Make Green

The writing prompts I've discovered at thinkwritten.com are really doing wonders for my blog and my love for concocting word cocktails on a regular basis. Today's challenge was to go to my mp3 player and randomly find a song to write about. I ended up with The Used's 'Blue and Yellow', a song I've never heard before from a band I know nothing about. So, I googled the lyrics and played the song while sitting in the bus on the commute home.

Now I have been a music lover for the past 35 years and have developed a welcoming ear for every genre from every era in this industry. I always seem to readily appreciate rhythm and rhyme, vocals and style, lyrics and delivery even from the most obscure song. But I must say I was quite unimpressed by Blue and Yellow on the melodic, technical and lyrical levels. Perhaps the years of poring over carefully crafted music and words from Jars of Clay, Switchfoot, and, most recently, OneRepublic contributed greatly to this predilection.

However, lest you, dear global readers, think I'm bashing The Used (I am not), I want to point out to you the part of this song that caught my attention.

The chorus repeatedly says, "Well, you're never gonna find it if you're looking for it... (it) won't come your way..." Life is full of ironies and paradoxes that oftentimes scream at our faces. If we're not paying attention, important insights into our existence might just slip right past us. Even more so in light of the fact that the mode of instruction used in educating us about life and living can be as overt as a visceral personal experience, or as subtle as a cryptic lyric in a song.

As I gave Blue and Yellow one more round on the play mode, I was drawn to the simple yet powerful truth I gleaned from their chosen turn of phrase: if you're too caught up chasing after something, chances are it will become more elusive.

This is such a universal truth that I believe many of us have experienced at least once in our lifetime. We can all relate to having pursuits that we thought were worthwhile: setting foot on the next rung of the corporate ladder; completing a collection of rare memorabilia; or gaining the affections of someone we thought could be 'the one'.

Yet, instead of reaching and laying a hand on these goals, circumstances seem to pull them further away from us: the gap between the next rung and our arms seems to increase; somebody else purchases that memorabilia from right under our noses; and the affection we so fervently sought out from 'the one' was given to another one. We end up frustrating ourselves. And it's just not a great way to live.

Over the years, I've learned to let life take its natural course and cease running after things and relationships that I believe I am meant to have in my life anyway. I have become a firm believer of the saying 'good things come to those who wait'. Especially since I have tried the path of "looking for it", but many times ending up never finding it.

So I find great resonance with Blue and Yellow's chorus, despite the lack of emotional resonance with the song itself...

. . . . .

. . . . .

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. . . which is yet another of life's paradoxes.