Slow down, you crazy child

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Some songs are music, and some songs are poetry. Vienna is poetry. 

Billy Joel's Vienna is the kind of song that you just fall in love with, much like you fall in love with a person. I could listen to it over and over again and never tire. Every single word of this song speaks to me on an absolutely granular level. It may have been written for another generation, but its message is everlasting - across ages and generations. 

Too many of us fall prey to ambition too early on in life. 

You're so ambitious for a juvenile 

Ambition can change your life in the best of ways. Ambition gives you something to live for. Ambition can also make you feel like nothing you ever do will be enough. 

You've got so much to do
And only so many hours in a day

Have you ever stopped to list down all the things you do in a day? Apart from basic survival, how much of what you do is for the sole purpose of feeding into your ambitions and goals? When was the last time you did something just because? 

You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time

There's been an incessant romanticization of young achievers. Which, there's nothing wrong with it, but there's an unseen pressure to make it big before you're 'too old'. We live in the era of the highest life expectancy in the history of human civilisation, yet our 'too old' occurs at 30. 

You're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need

Do you know what you really truly need? I know I don't. 

You've got your passion, you've got your pride
But don't you know that only fools are satisfied?

We're all living a myth - that we'll be happy when we get what we want. Fame, success, money, respect, some variation of these. Only then will you experience the satisfaction you so desperately crave. But nobody seems to know what they truly need. What you want is rarely ever what you need. 
Ask yourself, why do you want what you want? 

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

But you dont't want to wait, do you? 


PS: Ben Platt sang a beautiful cover of this song, which is worth a listen. 

Comments

  1. Anonymous10 August 2020 at 23:11

    This is so brilliantly written. And so damn relatable.
    Haven't heard the song yet but that's definitely the next thing I'm gonna do.

    ReplyDelete

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