Today, I'm going to tell the story of In Rainbows.
We begin with a man questioning how he ended up where he was, condemning his past actions and hating himself for his past faliures. He's pissed off. 'How come I end up where I started?' he exclaims, annoyed at himself for not being able to progress past what he feels is where 'He went wrong.' After he settles back where he started, he tells us it's as soft as our pillow. It's his comfort zone, and eventually it comes to us all - settling in to procrastination as everything he truly wants that is fulfilling flashes by, Our protagonist starts to realise that he doesn't truly enjoy this state. It used to be alright, but what happened. Then he takes fifteen steps and takes a sheer drop - desperately trying to break out of his vicious cycle. Unfortunately, he ends up where he started, but this time, he won't take his eyes off the ball.
Now the music speeds up. The protagonist is more frantic, feverish and on edge than ever. He doesn't undertand what he's done wrong, Ultimately he doesn't know what he's talking about - he doesn't really understand the root of his problems. He moves back home, to his parents in search of his past life - where he was fulfilled - but quickly finds nothing but a pale imitation of what made him so satisfied. He was only contributing to his vicious cycle of regression. In his return to talking to himself, the narrator tells us that the light has gone out for him. He's lost the spark. The 21st century, this new era, has brought him to his knees, he claims, and he claims he saw it coming. He's reaching critical mass, as the song concludes.
The pressure has been relieved, and the narrator is in a state of absolute ethereality. He is nowhere, free but locked within his own mind. He tells himself to not get any big ideas. They're not going to happen - no matter how he tries to fill his life. He will always regress into procrastination and worthlessness. Our hero turns his thoughts to the sea, and realises 'why should I stay here?' He'd be fucking mental to not follow what he's found in the deep blue expanse of the ocean. Even though everyone has left around him - everyone has progressed, everyone gets their chance, and this is our protagonists' chance. His old self will be eaten away by the creatures of the sea. He realises that he'll escape.
Our protagonist realises his faliures, he only values himself with regards to other people, with what he is to everyone else. He's the days people ignore, he's the insect trying to get out of the night, and does't inherently value himself. With this understanding, he wakes up again but something is noticeably different this time. He feel something different in his food, in his life, something is tingling. What he feels is something he ought to? It was a feeling of purpose and great realisation, but our protagonist remains unsettled as to whether he should really be feeling this. With this he's brain dead - what he's doing is satisfying and different to what was once bringing him down - but somthing about it is unshakabley wrong. He thought he had it in him to live his new life, but maybe he was wrong. He almost feels like a facade, like he could melt at any point.
Our protagonist confronts his mortality. Here he has his moment of reckoning. Again stuck within his own mind, he finds the reckoner tell him that he isn't to blame for his faliures, in fact no is, it's just who we are. With this he becomes lifted, finally the pressure of our protagonist's life is lifted. Fulfilment isn't a goal or something to reach anymore - it is a state of being. He is as fleeting and floating as the ripples on a shore - like a rainbow - unbound. He goes with the reckoner in his mind, and follows him, he is finally unbound.
He reaches out to his friend - to finally tell them he just wants to be their lover, that they can leave behind everything they've built and have something wonderful of their own. Our unbound protagonist has her realise that true freedom, to leave the house of cards behind. The infrastructure of their lives will collapse and they will move past it, in the beauty of falling from the table. Falling from this platform we form that we place our lives, the protagonist breaks free.
The story climaxes with the best lain plans of the protagonist falling into place perfectly. Our protagonist feels fulfilment and catharsis. He has overcome the demons of his past and starts to recognise how far he lost himself in his past thoughts. The near-insanity that came with his crippling mental state has been realeased - let out. He looks back all the time to his cross-roads, where he finally he started the overcoming of his issues, remembers the deep hole he was lost within. All his plans were like a jigsaw falling into place.
At the end of his life, in reflection and thinking back over his life. This time of transition he wants to be remembered, to be put on his videotape. To display his mental fibre, or to set an example - whichever state we are in, we can always break free. No matter what happens next he won't be afraid of death. His time in this story is the most perfect thing he's ever seen, and he's just fine with that.
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