Book: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

I often make the argument that the arts are a playground for the mind in which one can experience emotions they would never experience otherwise. I make this claim focusing mainly on extreme artistic expressions that purposefully challenge boundaries, expressions so extreme that if they were to pass in actual life the measure of suffering or bliss would be too much for a person to endure.

Yet the events described in Man's Search For Meaning are more extreme than most can possibly imagine. Frankl experienced the Holocaust as a Jewish prisoner held in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Because of his prior education and professional experience we are given a unique opportunity to find meaning in one of the darkest abysses of human history.

Likely each person who reads this is going to cling to different moments to reflect on after putting the book down. Mine are the following:

When on a hard labor detail Frankl has the realization that the love for his wife is the single thing that gave him pleasure when faced with pain, fatigue, and cold which often brought an end to the people at his side. He knew that all he had to do to provide himself a brief respite was to see her face. Of all the revelations surrounding finding one's own meaning, love appears to be the primary goal of the human being, a goal worth fighting for in order to shore up one's existence as if building a fortress against impending death.

When considering the level of suffering he and his fellow prisoners endured he made it clear that the degree of suffering was largely inconsequential. He described suffering as a diffuse gas that flows through the body. A person who suffers is suffering fully regardless of the extremity of their situation. This gave me pause when reflecting upon past conversations. I'm often one to point out things like "Trump may be an uncomfortable reality, but you're still well-fed and healthy." I'm going to check myself the next time I think that way reflexively.

The description of an old woman nearing the end of her life. Frankl sees her watching an old chestnut tree and asks her why she's looking at it with so much intention. She responds that she'd been in conversation with the tree. When asked if it talked back to her, she responded, "It said to me, I am here-I am here-I am life, eternal life." This passage made me think of extreme emotional suffering as analogous to a a sort of psychedelic experience. Meaning is sometimes a beautiful fantasy constructed when one needs it desperately and the brain is incredible for enabling this function.

The indication that someone had "given up," was especially terrifying for me to try to internalize. At the blow of the morning whistle when the prisoners were expected to report to their work detail, sometimes, they would decide to ignore the whistle, knowing it meant their imminent death. They would roll to one side and not move, laying in their own excrement. They would reach for a cigarette they had stashed on their person. They would smoke it with purpose and then never eat or drink or move voluntarily again. This image of releasing oneself to death as a last gesture of defiance is one that'll stick with me.

And lastly, in the brief description of Logotherapy, a method of psychotherapy I had never heard of before, there's a strategy described of paradoxical intention that seemed so obvious and brilliant upon reading it. It basically states that for any given fear you have, it's only the fear that self-perpetuates, the actual object of the fear is just an arbitrary aspect of reality. All you need to do to overcome a fear is to pursue the fear as if you were trying to accomplish the exact thing you're trying to avoid. For example, a person with a fear of public speaking might be encouraged to intentionally give a ridiculous or exaggerated speech. If the fear is that you're going to look ridiculous, lean into looking ridiculous. Once you test that boundary, any attempt that isn't toward the ridiculous is automatically going to be less ridiculous and you'll know with confidence that though looking ridiculous is possible, it's something you know exactly how to do and how to avoid. There is a truth here I don't think ANYONE talks about and the fact that this is the first time I'm hearing about Logotherapy is disturbing.

To say I recommend this book is an understatement. It is in my eyes essential reading and I regret not having read it much younger.

On the Taboo of Killing

 A friend recently brought up the topic of death in the context of the military and I thought it useful to spend some time thinking about it.

The conversation stems from two marines who come to different conclusions on the existence of God after seeing wartime. 

• "With all this death in the world how can you believe in God?"
• "With all this death in the world, how can you not?"

My first thought when considering this is the lens through which these individuals are seeing the loss of life.

• Lens 1: I have witnessed the killing of a person and now I must take the fragility of my own existence into question.
• Lens 2: I am here because I believe in the mission of my nation state and the purpose I serve is toward the objective of the mission.
• Lens 3: I am here by the grace of God and he has a plan for me in this mission.

These lenses aren't mutually exclusive so you can adopt a combination of them.

For an individual looking through Lens 1 I would imagine there would be an immediate ethical dilemma to the action of killing in combat. The more killing they take part in the more events they encounter that have a non-zero possibility of their own life coming to an end. And as time goes on this probability increases. One could have hubris and think that survival is solely a skill that can be honed but in the chaos of war I don't think this is a tenable position to hold. There will always be surprises. The assumption I would make is that a person no matter what they believed in as the reasonable justification for murder would start to feel the pull toward their own existential demise and want to exit from combat.

When Lens 2 is considered, there is the possibility of pride in martyrdom so it may have the effect of softening Lens 1 and allow an individual to deprioritize their own existence for the benefit of the mission their nation state has committed them to. I'm reminded of Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. In this book the primary theme is a Samurai should behave as if he is already dead. This preemptive abandonment of one's life has the function of ridding the soldier of the anxiety of imminent death which is argued makes them a much more effective warrior. Of course this assumes that the reason for the war in the first place has just cause in order to validate this level of dispassionate strategy.

Lens 3 is a complicated one due to the tight rope one has to walk in order to justify violence given the religious taboo against it. The complication comes from the conflict between justified old testament genocide and new testament "turn the other cheek" sentiments. There is additional complication when the opponents in a given wartime engagement are in opposing religions and even carry sentiment of extermination based solely on the intention of wiping out another religion. Again martyrdom is to be considered in this context since the survival of the "good" as defined by the adopted religion is the ultimate goal.

For person 1 in the original anecdote, there seems to be a focus on the nihilism of war, when seeing violence firsthand how can one believe in anything, apostacy seems like a natural conclusion. I think this is the sole focus on lens 1, identification of violence as if through a mirror, looking at their own torn flesh on the battlefield in the same moment they witness their bloodied opponent.

Person 2 appears to be leaning denying the natural tendency toward nihilism, as if to say, "without God watching over me there would be no purpose at all and I might as well step into the next crossfire I see." It is his faith that keeps him in the battle. And here is where Lens 3 comes into focus. He thinks of his life as having meaning because of God's existence and God is there to protect and in a way he is there to protect the narrative of God in his faith, his describing his faith to others and his ability to kill those of a different faith.

Neither of these personas considers Lens 2 which I think is interesting. In the heat of battle when does a combatant rely on the justification of war by a ruling class? When was the last time a soldier felt comfortable dying for the cause of their country. Is this an aspect of modern warfare or is the sentiment more so a faint echo from past eras, eras that produced the necessary philosophy described in Hagakure.

Regardless of the two specific personas, I'm drawn to the morality posed by these constructs. Does God condone killing? It depends on who you ask. The Bible certainly contains many events of justified murder so even though Jesus would have you turn the other cheek, how the holy book is interpreted leaves a lot of room for poetic license.

Does the state condone killing? Over and over again, yes. If that is unclear to anyone, stand witness to the rise in death penalties, death in the penal system generally, homeless death, death as a result of affordability of basic human need, as a result of nutrition, as a result of mass marketed poison, on and on. The state loves to kill, it's hungry to send young men to war and interestingly refuses to send old men to pasture.

Ultimately I think the Lens one needs to truly consider first is Lens 1. When you see death with your own naked eyes it becomes real. Before that moment it was an abstract idea. You know it's inevitable, but it's not coming for you anytime soon until it gets close to you, until the cold reminder passes through your chest like a specter robbing you of your breath. No matter how you look down upon the fallen, this reminder of inevitability should be universal and should make one reflect upon whether an additional lens is necessary to maintain a sense of calm when facing the existential conflict. Does someone need the rose colored glass of God or a red white and blue colored lens of patriotism to keep moving forward?

Best of 2024

 1) Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

I often think about what artistic expression would look like if artists didn't have to worry about paying bills, if they could devote every ounce of their attention to their vision regardless of whether or not that vision is economically viable, marketable, readily consumable by the masses.

I think about this because even in a world where people are forced to whore themselves to powers outside of their control there are clear examples where artists do it anyway, devote years to a project with no potential ROI in mind. But, how can you identify when this happens, what are the hallmarks of a complete un-fucked-with by the producers vision. This question has been rattling around my head all week when thinking about what to write here.

The best answer I can come up with is when the artist goes well outside of their skillset to complete the vision. It's so complete in their minds that it transcends the limits of the artist, it takes shape in unexpected ways, ways the artist has no choice but to flesh out conceptually and make their best effort to execute. The vision becomes obsession that needs to "finished."

Absolute Elsewhere has this quality. Before this record I viewed Blood Incantation as dabbling, experimenting, playing, making the connections necessary for the vision to begin taking shape. As it became more concrete they took their ideas to Hansa Tonstudios in Berlin, a place haunted by the presence of past projects by Bowie and Nick Cave. There they collaborated with musical giants well outside of death metal because they knew this wasn't just a cosmic death metal album. It was something more. They documented this recording process to invite prospective audiences in, to give them a taste of how captured they were.

It didn't stop there. Then they created a 20 minute long short film to visually represent the first half of the record. And this isn't just a little home movie, it is a deeply creative, occasionally silly, existential journey through what they term The Stargate.

It's this sort of complete vision I'm always hunting for, transcending style, transcending medium, transcending expectation.

Best of 2024

 2) ERRA - Cure

Most of my list year to year is composed of very challenging music. This is because I like to be challenged. I love when someone is able to challenge me on my beliefs. I love eating challenging food, seeing challenging films. Complex systems no matter where they exist give me a thrill and all I want to do is start dissecting them for analysis before moving on to the next complex system.

Yet, this is the album I've spent the most time with this year. It is not challenging, it is not complex, there's no jazz here, no classical counterpoint, the lyrics don't challenge my beliefs, I can readily recommend this album to the musical layman without prior knowledge of the complexities of heavy metal.

The term guilty pleasure has fallen out of fashion because people are trying so desperately hard to love themselves, and love what they like without worrying about the judgment of others. I can't be bothered by other people's perception of me, yet I do still like to identify certain tastes as guilty. Some music is simply a sweet treat for my gluttonous limbic system, a naughty indulgence.

This has been the album I put on when I'm working out, when I'm drinking alone, when my brain is exhausted from work. It has been the ultimate comfort zone this year, my security blanket, my warm wood fire cabin deep in the woods where I can go and feel my feels without tapping into the deeper complexities of my existentialism.

This is a collection of metal-core bangers, radio singles, 4 minute perfectly composed, perfectly satisfying tracks. Some of the tracks are so saccharine and sticky sweet they are barely tolerable to my x-rated psyche, but god damn do they feel good, especially at ragingly damaging levels of volume.

This is my guilty pleasure record of 2024, my dirty secret, my dumb monkey brain's happy place.

Best of 2024

 3) Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God

Ulcerate isn't cosmic death metal. Over the years of featuring them on my lists I don't think I've ever figured out exactly what they are. To me they provoke a feeling of witnessing something ancient, something ritualistic, something biblical, like a plague or culture defined by human sacrifice. 

On their previous record Stare into Death and Be Still I really felt like that was what I was doing while listening. Beneath the cacophony there was an unmistakable dark chasm of emptiness. I felt it trying to pull me in and consume me.

Upon hearing the name of this record I knew what I was going to get before the first spin. I knew I would be getting a much more violent record. Gone is the feeling of emptiness, replaced by a feeling of fury through apostasy. Every detail in this record bleeds of this imagery, from the engineering of the sounds themselves, sharper and more exacting, to the sustained tension one feels when witnessing a horrible disaster. Spinning this I occasionally feel overwhelmed, as if the violence is directed toward me the listener, but white knuckling through this record is a deeply rewarding experience.

Ulcerate have been at the top of their game for some time now and there's no signs of age, no indication of decline. I don't know what the next record is going to make me feel but I know it'll be something I've never felt before. 

Best of 2024

 4) Bedsore - Dreaming the Strife for Love

A bedsore is something you get due to inactivity, something you get when you're dying slowly in a hospital bed on rough, rigid sheets. I can't think of a less appropriate band name for this group of young men. They are obviously on a feverishly restless journey of discovery for what might be their ultimate vision of music and they've written my THIRD cosmic death metal album this year.

If I were to describe this album in the meanest way possible I would say, "this is what Opeth have been trying to accomplish in their late career but can never quite execute." There are heavy influences of the 70's progressive rock Opeth loves so much providing funky synth passages, but also plenty of jazz elements as well. This weird tapestry of influences is woven together in surprisingly cohesive tracks which occasionally wander but always deliver a cathartic climax. This is the element missing from the last few Opeth releases, the PURPOSE of the song.

But in saying that I think it's also hopeless for me to recommend an album like this unless you're specifically the guy or gal who's been disappointed by later Opeth. Death metal fans are largely going to see this as a snoozefest and progressive fans are going to wonder why they scream and wail over their moogs instead of doing jazz standards. But, how often do I have to say it. When a band breaks the rules, they're invited to my list. I can't count the number of rules broken on this record, all while creating a paradoxical nostalgia that feels like home to me. 

Best of 2024

 5) The Vision Bleak - Weird Tales

On first spin of Weird Tales all I could hear were egregious missteps in composition, tracks that seemed incomplete, but in the search for my favorite doom album this year I kept returning to this for seconds, thirds, and after a couple months, it wound up becoming my inexplicable sleeper album of the year.

The songs are so disappointing at first, sometimes arriving at their chorus too early, sometimes never at all, some tracks don't even have a chorus instead relying on a single quiet acoustic interlude verse without repetition. After a while the expectations I was projecting on this album started to fade and I started seeing beyond the abrupt starts and stops of the arbitrary track delimiters. This is an album that's meant to be consumed from start to finish and picking a "favorite track" or radio single would be an entirely fruitless effort.

Given this reorientation, Weird Tales is a deeply mature collection of doom metal ideas entirely eschewing the traditional LP format in favor of a unique narrative journey. Think of this as an artfully cropped novella, a picture book even, trimmed of all fat, showcasing the purity of its images and atmospheres. The ability to make a musical idea feel like home, to make it feel comforting and familiar in this context is exactly the sort of skill that lands you in the top 5 of my list. Well done indeed.

Best of 2024

 6) BIG | BRAVE - A Chaos of Flowers

As Donald signs executive orders demonizing and effectively outlawing the DEI movement, I've been reflecting on what DEI means to me and since the theme of this year is to talk less about music and more about my meaningless musings, here are my thoughts.

I've never chosen a metal band for my list simply because it was a female led project. Never consciously that is. I think music should be judged on merit alone and I simply don't give a shit about how societal movements see music or any artful expression for that matter. When Tipper Gore took on heavy metal, she thought it was evil and destructive, but what she was doing was evil and destructive. Any movement that attempts to artificially promote or obstruct art because of some subjective virtue is likely to end up harming society in some measurable way. The zeitgeist and time decides what is good and no arbitrary group has any right to tell the zeitgeist what it should favor.

This is easy to say about art in a vacuum, but the thing that makes it instantly complicated is money. If you see that some industry is dominated by white men and that industry is making boatloads of money, it seems obviously unfair that women or any other segment of society who isn't white and male don't get a piece of the pie. When it comes to heavy metal, no one cares about this because there simply is no money. Underground metal is only pursued because it is a personal passion and most of the involved musicians have day jobs. That's why it's so easy for me to say DEI is dogshit in respect to true art.

But, when men and women need to pay the same amount in rent, it becomes obviously unfair that men get jobs easier, get paid more, and have greater upward mobility.

And the whole, "companies must maximize merit" argument when applied to getting jobs is dogshit because of how the job market works. It just doesn't matter if the white male has an extra certification, or an extra 6 months, or happened to be slightly more charismatic in an interview. MOST jobs are completely arbitrary, can be learned in a short amount of time, and the people occupying those jobs are largely interchangeable. There's NO way to tell if a person is a good fit for a job until they succeed or fail, and any post hoc rationalization for a failure is going to be bullshit.

DEI was designed to confront this by making sure hiring practices are more fair. My employer at one time held quarterly reviews of how many women and people of color were hired over the past 3 months and celebrated when those numbers were high. Did that make me feel undesirable as an employee? Yes, but I'm paying for the sins of my brethren and didn't take it personally.

Many did take it personally, many who hold positions of power, and because of their insecurity, DEI is being systematically dismantled. This experiment failed.

So what's the next experiment going to look like? Or will it be back to the boys club? I'm honestly not sure. If I were in charge I would do something dumb like keep a registry of all parents who recently had a little girl and send them free copies of A Brief History of Time (for physics), How to Win Friends and Influence People (to understand how white men fuck other people into submission), and The Origin of Species (for biology). STEM and knowing how people fuck each other are essential for all children actually and a broader mandate including boys would probably just fix society generally speaking.

What I'm actually going to do is sit back and watch the zeitgeist swing its scythe. BIG | BRAVE might be spinning as failed progressive programs bleed out. They've created a remarkable record here, including truly original guitar arrangement and tone which builds an overall haunting and witchy atmosphere I hope they continue to develop.

Best of 2024

 7) Wormed - Omegon

Cosmic death metal album #2. Wormed are actually one of the OG cosmic death metal examples. And they happen to be one of the extreme metal bands that firmed up my passions when I was still young and malleable. I remember spinning them at the same time as Myrkskog, Zyklon, and Cryptopsy trying to decide which was most extreme. And, after 8 years of silence Wormed comes back with this, a polished, modern-sounding, expertly produced, punishingly brutal, cosmic death metal record.

Do I wish they produced more? Yep. I also admire the damn miracle it is to come off of a near decade hiatus with this caliber of record. I'm not the only one singing praises. Lots of lists I poked through mentioned this and for me, it was between this and Defeated Sanity, which was also on a lot of lists. But, because I am who I am, the nerdy sci-fi shit was enough to edge out that record. (Not to mention Defeated Sanity leaned way too far into the comically bad snare drum sound so commonly featured in brutal death metal, (you didn't hear it from me)).

Best of 2024

 8) Verberis - The Apophatic Wilderness

Hey, you all know Ulcerate came out with an album this year, it's in here, surprise spoiled. But, did you know Ulcerate's drummer Jamie Saint Merat is in another band that also had a release this year?! You would know if you read my list from years past because this isn't their first appearance.

Verberis plays progressive black metal strongly influenced by Deathspell Omega. Deathspell Omega has historically been accused of using a drum machine, but denied this in an obscure interview no one's ever read. Listening to Deathspell you'd understand where the speculation comes from, the drumming on on their albums seems superhuman. I would bet there's some production magic happening on those early albums, but I would fall short of accusation of it being faked with technology.

This being said, any band that chooses to take influence from Deathspell Omega is taking on a very specific burden. The percussion needs to feel like it's produced by an unhinged savant. In saying that you might be worried JSM might steal the show, but just like in Deathspell, the percussion is simply there to provide momentum to the compositions of existential hell. When he needs to be, JSM is a modest drummer, articulate, exacting, but ultimately in service to the music.

This is a "sit down and take it in" kind of album. It requires patience and attention. Given that, it's particularly interesting that it contains my favorite guitar solo of the year. It's at the 6 minute mark of the final track. Enjoy.

Best of 2024

 9) Siderean - Spilling the Astral Chalice

Remember last year, when I said Afterbirth was a flash in the pan, that no one else would be taking brutal death metal into the astral plane anytime soon, and I shouldn't get my hopes overinflated that death metal would transcend from pure violence?

It's happening, it's fucking happening right now. What we're witnessing is nothing short of a renaissance. The cause for this new direction could be argued. I have a feeling it has to do with a sort of pendulum swing. Death metal for a very long time has been about brutal violence, torture, rape, but it wasn't always like that. Death metal's beginning was characterized by bands seeking meaning. Death, Gorguts, Cynic. These bands took something that was relatively new and swung for the fences with existentialism. Then bands like Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Aborted, etc brought the genre into a much easier place of endless brutal gore. All you have to do to write violent death metal is to open any anatomy book and channel your inner abused child, let them free to run wild with abandon, let them dissect, bleed, and meat hook mount the women who rejected them, the parents who didn't understand them. This, while cathartic to some extent, is very childish and gets old very quickly.

So what are extremely intelligent post-modern death metal musicians expected to do in a space characterized by brutality? Transcend, reflect on what Chuck, Luc, and Paul were trying to accomplish in the 90s, reflect on what it means to truly break free from a society attempting to impose conformity onto every system it encounters.

I termed Afterbirth as Psychedelic Brutal Death Metal last year, but I want to take a step back and reassess (since I'm a genre whore) and begin using a different term that allows more bands into this merry troupe of miscreants: Cosmic Death Metal. The genre is characterized by brutal dissonance, by creativity, by transcendence beyond the earthly plane. I'm expecting many more to join the ranks over the next few years and I'm here for it.

In explaining this I haven't said a damn word about this particular album and I'm not going to correct that now. Just go listen to it if you give a damn about music.

Best of 2024

 10) Pijn - From Low Beams of Hope

This was my little secret of the year. It will not appear on any other lists unlike the rest of my picks. It's a modest little post-rock album, the best post-rock album of the year.

I was one of the misguided youths who got way too into Godspeed You Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky in my 20s. Since then I've followed the zeitgeist and moved away from post-rock as a genre. There just isn't much interesting activity happening in this space. New bands are largely local acts retreading familiar ideas that have a hard time breaking through.

I'm not sure what it was about the 90's and 00's that created an environment where post-rock was allowed to gain popularity in the first place. The genre is missing the primary element that makes a band compelling, a charismatic leading presence. The genre instead relies on a continuous interplay of musical elements. The selling point is in dynamics. The best albums of the genre find a way to marry quiet moments with big cathartic crescendos in long-form compositions. But, I get the feeling it's incredibly difficult to strike gold with this formula because it happens so seldom.

Pijn reset my expectations for post-rock this year. I doubt it'll reinvigorate the genre, but I have been doing my best to spread the word.