I remember my music history professor in university telling us the story of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The first symphony to feature a choir. Ode To Joy. The choir sings about a striking up joyful tones, about all people becoming brothers. The real tragedy of the piece is that Beethoven wrote this symphony for a world he knew he wouldn’t be a part of. Joy for thee, but not for me. To date, Beethoven’s 9th has been the only symphony that has made me cry. Not just cry, ugly cry, bawl like a baby. There’s something so nihilistic about writing an ode to joy as you know your time is coming to an end. Beethoven had hope for a world he knew he would never be a part of.
It’s been almost 200 years since Beethoven died. It’s almost cute how much hope he had for humanity. I feel like he would be crushed if he came back today and saw how much cruelty, death, and devastation there has been since he wrote that symphony. Maybe he would be honored that his symphony was regarded as the masterpiece of western classical music, maybe he would be disgusted that his work has been so stripped apart, overanalyzed and commodified, ripped away from it’s original context.
Recently I’ve felt like an astronaut on a spaceship that has run out of fuel, adrift in the loneliness of space, watching the world I know drift away without hope of being rescued. When you’re at that point, what’s the point of keeping the spaceship functional when you know it will all end the same way? I imagine this was how Beethoven felt during the period of his life when he wrote his 9th symphony. What else can you do when you’re stranded in space but send messages back towards earth, hoping that someday, someone will hear them. Maybe his 9th symphony was his final plea for humanity. In the end, that symphony cemented his legacy. His work and his name will always be remembered by music historians.
I haven’t been maintaining my spaceship well. For the first time in my life, I’ve been struggling with food and my body. I haven’t been eating much and most of the food I eat isn’t healthy, just filling (shoutout ramen.) I haven’t been sleeping well, I haven’t been drinking enough water. I’ve been ignoring the warning lights in my spacecraft. I think if I disappeared tomorrow my name would be quickly forgotten. I don’t know how I feel about that. I’m an artist, a writer, why do I make all this art, why do I write all these words, if they’re just going to get drown out in the endless stream of content and AI garbage filling the internet now? I don’t have a lot of hope for my legacy, I will never have a symphony no. 9. My spacecraft will drift off into the abyss and be forgotten forever.
I’m not going to die soon. I shouldn’t be having these dark thoughts. I still have time to do something with my spaceship. I could join the swarm of millions of other spacecraft orbiting earth, each a part of the whole but lost in the monotony of the hoard. I think that would be worse than drifting into the abyss, just another gear in the machine, another face on the street. I left that life 3 months ago and I’m never going back.
I think I feel like I’m drifting away in the spaceship because I have no hope for my future. Every day, I’m seeing the rights of my trans siblings stripped away, any hope for a future being systematically disassembled. I refuse to be forgotten. I refuse to be erased. If my way of life is being threatened then I will fight tooth and nail to protect my people. I don’t have much hope for my future, I’m on a path that ends with me on the streets, in jail, or dead, but maybe before then I can write something that changes other people’s lives, or make some music that gives other people hope. I will gladly throw myself into the gears of the machine to secure the future of others like me. Maybe martyrdom is the way I secure a legacy for myself.
I’m 22 years old, why am I thinking about death and my legacy so much? Why can’t I be content with blending in? Why do I feel the need to be remembered? Does everyone feel this way? Maybe I’m just inspired by everyone I look up to. The artists I admire have hundreds of fans, they tour and are seen by so many people. The video essayists I watch have their ideas heard. Why do I crave this? Am I that needy for attention? Are my ideas worth spreading? What separates me from the crowd? I’m not even good at anything why do I deserve your attention? Will it all matter? When the regime sends their black boots into our house shows and our queer bars and arrests us, burns our books, and erases us just as other regimes have erased us in the past? Is that why I want to be loud? Because I feel threatened?
I put these writings, these ramblings, as incoherent as they are, on my website. I don’t get to know who reads them, how many people read them. It could be just a few friends, it could be FBI agents, maybe nobody will ever read this. If you’ve gotten to this point, 8 paragraphs into an incoherent mess of ideas about hope, legacy, spaceships, and a guy who’s been dead for 200 years, thank you, and congrats. If you made it this far, why don’t you check out my music that I put out on band camp, maybe throw a dollar my way? Tell me your favorite fruit in the note to me as an easter egg. As much as I hate to admit it, seeing people listen to my music and even spend money (one dollar!) motivates me to keep creating. Maybe my art won’t be lost to time forever, because you heard it, and you read this. Thank you.
