foundinshades

[foundinshades]

i noticed something interesting in If You Can Count. now i think it may be a songwriting practice to use present tense as much as possible for like semantic punch, but it stands out when Cyrus's whole character is clearly talking about the future, and she never once speaks in future tense (Cyrus actually says "The future is ours/yours" but crucially all of it including that sentence itself is in present tense (it's not "the future will be ours"))

so i went through the whole album, it's a very present tense affair throughout, but there are a few exceptions: Swan does a fair bit of future, Mercy talks a bunch about her future (i love tense-compatible lesbians), Cleon remembers dekalb in the only extended past tense section, and the Cleon-led "someday in the city" sections are future

there's a lotta ways to interpret something like this, but here's what i think. in this album, everyone whose head is in the future is to some degree incomplete. Swan and Mercy realize they need each other. but Cleon's thinking about both the past and future. imo like a leader. but a leader who isn't quite there. Cyrus uses present tense cause the tomorrow she's talking about isn't a tomorrow to her. it's a world Cleon is yet to embody but already knows to look towards

last thought, in the stage adaptation maybe Cyrus and Cleon are the only ones who know they're in a play and can see the audience

[foundinshades]

What we are, exactly, is usually catagorized as a “Freudian Trio”. While I resent most of his basis in psychology, I admit that I grew intrigued by Sigmund Freud’s idea of what makes a person. Id, Ego, and Superego. The emotion, the temperament, and the logic.

Atlas, Orian, Me. I wonder about the implications.

How does a trio like that work is also in question. Traditionally, in all scenarios, there must be some kind of pair. A third is a middleground, a balance of two extremes. Sometimes it’s fun, in the way that zodiac signs and Myres-Briggs personality types are fun. In some ways, simple categorization is what can help you learn more about yourself, or at the very least, assure a part of yourself that you desperately hope to be true.

Sometimes though… sometimes it hurts. In a way that a makes you feel like you know less than you did before. When the sun is too bright and a star is too distant and the moon pulls tides to drown you. When a category feels more like a sentencing to a crime you have yet to commit. The same way as a stereotype, an assumption rather than something you yourself proclaim. I start to make proclamations before you have the chance to make an assumption.

Here is the synopsis:

My personality type is INTJ, though some friends claim otherwise (“You’re too nice, it doesn’t quite fit,” they would say. I try not to disagree). My zodiac is Scorpio, the scorpion (“I wouldn’t have expected that!” A date would exclaim. I don’t go on a lot of those anymore). I’m a Ravenclaw, if Harry Potter could still be considered relevant. I have a 128 IQ, unofficially tested. I am a water elemental. My favorite color is green, though I am told I am more represented by purple.

Unfortunately, that might be all.

Beyond these, I don’t think I know who I am.

I’ve had my fair share of philosophical crisises. I at least know that the things that are happening around me are real. I know that I am the only one in control. On a good day, I at least know that I am real.

I don’t get many good days anymore. This might be in part due to my excessive pondering over categorization. The more I grow, the more difficult it gets to put myself in place. Up to this point, the only thing I was completely sure of is the people I surround myself with. Two very specific people in fact. Sorting them is easy as breathing, sometimes. Of course, I mean Orian (Virgo, labrador, stars, griffendor, pathos, Ego). Of course, I mean Atlas (Scorpio, orange tabby, sun, hufflepuff, ethos, Id). It’s easy, and it’s just as easy to fill in the gaps. J (Scorpio, black shorthair, moon, ravenclaw, logos, Superego, everything that they are not). Those two refer to the three of us as soulmates, whatever that may mean, if it means anything at all. There are so many cases where this amount of joint links, this many compatible categories, so much connection, would be the cause of romance. You see interwoven webs so complicated that your mind has to make up the rest. It mixes the reds and the purples and the greens. It writes poetry likening people to celstial figures. It sings and dances and sometimes the art and music escape into reality just barely, not enough to be more than a trick of the light.

Sometimes, whether I like it or not, my mind does the same.

But for your sake, I genuinely hope you are reading for the study of it. I hope you are specifically here, tonight or today, for nuance and the exploration of my mind, instead of theirs.

I hope that I don’t need to lower your expectations.

Because… despite first impressions, despite your assumptions, this will not be a love story.

______________________________________________________________________________

With gratitude,

J. Greene