those nights where you all of a sudden realize where you are... realize where you were a year ago... it's like black and white, then and now... and you wonder, could now and then possibly be any more different?  the comfort ceases to exist when reminded of what was once comfortable.  tonight... suddenly, i'm out of my element.  i am where i was then, but stuck in now... wondering how and when everything changed.  where was i when black turned white? a split second incognizable to the conscious mind... or a gradation of shades so infinitesimal that a distinct point in between is unidentifiable... where the drastic change of black to white is discounted to a gray state of consciousness - vague to memory, and in the essence of every moment.  tonight is a night where all i have is white, and nothing will suit me but black.<<

I journaled this thought on the 23rd of January, 2007.  Despite all cards in hand being entirely different, I couldn't feel more similarly at this very moment.  Looking back on the cards in hand then and now, something tells me the feeling will be more transient on this day than it was four years ago... but it could not feel less so at the moment.  In moments like these, the magnitude of feeling behind the flow of consciousness is such that you cannot, in your heart of hearts, mind of minds, imagine feeling any other way.

One of those nights... where you find yourself... incapacitated.

Journal // Perception

>> "to each our own" we experience the world. through a lens uniquely crafted by our upbringing, we see the world... this world we all share. these lenses not only determine how we see the world, but how we experience it - these lenses define our outlook, and thus who we are, or rather, who we see ourselves to be as individuals, and as a part of the world. culture, beliefs, values, people, morals, philosophies... every nuance of perception is determined by our lens: how these things diverge uniquely and differently through the lens of each individual. so to change one's lens... is to change how you perceive the world as it comes to you. what change in a lens catalyzes a change in your perception of something like... freedom. commitment. foreigners. love. justice. let's think some more about that. <<