The Lightning Strike

I discovered a new song by "Snow Patrol." It's called 'The Lightning Strike' and has three parts. Part 1 is called 'What If This Storm Ends?' Part 2 is called 'The Sunlight Through the Flags.' Part 3 is called 'Daybreak.'

Of course, of the three I only like Part 1. I like the chaos and darkness and the illumination of the savior figure. I don't generally like the calm after the storm. The storm itself is more exciting. That's the trouble with people who love literature, generally. We love all the roiling and darkness and tumult. Resolutions can bore and generally signify the end of a book. (Unless, of course, the resolution has a twist, or is bittersweet. Then I like it.)

Of course, one must take care to ensure that one's actual life is not merely a quest to create trouble in order to have the experience of living through it. This is more difficult than one would think. If you feel most alive in the midst of a storm, you would want to go storm-hunting. To sit back and say 'Let me refrain from that' is difficult.

This is nothing new, of course. In Judaism, self control is seen as the greatest indication that one is strong. 'Who is strong? One who conquers his inclination.' Especially in our modern-day society, this is not easy.

I love these lyrics:

Painted in flames
All peeling thunder
Be the lightning in me
That strikes relentless

What that comes back to is the need to be awoken. Most of us crave awakening. We need to be awakened from the dullness of our lives, which is why we look to literature, films or music to shock our systems. I sometimes think of it as similar to the way that you have to shock the heart, when it is failing, back into its rhythm. The difficulty is that we always crave more sensation, more stimulation. It's like drugs- you start off with a bit, and then you become addicted.

We joke sometimes about being addicted to drama, but I think that the reason some of us accept the flashiness and explosions of media is because we sense a lacking deep within ourselves. We are looking for something to awaken us and we haven't found it yet. In the meantime, to quell that sense, we watch things blow up and hope that will suffice.

It won't.