Change Is A Sound

I’ve been writing a lot about change over the last few months. The biggest reason is because over the last year I’ve been beginning to feel different. I’m starting to notice more about the world around me, feeling more grown up, but still keeping the “youth” aspect my family is known.

Change in a necessity in life; it helps people grow and become better people. If we always stayed the same, we’d run the grave risk of growing stagnant and uninteresting. I like when I notice a change in me, both positive and negative. Negative changes are obviously, not a good thing, but seeing these downward movements can often times lead to positive changes as well.

Geoff Rickly recently wrote about how the way he write lyrics has changed since he has grown up:

…I'm not a kid anymore and I don't think in the same ways that I used to. I don't push the band to go faster, use stranger time signatures or thrash harder. I write songs that turn inward now. Songs that rely on subtlety. Songs that are meant for headphones and car stereos. Songs that are experienced by one person at a time. Even when these songs are played in front of a crowd, everyone in the room will be listening to them alone.

Obviously, I’m not musician, but it’s weirdly comforting to see someone I not only look up to, but also consider one of my peers going through similar changes himself. I don’t have the musical platform he does to show off his growth and maturity and evolution. Personally, when I feel different, I like to make myself different. I get bored with who I look at in the mirror. I’m quickly approaching thirty, and I know I don’t want to hit July twenty-four with the same body I’ve had the last few years.

It’s time for a tattoo.

For me, as with most, tattoos hold personal meaning to the person who is getting their flesh altered. I like to take it one literal step forward: despite whatever the story is behind the artwork, the new addition acts as a reminder that at this moment in time, I am a different person. I am permanently changing who I am physically because internally I’m not the same Mallick who you hung out with last year. It’s an eternal timeline reflecting how many times I’ve gone through major transformations.

It’s almost an instinct when the times comes; my skin begins to itch, but it’s a bit stronger than the normal tattoo craving we are all warned about.

The world and it’s people are in a contact state of flux and you hope it’s moving in a positive direction, no matter what it make look like during the different stages of existence. Sometimes you notice these adjustments; the earth is forever altered. Sometimes its something so small it doesn’t have any noticeable effect; the person sports a newfound smile they only know the reason behind. I know when I begin to make a new impression and begin writing a new chapter in my life, I like to title page to have some nice artwork on it.

Reaching out for something, but we dunno what we need… As time slowly passes by, grey hair appears behind your eyes…