Conor Oberst Owns Your Soul

And it's too hard to focus through all this doubt.
I keep making these "To Do" lists but nothing gets crossed out.
Working on the record seems pointless now.
When the world ends, who's gonna hear it?

Conor Oberst wrote those lines. Conor Oberst owns your soul. 

Of course when you listen through to the end of the song, he ends on a faint note of hope, as he usually does. Though maybe hope is too strong a word for it. It's more of an inkling, not that shit will get better, but that you'll get better at dealing with shit. However, as a student who's currently studying Thomas Hardy, I felt it apt to focus on that part (all you readers in the house know what I'm talkin' about). It did inspire the title of my blog, after all, because I often get the feeling that nothing gets crossed off the list of whatever it is I want to do - and not necessarily "to do" lists. That seems too mundane a description. More like a "what I want to make of my life" list. Mind you, that sounds no less mechanical. Maybe that's the problem. 

I just noticed I had this unconscious alliteration of 'M's going on there. I mentioned I'm a literature student, and if this was a published piece of work (HA) by some random author, I'd be analyzing the pants off of it. That's what literature has been reduced to, hasn't it? Significance of the title, subject, poet's/author's intention, tone and atmosphere, rhythm and rhyme, rhyme scheme, alliteration, literary devices, and so on. "The alliteration of the 'm' sound with words 'mundane', 'more', 'make', 'mind', 'mechanical' and 'maybe' in the third paragraph create a tone of mocking and skepticism, due to the puckering of the lips that occurs when one reads the lines aloud, and the stress on the syllable where the 'm' occurs in each word emphasizes the effect. The author seems to be criticizing society for their tendency to categorize everything into simple numbered lists where items can be crossed off in very little time and then forgotten, instead of facing the fact that reality resists order and the truth resists simplicity." See, that last part, that's the heart of it, isn't it? Yet I don't think I would score marks for it, because it's too abrupt after the immediate analysis of the sound. I'm not ticking all the boxes, you see. 

And that is a problem for me. I like boxes. I like numbered, sequential lists. I like being able to cross things out. It makes me feel like I've been productive. Like I'm not a wate of photosynthesis. I *like* to try to impose order in my world. Who doesn't like ease and convenience? If you know what to expect, you can never be caught off guard. Right? 

Expect you never know what to expect. People are fickle. You expect them to clench your heart in their fist and run it through a qeema machine (meat grinder, for those not familiar with Urdu. And yes, that is an actual comparison someone has made to me for the romantic experience). Then they turn around and do something oh-so-stupid: smile at you, ask why you're feeling sad when you're showing the world a smile...call you beautiful. Somehow the effect is the same. And then they run over you anyway. Okay, extended bitter metaphor over. The point is, you'll inevitable fall behind when you try to restrict the universe to your schedule. 

Does that mean systems and discipline aren't important? Of course not. Anarchy is overrated. Structure has its place. Skeletons have their place. We wouldn't be able to function without them. But sometimes we forget skeletons are made to house souls. And what are we functioning for, but the delight of our souls?

And Conor Oberst owns my soul.

But if everything that happens is supposed to be
and it is predetermined, can't change your destiny.
Then I guess I'll just keep moving, someday, maybe, I'll get to where I'm going