Today is the start of a heavy, personal week for me.
Because of that, tonight, I don’t want to be introspective or cheerful. Tonight, I want to be both.
Notes to Self XXVIII
Let me start by being introspective. This is the shortest Notes to Self by far, but also one of the most important:
Balance.
I’ve mentioned a few times here on The Diary that I walk between the light and the dark. Balance is something I’ve been maintaining for years. Good, evil. Black, white. Joy, sorrow.
But honestly, I didn’t always think that way. It took me years to realize that.
When I started writing as The Deranged Writer several years ago, I envisioned myself as a god with everyone around me as my characters. In modern slang, I had a version of Main Character Syndrome. Now I realize I should’ve done better. I must do better. I realize I’m just writing and living my own story, as that story overlaps with others’ stories in this world. When that overlap happens, and my words hurt others like weapons, it destroys connections (potential and growing alike), and sadly, I made a sizeable amount of that, which I truly regret. Now I’m careful not just when and how to use words as nurturing tools or hurtful weapons, and I’ve been doing my very best at the former. I can’t say I’ve been perfect at that, but I’m truly trying.
I have other reflections about today’s Notes to Self, but the words I just shared are already as heavy as a boulder. Let me move on and be cheerful for a while.
As I said, “Balance.”
Song of the Moment CXV: Foo Fighters’ “Caught in the Echo”
Last March 20, my favorite band, Foo Fighters, released “Caught in the Echo,” a new single from their upcoming album, Your Favorite Toy. I stayed at Oversight almost the whole day, which made me over the moon already, so the new Foos song was that day’s cherry on top.
The band’s frontman and my hero, Dave Grohl, said on Substack that the new album’s first single (also titled “Your Favorite Toy”) was “the fuse to the powder keg of songs we wound up recording for this record.” So, I made the aforementioned track the measuring stick while I performed my fandom ritual of listening to “Caught in the Echo” 50 times on that day. And after the first listen, as usual, the band didn’t disappoint!
In the first few minutes of “Caught in the Echo”, it sounds as insanely energetic as the title track, while the lyrics discuss indecision and being stuck with your own thoughts. Personally, those words hit close to home. The chorus progression is oddly similar to “Congregation”, the third song from the Foos’ eighth studio album, Sonic Highways. And when the song reaches the outro, it feels strangely cathartic. The outro feels like making peace with three things: things you can’t control, not knowing everything, and indecision itself; that very part moved me in many ways.
Some things you can’t divide
Some things you can’t define
Sometimes you can’t decide
Do I? Do I?Who can save us now?
The outro of Foo Fighters’ “Caught in the Echo”
It’s almost a month to go before the release of the new Foo Fighters album, Your Favorite Toy. I’m looking forward to April 24th like it’s Christmas Day, and I will definitely wear my favorite red flannel for good measure!
The Song of the Moment entry you just read gives me joy, but in the next post… not so much. I will talk about the worst day of my life.
Remember what I said in my Notes to Self, “Balance.”
See you in the next post.
Header image: Burak The Weekender of Pexels. Edited in Adobe Photoshop 2025.
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