Category: Matt’s Thoughts

Repeating a First Experience

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Not for any particular reason, either. It just popped into my head. There have been a few TV shows and movies I wish I could see again for the first time. Even albums I wish I could hear again for the first time. Things that just hit different when I first experienced them.

What are these things I wish to experience again for the first time? In terms of music, the album Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Nightwish. I have been a fan of Nightwish for years, and that album absolutely blew me away the first time I heard it. To this day, that album holds a special place in my heart as being one of the only albums to truly leave me speechless.

There are three TV shows I wish I could see again for the first time. They are Daredevil, The Punisher, and Vikings. Daredevil and The Punisher were everything I wanted them to be and more. I was so upset when they were canceled, but I have a new hope with Daredevil: Born Again being made by Disney. I also loved every bit of Vikings. It’s true, after Ragnar died, it lost something, but I also feel they did a great job carrying the show on without him. Bjorn was a very worthy successor to Ragnar.

As for the movies I wish I could watch again for the first time? A few circled around in my head. I don’t necessarily want to see the entire movie again, but the Darth Vader hallway scene from Rogue One is something I wish I could see again for the first time. I remember seeing that for the first time and being both excited and terrified at the same time. It was such an amazing feeling.

But the only movie I wish I could see again for the first time is Avengers: Endgame. It had so much buildup and years of waiting behind it. Endgame also had so many special and memorable moments that I’d love to witness again for the first time. It wasn’t a perfect movie, but I really did enjoy watching it. I’ll never forget the giddy feeling I got when I realized that Cap could actually lift the hammer. Nothing but pure joy.

Pain Remains, But Music Helps

I’m a bit late to the party on this one. For the last few months, I’ve known of a band called Lorna Shore. I also knew they were deathcore, a genre of metal I couldn’t listen to. It was way too extreme for me. I first heard Lorna Shore in a TikTok video. I thought it was a video about Call of Duty zombie, but I found out that it was just the end of the song “To the Hellfire.”

Fast forward a bit. I still refused to listen to them, but that all changed in the blink of an eye. They released a song called “Pain Remains I: Dancing Like Flames.” And yes, it was very much a deathcore song. What’s interesting is that it quickly became one of my favorite songs.

Eventually, they released the other two parts (“Pain Remains II: After All I’ve Done, I’ll Disappear” and “Pain Remains III: In a Sea of Fire”). I listened to both, and I was hooked. The album, Pain Remains, came out in October, and I listened to it from start to finish. I’m not saying I’m a deathcore fan now, but that album was truly something special. It was definitely something I needed at that time.

It’s true, I can’t understand what’s being sung because of the screaming deathcore vocals, but I can read lyrics. And the lyrics are incredible. Mix that with some insane drumming and fantastic guitar work, and you have a killer album.

Pain Remains found me. I didn’t find it. It started on TikTok when I was scrolling. It was almost as if I needed to listen to Lorna Shore and that album specifically. I truly believe that I found it when I did because I needed to. It’s a very emotional album, and at the time, I needed an album like that. That album spoke to me in a way no album before it has.

I still listen to it along with their EP …And I Return to Nothingness. It was a combination of Pain Remains and the addition of Will Ramos (who I didn’t know at all before he joined Lorna Shore), which really brought me into listening to Lorna Shore.

As a result, I want to see them live. They are playing with Mastodon and Gojira this year, and that’s a show I really want to go see. I’ve seen both Mastodon and Gojira once already, and I’d love to see them again.

A New Hope

Where do I begin? Another year has come and gone. It doesn’t feel like 2023 is in a few hours. But here we are. Another year, another chance to be someone new.

2022 started of so well. I was in Colorado for a week, and it was one of the best trips I’ve taken. I had so much fun skiing and just not being home. In April, I went to Galena, Illinois. In July, I went to Michigan. In September, I made my return to Hilton Head, South Carolina. It was the first time I had been down there in about 20 years and it was amazing.

Overall, I did a lot of fun stuff in 2022. I’m truly grateful for it. But 2022 wasn’t all fun. There were things that really just sucked. As the year went on, it just seemed to suck more and more. And of all my resolutions from last year, I only kept two of them. They can all be found here for future reading.

So, what didn’t I do in 2022? I didn’t post two blog posts a month, I didn’t read one book a month, and I didn’t film any of my short films. Does this make the year a failure by itself? No. I just kind of wish I did more. I know I could have done more. I just didn’t feel like it.

I did improve my video editing skills. I edited countless hours of video in 2022. I also finished writing my movie. I didn’t specify what the movie was, but I’m pretty sure I know which one it is. That also means that I took that movie and turned it into a TV show instead. The idea works better as a TV show since there’s so much to explore.

I do want to do a few things in 2023. I want to read one book a month. I have so many books, and I just got five more for Christmas. I’ll keep editing videos. I also want to put a serious effort into submitting film scripts to contests. It’ll be expensive, but it’s something I need to do to get where I want to go.

I also want to learn to say “no.” I often agree to things because I don’t want to make people mad. Well, that ends with 2022. I’m going to do things for me in 2023. That also means I need to let the past go. I often look to things in the past or people, and it never works out for me. To go forward, I have to stop going backward. The past is set in stone, but the future is undiscovered. It’s new. It’s exciting. That’s where I should be looking.

2023 is a chance to start new. It’s a chance for me to be someone different. And I fully intend on doing that. I look around and see where I am. I see where I can be. I see who I can be. It’s time I changed who I am so I can be who I’m meant to be.

Taking a Long Weekend

The other day I was thinking. Usually nothing good happens when I think. But sometimes, some good comes from me thinking. I just contradicted myself, I know. This time, though, I came up with a pretty good thought.

I am writing this on my tablet from O’Hare Airport. I’m going on a little long weekend trip to Hilton Head in South Carolina. Nothing major. Just a chance to get away for a few days. The funny thing is, I burned up my vacation time by the end of July. But I also feel burned up, myself. The great thing is that, even though I’m full-time at work, I can rearrange my days off in most cases to go and do things. It’s basically flexible full-time.

I got to the airport at about 11:00 am. My flight was at 1:05 pm. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the flight because I’m flying standby and the plane was full. The next flight is about 5 hours later, at 6:10 pm.

But back to the original point, I was doing some thinking and I decided that I need to travel more. Like a lot more. And the best way to do that is to just go on my days off. I usually get 3 days off in a row. What do I do during those 3 days? Play Apex Legends and a whole lot of nothing. I think it’s time to stop playing games and do some exploring.

I’m not getting any younger and I want to explore places while I’m still somewhat young. I can always play games whenever. But there will come a time when I won’t want to get on a plane.

I would like to go to all 50 states. I’ve only been to a handful so far. Which ones? Let’s list them. I’m from Illinois. Then there’s Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Virginia, Kansas, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, California, and Hawaii. I’ve been to 15 states, 16 if you want to include the hour I was in Texas for a connecting flight. To be in 15 states at the age of 30 is pretty good. I just feel like I could do better.

I know for a fact that when I go back to Hawaii I’m going to be there for a week. And when I go to Alaska I’ll be there for a week as well. But the United States isn’t the only place I want to travel. I want to travel all over Europe as well as Canada and Asia. I also have to go to Australia at some point.

I know it seems like I’m rambling, and I probably am, but there’s just a lot I want to do. For a long time, I felt confined because of work. I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere because I was worried about making sure I was always there for work. But recently, that’s not the case. I’ll probably work until I can’t anymore, but I only have a limited time to travel while I’m young.

We were put on this planet to enjoy life. We aren’t here for long, and we shouldn’t spend it all working. We should spend it enjoying life, enjoying people, enjoying the things around us. I heard this line in the song called Enlightment? by While She Sleeps the other day. It was “Our mortality is the key to our freedom.” It’s 100% true. We’re all going to die one day, so why can’t we live freely? Why can’t we do the things we want to? What holds us back? Fear? Anxiety? Stress? Maybe all of the above?

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that we should go do the things we want to, because one day, it’ll all be over. I’m going to South Carolina because I want to. I’m also going because I need a break from Illinois. I’ve been here too long. A change in scenery and pace will be nice. My only issue is that when it’s time to come home, I know I won’t want to.

Living in a Post-Covid World

While Covid isn’t technically over with yet, it has slowed down enough for the world to return to somewhat normal. We don’t need masks anymore. We don’t have restrictions on where we can go or what we can do. Life is back to how it was…or is it? With cases on the rise again, we might wind up doing this whole thing all over again.

Looking back on the last two years, all I can think about is how weird it really was. We all essentially lost two years of our lives. It’s like two years just didn’t exist. We couldn’t go anywhere. We couldn’t do anything. Nothing was open. We were confined to our homes.

While Covid did mess a lot up, (like my trip to Germany that’s been put on hold for over two years) it also showed us that there is still good in the worst of times. Because I was required to sit at home when Covid started back in 2020, I met some really awesome people through Twitch and Discord and through playing games like Fortnite and Apex.

But this blog post isn’t about a time during Covid. This is about after it. Basically, my life is back to normal. I’m working full-time. I can go and do whatever I want when I want. I can try to regain some of what was lost over the last two years. I’ve even gone to a few concerts recently.

But going back to normal also comes with a price. I don’t have as much time to play video games. I don’t have as much time to just hang around on Twitch or Discord. And sadly, I don’t really talk to most of those friends I’ve made during the pandemic. Life just got too busy it seems. I do hear from a few every now and then, but we don’t talk like we used to.

The two years we weren’t able to do anything were truly some of the weirdest moments of my life. The world came to a halt and it’s something I never thought I’d see happen. It’ll be interesting to think about Covid times again years from now. How we reacted. What we did. What it was like. It was just such a strange time, and one I won’t forget.