When I was a kid, like a really young kid, I thought there were three essential jobs that everyone collectively strived for: farmer, astronaut, and rockstar (the order of importance is up to you). I couldn’t even conceive of different jobs existing, I guess I just figured everything else was a stepping stone until you reached one of those coveted positions. Now that I’m older and I’ve been inundated with job titles such as “AI production manager” or “chief happiness officer,” I can’t help but feel like I’m a little out of my depth.
Pretty regularly, I’ll meet people my age that are so sure of who they are and what they want to be. Tattoo artists, musicians, accountants, and whatever else. I met someone in freshman year who claimed that their whole life, they’ve always wanted to be a forensic accountant. First of all, that’s bullshit. Second of all, no matter how many times I look it up, I can’t commit to memory what the hell that even means, and I won’t be telling you for both our sakes. I think I just thought I’d have it all figured out by now, especially as I’m entering my senior year. But it’s these thoughts that have really inspired a love for what I consider to be media that not only delves into feelings of alienation and disappointment, but revels in it. Art that tells its audience that to be lost, confused, and left wanting more is not only normal, but maybe something necessary, something to be celebrated. And that’s how I ended up here, declaring with all my heart just how beautiful aimlessness is.
Part 1: Pavement
No genre of music encapsulates abject aimlessness like the slacker rock boom of the 90s. Bands like Built to Spill, Guided By Voices, and most famously, Pavement, made being the loser the coolest thing you could possibly be. Around six months ago, a friend recommended Pavement to me, saying that he thought I’d be a fan. I really wasn’t. I vividly remember listening to “Slanted & Enchanted” for the first time. I had baked a tray of chicken fingers with a giant mound of ketchup, got myself situated in the middle of my couch, and booted up the new Indiana Jones video game. Then, I pulled out my phone, hit play on Pavement’s first studio album, and just let it go. And man, I was unimpressed. “Summer Babe” was cool, but all that other stuff? These guys sounded like they could barely play, and this guy was always singing out of his vocal range, making the whole project feel sloppy and directionless. What a hot mess. As soon as it ended, I played the next Pavement album, with Spotify placing “Westing” (By Musket And Sextant) after “Slanted & Enchanted” (because it’s a techno fucking nightmare of an app with an anti-music UI, but I’ll save that for a future piece). “Westing” is actually not their second studio album, but instead a collection of early Pavement singles and EPs. If you thought “Slanted & Enchanted” was rough around the edges, then you’ve got another thing coming. “Holy shit,” I thought, while running around Egypt smashing shit over the head of Nazis as Indiana Jones, “These guys might be kinda bad.” Even so, when it ended, “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” was next. And I would love to tell you that something clicked, and in that moment, I fell in love with their DIY, detached, slacker sound, and that by the time “Fillmore Jive” came on, I had discovered a whole new side of music and art and life. Perhaps I was a changed man, and my views on music and culture had completely shifted, and I was instilled with a new attitude. Of course, that would be a lie, instead I just turned that shit off and went to bed without a second thought.
Like most music discovery stories in my life, there was no eureka moment. The first real song I ever fell in love that wasn’t dad rock or Minecraft parodies was “Sabotage,” due entirely to the Destiny 2 trailer. Even then, it wasn’t immediate. I spent days thinking about that trailer, believing that I was just so excited for Destiny 2. I went back and watched it over and over again, soaking in the cinematics and raw energy, still unaware of what truly made it special. I remember being at lunch one day and casually asking a peer if they had seen the trailer, and the topic of the music came up. “Yeah, that’s ‘Sabotage.’ Beastie Boys.” Holy shit, he knew the name of the song. Maybe if I go listen to it, I’ll feel like I’m watching the Destiny 2 trailer, but without actually watching it. Genius! “Sabotage” was on repeat on my deactivated iPhone for days, weeks after. And that’s how I started to fall in love with music. It was gradual, unforeseen, and changed the trajectory of my life. Destiny 2 came out a few months later and it was fine. Solid 6 out of 10 at launch, no opinion on the DLCs, didn’t play them.
So, after my first venture into Pavement’s discography, I was pretty underwhelmed. Despite that, I woke up the next day, put “Slanted & Enchanted” back on, and walked to work. There was something there, something I couldn’t name or figure out, but it called to me. Then about a week later, I listened to “Terror Twilight.” Then “Brighten the Corners.” Then back to “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.” Needless to say, I was falling in love all over again. That’s always how it starts for me. You have to work for your soulmate; they don’t just fall into your lap. And something about their effortless, free form yet tight playing and Stephen Malkmus’ careless, pitchy delivery started to speak. And I finally began to listen.
It was around this time in my life that I really started panicking about my future. Having never really known what I wanted to do, I instead began focusing a lot on what makes me me. The things in life I’m passionate about, how I present myself, what I wear (death to ironic t-shirts, I say, irony is a curse on our generation). And Pavement just happened to be the soundtrack to this new interest in self-discovery. Perhaps a little too obviously, the one track that has really stuck with me has been “Range Life”. It’s a pillar to aimlessness, to wanting more but not really knowing how or when to get there. It’s so simple:
”Out on my skateboard, the night is just humming;
And the gum smacks are the pulse I’ll follow if my walkman fades;
Well, I got absolutely no one, no one but myself to blame;
Don’t worry, we’re in no hurry;
School’s out, what did you expect?
I want a range life if I could settle down”
How utterly inconsequential, it’s perfect, no notes. I’m no Stephen Malkmus, but I felt like he had somehow taken my feelings directly out of my mind and put them to song. And there’s plenty of art about being lost and confused, but Pavement does it differently. It’s framed in a way where it’s almost romantic. Purely about being in a moment and knowing that one day, it could all be figured out. But not needing it just yet. I don’t know, it’s hard to put it into words, it just made sense when the lyrics clicked with me. I found myself wandering around Lexington with a drink in my hand and Pavement blaring from my headphones pretty regularly a couple months after my initial excursion into their stuff, enjoying the feeling of having no destination.
Now that the floodgates were open, I couldn’t get enough of their pointless yet pointedly focused lyricism. “Conduit For Sale!” is a noisy, punchy track where the chorus is “I’m tryin’” screamed seven times in a row followed by an apt “I’ll try!” “Fillmore Jive” is vaguely about the death of rock and roll and his need to just sleep all the shit in his life off. “Shady Lane” is a convoluted observation of our desire for simplicity. And every single one of their songs feels stream-of-consciousness. They feel conjured rather than written, like if the band’s brainwaves were translated directly into audible expression, devoid of any filters or record label notes or a desire to be stars. The lack of forced artistry is what ultimately sold me. They were present. Pavement was comfortable, and potentially proud, of their lack of desire. I don’t believe they’re Buddhists, but they’re about as close as any group of white guys from Stockton, CA, got to nirvana (not the band, notice the capitalization).
Simply put, Pavement became the playlist to my panic. When I start to stress about classes, work, internships, where I’m gonna live, long-term plans, relationships, anything, Pavement is the cool uncle I never had. They tell me, “Yeah, shit sucks right now and it probably always will, oh and nothing makes sense either and it probably never will, but whatever.” And that’s really all I needed, I think.
Part 2: Kiki’s Delivery Service
Here’s where the thesis in the title comes into play, I bet you forgot about it. Just like every other person in my demographic, I went down a bit of a Studio Ghibli rabbit hole. I’ve seen almost all of them, with Princess Mononoke being my all-time favorite. Love that movie with all my heart, but I’m no Ashitaka or San. They’re awesome fairytale star-crossed badasses fighting tooth and nail for their beliefs, and that’s sick. But if there’s one Ghibli character I relate most to, it’s gotta be Kiki. Sometimes, I also feel like a fish-out-of-water witch with a lack of direction and confidence issues.
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a unique piece of animation in that its antagonistic force is derived almost entirely from our main character. After a few failures and moments of self-doubt and embarrassment, along with an illness that leaves her bedridden, Kiki finds that she can no longer fly, completely ruining the chances of her burgeoning delivery service. She also finds that she can no longer understand her best friend, a talking black cat by the name of Jiji. When she is at her lowest, an artist named Ursula she became friends with earlier in the movie takes Kiki on a trip to her cabin. Ursula informs Kiki that before they had met, she had no idea what to paint and was struggling to come up with ideas. Kiki walks in her cabin to find a somewhat abstract painting of herself, being the inspiration for Ursula’s new piece, much to the surprise of Kiki.
The movie is ultimately about writer’s/artist’s block, something I’m sure Hayao Miyazaki has faced many times. When Ursula speaks of writer’s block to Kiki, or in this case witch’s block, it sounds like it’s coming straight from a seasoned artist’s mouth:
“Then stop trying. Take long walks. Look at the scenery. Doze off at noon. Don’t even think about flying. And then, pretty soon, you’ll be flying again… It’s gonna be fine, I promise.”
As someone who really struggles with failure, especially when it comes to letting others down, this is something I gotta tattoo on my forehead so I can read it every day. My little brother is a lot like me, and he just learned to ride his bike recently. About an hour after he rode it, he had completely forgotten how to do it, like he never learned it in the first place. So, I made him take a step back, go to sleep, and when he tried again in the morning, fireworks. Like he’d been riding a bike all his life. Sometimes, it’s as simple as taking a step back and waiting for the right moment.
Kiki realizes the reason she can’t fly is because she’s lost her inspiration. She feels aimless, you could say. But it was the act of being aimless that led her to this conclusion. She was tired, depressed, and stuck, unable to perform magic or communicate effectively with her cat or her friends. And through her dejectedness, she found the missing piece of why. Why even bother doing anything, why should she try so hard, why should she care so much? And passion was the answer. In the end (spoilers, by the way), Kiki learns to fly again in a moment of genuine presentness, when she has to save the life of a close friend dangling from a dirigible. And it’s this moment that you see how worth it everything was. All those moments you wanna say “fuck it” and give up, drop out, quit, cry, and scream, it all leads to something. The point is that you should revel in those moments, and I should also be reveling in them too, because quite frankly, I hardly do! Because they blow! But they’re good, I promise.
Sometimes, quitting is the best thing in the world. It gives you time to set everything aside and readjust your perspective. I love being a quitter! If you’re stuck doing something you don’t need or want to be doing, then just don’t fucking do it! I’ve quit dozens of things during my college career, and through all that confusion and trial and error, I’ve found the things I genuinely love and want to spend my time doing. Sure, sometimes I wanna smash my guitar over the coffee table and throw it off the balcony, and yeah, sometimes working at the radio station drives me up the wall and I wish music didn’t exist, but these are the things that are worth sticking to because I love them. The business fraternity I was in for a semester because I had no idea what I was doing with my life? Dumbest thing in the whole world, genuinely. But you know what, I learned something about myself and what I care about, and the aimlessness that led me to it and the quitter attitude that let me escape made me a better person.
Part 3: Conclusion
So, what’s the moral? Wander aimlessly through life and be a quitter? Yeah, pretty much! For a little bit, why the hell not? I wholeheartedly believe it’s worth it. The world is a scary place, now and most likely forever. With AI bullshit taking over our lives and making us lazier and dumber, there has never been a better time to slow down and toss everything aside. I still have no concrete long-term plans for my life, no idea what job I want out of college, no idea if what I’m studying will ever pay off in the end. Maybe I’ll try my hand at being an astronaut. I always liked space as a kid, who knows what could happen? Through this weird time in my life, though, Stephen Malkmus and Kiki are right there with me. What both Pavement and Kiki’s Delivery Service have taught me is that there’s beauty in being unsure and aimless. And, most importantly, if you play your cards right, and with a little bit of luck, it’ll all work out in the end. So, go be aimless and meandering and unfocused and lost and confused, be dejected and angry and annoyed and just fucking give up every once in a while, do it and enjoy it while you can! Because it’s gonna be fine, I promise. Or not, I don’t know.