So yall are rationalists so you probably know about the thing I’m talking about:
You’ve just discovered that you were horribly wrong about something you consider fundamentally important. But, on a practical level, you have no idea how to feel about that.
On one hand, you get to be happy and triumphant about finally pinning down a truth that opens up a vast number of possibilities that you previously couldn’t even consider. On the other hand, you get to be deeply sad and almost mournful because, even if the thing wasn’t true, you have a lot of respect for the aesthetic of believing in the thing you now know to be false. Overall, the result is the bittersweet feeling of a Pyrrhic victory blended with the feeling of being lost (epistemologically).
One song that I find captures this well is Lord Huron’s Way Out There:
Find me way out there There’s no road that will lead us back When you follow the strange trails They will take you who knows where
The distance between you and your past captured by find me way out there
The irreversibility captured by no road that will lead us back
The epistemic ambiguity of who knows where, denying the destination any positive or negative valence
I’m basically thinking of half the tracks on this album. “Taking My Time,” “Difference a Day Makes,” “Before and After,” “The Rest is Yet To Come,” “Don’t Be Torn,” and “Like a Lake.”
An unexplainable thing I’ll have to change to stay the same Just like this bottle of wine It’s gonna take time no doubt
It’s not hard Letting go But it’s hard Even so
And you say ‘Come here and sit down Don’t try to own it all’
And you said ‘The rest is yet to come’ I said ‘Don’t you mean the best?’ You said ‘We’re making a huge mess’ Won’t lay down. Won’t confess All burnt out and won’t succumb Ah but the rest has yet to come
So yall are rationalists so you probably know about the thing I’m talking about:
You’ve just discovered that you were horribly wrong about something you consider fundamentally important. But, on a practical level, you have no idea how to feel about that.
On one hand, you get to be happy and triumphant about finally pinning down a truth that opens up a vast number of possibilities that you previously couldn’t even consider. On the other hand, you get to be deeply sad and almost mournful because, even if the thing wasn’t true, you have a lot of respect for the aesthetic of believing in the thing you now know to be false. Overall, the result is the bittersweet feeling of a Pyrrhic victory blended with the feeling of being lost (epistemologically).
One song that I find captures this well is Lord Huron’s Way Out There:
The distance between you and your past captured by find me way out there
The irreversibility captured by no road that will lead us back
The epistemic ambiguity of who knows where, denying the destination any positive or negative valence
Anyone else know any songs like this?
I bet you’d like Jim Guthrie.
https://jimguthrie.bandcamp.com/album/takes-time
I’m basically thinking of half the tracks on this album. “Taking My Time,” “Difference a Day Makes,” “Before and After,” “The Rest is Yet To Come,” “Don’t Be Torn,” and “Like a Lake.”
That’s a bet with good odds.