The Internal Critic

Since arriving in England I've had the urge to write music again - a passion I seemed to abandon in high school. Coming up with silly songs and faux-showtunes throughout the day is easy to me because I don't take it seriously - even if some of them are actually good. Sitting down and writing a serious rock or pop song? That's another story. The minute I start creating I start critiquing. You could say it's perfectionism, but I think it's really a fear of sounding stupid - even alone in my living room. And fear completely suffocates creativity.

John Mayer's writes in his latest blog entry, "Writing music while also writing a future negative review of the music is a really great way to make slop." Mayer seems to be one of the most talented and prolific songwriters around. I listen to his albums and it's like the lyrics and melodies just flow naturally. It's highly encouraging and inspiring to me to hear that he struggles with an internal critic like the rest of us. Anyway, read his latest blog post. Good stuff.

Sex on Fire

I was having a conversation with a Christian friend recently, and she mentioned that she doesn't listen to much secular (non-Christian) mainstream music. She mentioned that the Kings of Leon song “Sex on Fire” had gotten stuck in her head, and she didn't really want to go around singing the line “yooooooou, your sex is on fi—ire." While I completely understand on one hand, her comment got me thinking (especially because I've had absolutely no personal conviction about having this song in my head since I downloaded the album a couple months ago).

Obviously fleshly lust plagues humankind. Just walk out your front door. Not just sex, but stuff, status. I often wonder if Victoria's Secret isn't as much of a problem as the Apple store it neighbors at the mall. In college, I remember seeing a glazed-eyed student sitting in the computer lab practically drooling as he scrolled and scanned the screen. I walked around behind him—fearing the worst—only to find him looking at high resolution pictures of sports cars. Dozens and dozens of sports cars.

At any rate we are an oversexed culture, especially the Western world. But I'm convinced our desires are too small. Lust simply means “strong desire.” So the problem can't be our desire, maybe just what we desire. I mean, I sure hope I [strongly desire] God. And maybe we desire the wrong things because our desires are weak; we settle too quickly.

C.S. Lewis is often quoted saying, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

So even the greatest pleasures in this world are just pictures—reflections of paradise, heaven, consummation with God.

I heard Tim Keller preach in a sermon that if the world had any idea what God had in mind when He designed sex, it would make the most hardened jaded New Yorker blush. The sex and porn industries would be out of business—no way to compete. Maybe the problem isn't the Kama Sutra so much, but a poor interpretation of Song of Solomon. I think it's safe to say God intended sex to be “on fire,” at least some of the time.

"Why do women hate their bodies?"

First thing I saw when I logged onto the net just new. Not groundbreaking, but a really good article on MSN.

My doppelgänger talks to Playboy

Thought this was quite telling of one our generation's most pervasive infirmities.

New Blog!

I've moved to London for the next year-ish. Check out my new blog: Tea Is For Topher.

Cheers!

"...should always be productive, dynamic, upbeat, and brilliant."

"A friend of mine had reached the top of his profession, but an addiction to prescription drugs forced him to resign his position and enter a period of rehabilitation for substance abuse. He had become addicted in part because of the expectation that he should always be productive, dynamic, upbeat, and brilliant. But he refused to blame other people's demands for his collapse. 'My life was built on two premises,' he said. 'The first was that I could control your opinion and approval of me through my performance. The second was—that was all that mattered in life."

- Timothy Keller, from "Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters"

Think thrice before naming your kid.

Fascinating article.