Despair

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Lost & Found by Amon Tobin is a song fundamentally about despair. Despair as Kierkegaard defines it.

I hate the term “ego death”; there is no attainable “oneness” in Freudian psychology. To “attain” ego death is not the spiritual elimination of the self. It is the complete absorption of the self, such that it is indistinguishable from reality; this is the opposite of balance within the self.

Imbalance is despair. Despair is not sadness. For searching is necessary to overcome despair. Despair is what is lost, yet must also be found.

The non-traditional form of Amon Tobin’s piece truly establish the search. But also the realization. That they are in despair, and thus their despair intensified. The despair is all around the listener’s ears. It’s not fleeting, it’s not an emotion, it’s more “spiritual”.

I’d consider myself Atheist, but I believe in a kind of “spirit”. Nothing unknowable or metaphysical. Something that codifies consciousness, whether it’s a specific arraignment of neurons or some undiscovered particle or some pattern of waves or something else currently inconceivable: that’s the “spirit”.

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