Intimacy – Parts Per Billion

Alienation and Creativity

Creation for capitalism, consumerism and pleasure maligns its true purpose which actually is to create joy and a sense of belonging, comfort and safety. Alienation is the end effect of such capitalist processes where people have isolated their humans side for the rat races and FOMOs. Pure creativity, empathy, connect with nature and self can help use to preserve that human core and come out of the alienation.

How true forms of creativity can help us to reconnect with our human core

“On The Train Ride Home” by The Paper Kites

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I found –
Maya Angelou

Humans – the creative animals

I think creativity is the most important quality granted to human beings. Nature in itself is the ultimate and the best creation which at the same time is also the creator of many things. Animals, non-human beings too have the gift of creativity to certain extent but human beings have outperformed in using this gift of creativity. We are always creating something, we have tools, we have automated processes to create anything we can understand. This creation of things has led us to becoming the most developed species on the planet. Creation can be in any sense – creation of music/ art/ cultures, families/ society, factories/ industries/ conglomerates, institutions/ organizations, cities/ metropolitan, governments, policies, supply chain, and what not! All these creations are intertwined to prove how advanced the human species is. You must also remember that once a process of creations starts generating fruitful outcomes it gets automated to optimize, to improve the efficiency. Most of the times we forget that some creative processes are not meant to be optimized because value of their outcomes is not materialistic. The concept of efficiency and/or optimization is purely materialistic concept. But as we are progressing ahead as the species, most of our creation processes are getting robotized, where materialistic outcomes are more important than the process of creation itself.

Young generation has crucial role in deciding the future course of our species, especially when we have this great tool of creation – our creativity itself. People of my generation (millennials and Gen-Z to some extent) are the key creators of this time who will decide where our future will lead us. This generation is completely busy in various ventures of creation to justify their own life. But, as I have mentioned before, our creation processes have become so mechanistic, so robotic to gain more, extract more materialistic outcomes that this young generation is getting more and more detached from the real purpose of creation in its true spirit. The consumerism and (crony) capitalism has thrown today’s youth into a forced state of alienation in spite of being living in crowd, densely populated resourceful, glamorous cities. We are lonely in spite of being surrounded by the crowd.

This loss of attachment from the spirit of creation has led to the alienation of the today’s young generation – who many times go through the feelings of isolation, meaninglessness, directionless, confusion – it’s not just a normal existential crisis through which every young generation of their times goes through rather it’s the blurring of the true spirit of living in today’s young generation. Please keep in mind that it is not mistake of this same young generation. The system, society, institutions have evolved in such way that the creative processes are getting designed more for materialistic optimization instead of getting created for the real upliftment of the human civilization. Feels like we are losing touch of the real purpose of our being.

An Australian indie rock band called The Paper Kites released a song called “On the Train Ride Home” which in my opinion tries to touch those feeling of “alienation” which our today’s young generation is going through. Deep down we all know what we really want, we know what our core is but the systems in which we are living today have made our lives more and more mechanical, even though we are in the process of creation that creation no more belongs to us, that detachment, that alienation, that freedom from the vicious capitalistic cycle is what we are yearning for in the end. This is what this song for me is.

The Paper Kites
L–R: David Powys, Sam Bentley, Sam Rasmussen, Christina Lacy, Josh Bentley

I will dissect this song from the point of alienation; for me that is what it is all about.

The lyrics of the song is credited to Samuel Bentley, On the Train Ride Home lyrics copyright: Wonderlick Pty Limited

(It’s a song which needs to be treasured, hidden from others so that no one spoils it and I know I am committing a personal crime by exposing it. But such creations need more exposure and deserve proper appreciation too.)

Waiting down at the station
I don't remember, think it was late then
Standing, always so quiet
We're like elevators filled up with strangers
No sound, no hallelujah's
Still I was praying on the train ride home

The starting of the lyrics creates an imagery of the person waiting for a train home. The complete separation from the surrounding has made this person to forget vivid details, it shows the mundane-ness, the separation from surrounding to just reach a safe, calming place which is home. The feeling of loneliness in spite of being in the crowd shows how there is no emotional connect between people. Elevator filled with strangers shows that people are closer and more connected, more accessible but they are not closer emotionally. This is exactly today’s situation, social networking and internet brought us so close that we can ‘poke’ our friend living in another hemisphere within few seconds and still we will see people craving for true connections more than ever. No hallelujah’s shows the loss of spirit, loss of soul in people who are part of this – physically close but emotionally isolated crowd.

If I can't get the things I want
If I can't get the things I want
Just give me what I need

Here, the person is aware of the difference between wants and needs which shows that his/ her separation from home to go to the crowded place to create a better resourceful life was not the ultimate goal. This is the only way through which this person can live a life. The system based on the cycles of consumption has narrowed down the meaning of living a life to mere survival. One can get as many things by obeying this cycle of consumption but it will not satisfy the hunger – the emotional hunger, that intimate craving of humanity. The distinction and use of wants and needs is a very smart way to show how the person is trapped in the system to survive but deep down they know what actually makes a fulfilled life. That is why person asks for basic fulfilment if not all what they desired.

Our words fill up the pages
Fill up the days with psalms for the ages 
Still those vows that we all speak
We break them like concrete
And just make our words cheap

This part of song shows how words have lost their worth. Words in the sense the sense of commitment, sense of loyalty to keep the promises. The piousness of the daily prayers, the vows are less cared for. This expression shows how insensitive we have become to just gain the materialistic means, to survive.

This is exactly where it struck me that this song is not just about average existential angst every young generation goes through; this song is more about the alienation of a person where system does not value real creativity – which gives our lives meaning. The system now has been maligned with the materialistic efficiency. Consumption has become more important than the end effect it creates. Mention of “wants” and “needs” thus highlight the culture of consumption here.

I want someone to grow with
Songs I can sing to, and I family to cling to

The song tries to conclude with the ultimate pursuit for living a better life. Why are we all doing the things which we do? Why do we go on job? Why do we work all week, live paycheck to paycheck without any greater purpose – in spite of knowing that we hate this work at its core? Why knowingly, intentionally are we craving for more and more materialistic pleasures?

I think it is because of the recent vile cycle of consumption. I have a reason to justify this. Somewhere we know that the process of creation in which we are involved is not doing justice with our pure humanistic core.

As a human being all we crave for is the mutual growth, sense of fulfillment, love and intimacy for each other in this limited time on the earth. We know that ultimate goal of creation should be this humanistic goal, but the moment the creation loses this human touch we suffer from alienation, a sense of directionless, sense of being confused, a sense of trapped inside an infinite maze. This is the exact moment when the person craves for home, family and intimacy.

The train ride home is that craving for being the real human being who values emotions, commitment, love and happiness of the loved ones.

But If I can't get the things I want
If I can't get the things I want
Just give me what I need

The person understands that in this seemingly flashy, attractive, glamorous but mechanistic, mundane, lonely and unemotional life there is some hope that they at least will be able to preserve their human core. The request for the “need” over “wants” is the cry for that preservation of the human core.

Alienation

What urged me to completely (and maybe blindly) associate the lyrics of this song to alienation is how Socialism defines the concept of alienation. Karl Marx identified how a process of creation thereby value creation could isolate its creator from its creation. This isolation of creation and creator once intensified removes all the human, emotional attributes from the process of creation and here the brutal capitalism starts. The creation is now mere a mechanical, boring routine of materialistic revenue creation where humanity has no value.

Karl Marx on alienation

Karl Marx presented very beautifully the purpose of creation in human life. It is what separates human beings from other animals, non-humans. We are always involved in creative process which have a personal purpose, a meaning. That is why our creations and it’s end results are so intense and are way different than how other non-human creative processes. The moment such processes start demonstrating the separation of creator, the process of creation and the end-product of creation, capitalism/ consumerism start peeking their head out thereby slowly eliminating what made such things processes humanistic. This exactly is alienation, there is no sense of home, comfort or belonging.

Marx defined four types of alienation in his discussions:

Alienation of an object –

A factory labor stitching the designer clothing does not bear the capacity to own it and enjoy it. Even though the labor holds the skill and knowledge to create that fancy clothing the system is rigged in such way that the emotional connect between creator and creation is lost forever.

Alienation of process –

The process of creation has become so mechanical, so repetitive to improve the efficiency and to increase the output that humans involved in them have also became mechanical, unemotional. Today’s young generation working in mundane jobs, the jobs they hate only for the paycheck and the job without any personal purpose is the example of that alienation. The separation of creator from objects makes the object accessible to anyone but this accessibility is not equally distributed because the input to output ratio is highly skewed. The value that is created in the creation of the object does not reward the creator in any good way thus creator – the labor remains poor. This also make the creator to lose the faith in the process thereby leading to the alienation of the process.

Alienation of species-being –

The moment this mundane, highly optimized process does not bear any real humanistic purpose, the creator no longer follows the process to reach a better position in life spiritually, intellectually through the process of creation. It’s like the human creator has become a machine giving throughput. A sense of being a better species is lost forever – this is another form of alienation.

Alienation between humans –

Once the creator no longer has a direct connect to its creation, has no faith in the process for better pivot of meaning, has no sense of humanity, the value for another human life is lost. It is not because the creator or this person demeans or belittles others, it is because the creator himself/ herself does not consider their efforts their value of better worth, hence same treatment is given to people in their surroundings.

There is one famous snippet of a speech from Gabor Maté, a Canadian-Hungarian physician who has done work in ADHD, trauma, childhood development.

Gabor talks about broader scope of alienation which somewhat is based on the Marx’s idea of alienation.

Alienated from nature –

We as the human species no longer have that connect with nature which has resulted in its deterioration. You might have seen that there are still some tribes living in the remotest, inaccessible areas round the globe which are completely in tune with the nature and have preserved it. Today’s consumerism has detached our objects of consumption from their consequences on nature thereby destroying it.

We have to somehow re-establish that connect with nature otherwise nature has its way of adjusting things (we are seeing its effects all around the globe). And remember that this re-connection is also linked to we being the human beings. I mean, who doesn’t like lush greenery, pristine rivers and remarkable biodiversity!

One of the first condition of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.
Leo Tolstoy

Alienated from work –

The works we are engaged in are rarely driven by a meaning or a higher purpose. Even if it has some meaning it is immediately inked to some materialistic thing, there is nothing wrong in it as far as survival is concerned but at least this awareness should push us to work for the things with higher humanistic, spiritual purpose, that is our real core as the creative beings. The alienation from work has led to depression, anxiety, emotionless feeling, numbness among every one of us. We are replacing this meaninglessness by other material means which involve how we look, what we possess. Such means of damage control are creating more damage to who we are and what we work for which defines us. You will see, the economy we live in highly focuses on associating meaningful experiences to materialistic products.

Alienated from other people –

The moment we lose the hope and connection between our surrounding we are losing some human part in ourselves which dims down our perception of humanity for others. We trust very few people or almost no one, the relationships rarely have that depth, that intimacy. Social structures based on the depth of relationship are dwindling. The mental illnesses are emerging due to the lack of social emotional support system, growing intolerance, apathy on global level are also effects of that.

The start of the song where it mentions people filled in the elevator, disinterested and having been lost their spirit is the same alienation.

We have to start forgiving people again, create safer environments where we can express ourselves without any prejudice. It is scientifically backed that putting trust in people and treating them with high worth makes them trustworthy and high performer (see Pygmalion effect) In the end, everyone of is craving for someone to rely on and also someone who will make our sacrifices worth of the hardships. Associating positivity of self-worth to being appreciated and being respected for who we are is hardwired in our human circuitry. Our existence gets redefined to higher standards the moment other people (even single person) recognize it. (History has examples where people did impossible for far lesser people who believed in them without expecting anything in return)

The urge to cling to a family, sing a song to someone, grow with someone mentioned in the song is asking to escape from such form of alienation.

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night
Margaret Mead

Alienated from ourselves-

We have lost the connect our inner self, our curiosities, our inner child in the pursuit of the consumerist ends. The disconnect with the surrounding and numbness to the processes in which we are involved is furthermore deteriorating our inner human core. We rarely listen to our gut feelings, instincts because presence of lots of data, information around us creates a false sense of understanding of the things around us. This is alienation from ourselves, we don’t even trust ourselves – a simple advertisement or targeted influence is enough to make us buy that next thing that we don’t even want.

The part in the song where it talks about making our words cheap is the alienation from self. There is no concept of morality and inner compass in such alienation.

We know deep down what exactly is happening with us and around us but the system rarely creates conditions to come out of that.

How to de-alienate?

The desire to know your soul will end all other desires
Rumi

The core reasons of alienation lie in the loss of empathy, loss of higher meaning/ purpose and loss of responsibility/ commitment (committing to something to change the course of life requires higher sense of responsibility). We are empaths by default as a human being, so it is imperative to preserve this attribute even if the surroundings force the opposite. I know this is difficult when we are responsible for multiple things and people, but you are also responsible for yourselves. It is worthless if you win, achieve something great while losing yourself in the end.

The creative processes whose outcomes are not attached to any material means are thus the purest paths to avoid such alienation in the times of high consumerism and negative effects of capitalism. High consumption is an addictive form of alienation which can be nullified by pure creation. Consumption will give pleasure but creation will give joy.

The prayer to ride home in the song is the hope that we will again meet ourselves in spite of such extreme disconnect. Pure creativity is the answer to such prayers as far as the process elimination of alienation from our life goes.

What separates human beings from rest of the animals is their creative ventures otherwise we are exactly like all other living things. We are the beings who engage in multiple activities of creation which are driven by conscious intent, a reason. This ability to create something has led us to become the technically advanced species on the planet. If we establish the connect with our inner core through meaningful creation, the victory over all forms of alienation is possible.

True creation is all about connecting to every possibility there is.

Such deep concept of alienation expressed in a wholesome and soulful song by The Paper Kites truly deserves more and more appreciation and recognition. Words failed me to express how it made me feel (that is exactly why I didn’t control my words count, where few verses of this song did the same job. No wonder poetry is highly potent than prose!)

The song-

Bedshaped by Keane – On Yearning, Melancholia and Intimacy

We are really great at understanding our happy, feel-good emotions and we are masters of enjoying such emotions but when it comes to the negative, grievous, melancholic emotions we fail to acknowledge them. Sad moments involving the loss of loved ones are incomparable to anything, anyone in the world. But awareness, acknowledgement, acceptance of such emotions can surely help one to justify meanings to their lives in newer ways.

The song – Bedshaped

Sometimes words fail to pinpoint the emotions one is going through where poetry and music are proven to be the strongest tools. Loss of the loved ones is one such feeling which is purely subjective thus is difficult to generalize. The melancholy from the loss of an intimate person, the feeling of a big void in existence and the irreplaceability of that person are such emotions that are very difficult to trade with other things. A song called “Bedshaped” written by Keane taps into such types of emotions.

“Bedshaped” is a song by English rock band Keane, released as the third single from Hopes and Fears. It became their third consecutive top-10 hit on the UK Singles Chart, after “Somewhere Only We Know” and “Everybody’s Changing”, peaking at number 10. The song also reached the top 20 in Denmark and the Netherlands.

For oversimplification, although not recommended for such a fine piece of art – this song highlights how we are always looking for that emotional pivot in our life and what happens when one loses that pivot.

The Lyrics

The lyrics is written by James Keith Warnock Sanger / Richard David Hughes / Thomas Oliver Chaplin / Timothy James Rice-Oxley © CTM Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group

Many's the time I ran with you down
The rainy roads of our old town
Many the lives we lived in each day
And buried altogether

The poet is reminiscing the days he has spent with the person he is missing right now. He wants to remind this person that he misses that they lived those day together to the fullest and in such a way that every new day was a new life, everyday brought something new with it. These memories are not limited to the liveliness of the experiences from each days start only. They are also connected to how those moments disappeared at the end of those days. Whatever the days were, they both were together to witness those moments. This remembrance by the poet shows his longing for that special person – man or woman whoever they were. It is about a vacuum created by the loss of this important person.

Don't laugh at me
Don't look away

The poet is scared that there is no one left who can understand his state of mind. Now that there is no person left who were closer to him, intimate with him, who could care for him – he fears that the world will make fun of his confusion, directionless condition. The poet pleading to not be laughed at, not be ignored indicates that he is aware of the bad condition which he is going through but is helpless as nobody closer to him now exists.

The poet has become so self-judgmental that he has surety of people making fun of him instead of consoling him for the loss. One must understand why the poet has this innate fear and strong surety for the reaction of world for his loss; it is because he knows that the person he lost only and truly knew his personality – rest of the world will draw some conclusions instead of understanding the reasons behind his behavior.

One may call this emotion as the feeling of self-loathing because there is no one left for the person to reflect on the emotions of loss he is going through. The person has started to hate himself.

But there is some hope!

You'll follow me back with the sun in your eyes
And on your own
Bed shaped
In legs of stone
You'll knock on my door and up we'll go
In white light

The poet is so much consumed by the feelings of loss that he expects that this lost person or here we can say his spirit will come back to retrieve our poet to the after-world where they can coexist. “Bedshaped” indicates that this loss has made the poet so sick, immobile that the bed on which he is lying has become an extension of his body. The “legs of stone” indicate the disinterest poet has developed. He does not want to go anywhere. One must understand that this was the same person – the poet who had lived every day as new life with his beloved and now lost person. These are the feelings of depression due to the loss of the loved ones, but the poet hopes that their spirit may come back to rescue him.

I don't think so
But what do I know
What do I know

The poet expects that the strong bond of love may truly help him to recover from this loss but he is now so lonely that there is this uncertainty that this might not actually happen. The poet now moves on the boundaries of reality and illusions.

I know you think I'm holding you down
And I've fallen by the wayside now
And I don't understand the same things as you
But I do

This explains how the presence of a having loved one, and intimacy with such person can boost the self-esteem, confidence rather the whole personality of that person.

Now that the poet has lost such loved ones, he knows that he may not be the same confident person he was before. This makes him feel that he is not worthy of what that person made him. This feeling of becoming worthless again points to the emotions of self-loathing.

Now you should also understand that the poet is somewhat aware of what is actually going wrong an has this urge to recover from all this grief. He still bears the hope to come out of this alive but there is very fine line between the meaninglessness of his life and mere survival.

The Video

The video is stop motion animation directed by Corin Hardy. Which itself is fine piece of art.

The story conveyed in the video of the song actually deepens the meaning behind the song and amplifies the mixed emotions of grief, loss, self-humiliation, meaninglessness and most importantly the hope for liberation.

The video shows some short events in the day of a roadside naked drunkard who has lost the sense of his surroundings.

He misses the company of person he loved, the only person who truly understood him. He is miserable to pass this life on his own and alone.

We can be sure of this meaning because the rest of the world is completely hostile environment for him now. He is running away from people. Hiding himself.

Running away from the people, he grieves in a restroom. The restroom here indicates the privacy he has, the shelter of some comfort with his intimate thoughts and the memories of his loved ones. We metaphorically, are inside his mind where he is trying to understand this loneliness. He wants to recover from this misery and feel liberated. Hope is the only thing that he relies on, hence we see him contemplating his ideas in this restroom.

The thoughts written on the wall indicate the chaos, the confusion that person has in his mind as he has no close person to show the direction, the ways. The isolation in the restroom with his thoughts with his degraded condition indicates the urge to find someone who truly cares for him and the meaninglessness in life created by the loss of the loved ones.

You will notice that a cat brings him clothes from somewhere which somewhat lifts him up and that is also why he gathers the courage to revisit the world and blend in with the people in it. He tries to free his mind by letting go off the thoughts of misery.

Imagine what could have happened if a person would have given him the clothes instead of the cat. If a person would have offered him the clothes, then the chances for his recovery from grief would have been extremely high. Simple support from a non-human being gave him the hope to come out of his grief. Which is powerfully conveyed in the music video.

When this guy wears the clothes and tries to face the world, tries to vacate his mind the stares of unknown people again haunt him thereby pushing him again into his now chaotic and directionless mind.

This shows how sensitive a person is when he is facing the loss of his loved ones. The urge for the longing of the person who can truly understand you is strong in most of the people and there is nothing wrong in it.

Closing remarks

In the end of the music video, you will see the restroom the private room getting shattered and penetrated by ‘the white light’ this person was longing for. He is finally liberated. The song thus leaves at poignant and melancholic note where we are left to find out whether that liberation was his death or him losing all the control over his mind.

I would ask what’s the difference between them anyways? Does that difference really matter?

Longing for intimacy

Human beings are social animals not because they form some groups for mutual benefits so that everyone can survive, grow, prosper and leave something extra for the upcoming generations. A person cannot become aware about his existence without interacting with his surroundings. The crude awareness comes from the interaction with the materialistic things around the person but the core awareness of a person’s existence comes from their interactions with the people around them. That is why I think human beings are called social animals. We always assign our own value, our own worth (physical, financial, psychological, intellectual etc.,) relative to the things and people around us.

It is also true that absolutely nothing is required to understand the existence of one’s being but that is only possible when one has understood what is means to exist relative to the things in their surroundings. You can say that the person who has achieved the topmost levels of spirituality won’t need anything to define themselves thereby becoming truly liberated, they are free from longing for anything but even these people have to go through the event of understanding their meaning for the existence through the relativity with the surrounding objects and most importantly people.

So, in every sense we as a human being always need some person with whom we can comfortably compare our worth – please understand that this comparison is not for competitiveness. Because when a person is actually seeking the meaning behind their existence – the words like competition, race and superiority have microscopic worth as if they don’t even exist. When the person understands where they actually stand with respect to this person then it justifies the purpose, the meaning of their being. This person becomes their pivot for the life lying ahead.

As the quote goes:

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu

Actually, it is not the power of love, it is the influence of having someone to justify our existence which brings out the best of the person. And who doesn’t want to be their best version? That is why love and its influence are powerful for human beings as social animals.

This is where intimacy comes in picture

Please note that intimacy is not limited to what lies between two people madly in love and neither is it limited to physical one. It can exist between two best friends, between a teacher and his pupil, between a manager and his subordinate, between an old grandpa and a young boy who are not actually related. Some people may call them soulmates and in most cases these relations are far from the blood relations although such intimate relations are possible in blood relations too. Also, understand that the intimacy can also be limited the self only but general examples are uncommon.

In very simple words, intimacy is that place of comfort where the person can be who they are without any judgements, benchmarks, and comparisons (although the basic logic emerges from relative comparison but it is not a competitive comparison. This is like the comparison where one realizes the similarity and differences in constructive ways)

So, when a person loses such intimate person in their lives the whole pivot of life, the center of the meaningfulness of their life gets destroyed which brings this existential crisis, the chaotic void, the unfilled vacuum. This loss of person and the feelings which come after that loss are difficult to express to everyone as intimacy can never be generalized.

In the first place, even before finding their intimate person people are always searching for their ‘go to’ person, they long for such person. Now you must understand how one feels when they lose such person they already have; being alive without their person is already a burden for them.

This might be my overthinking on a good song which just expresses how one feels when they lose their loved ones and how they consider their life completely meaningless in such cases. As the ability of words to express the exact emotions is practically limited and very subjective; whatever I have written may be meaningless to many and meaningful to a few or no one.

I think we are very great at understanding our happy, feel-good emotions and we are masters of enjoying such emotions but when it comes to the negative, grievous, melancholic emotions we fail to acknowledge them many times. I understand that such very intimate and highly personal losses are incomparable to anything, anyone in the world but awareness, acknowledgement of such emotions surely helps the person to justify meanings to their lives in newer ways because life itself represents boundless ocean of opportunities/ possibilities. Who knows someone might be needing exactly the same person you are. That surely will help the both sides. And that truly justifies we – the human beings as social animals (in a way). That is why songs expressing such emotions are very important.