Humble Me by a.flaim

Sometimes we just need to be humbled. No, seriously. We get a little too self-sufficient. A little too independent. Too self-righteous. We think we have it figured out, but really, we have no idea. We put people in boxes. Make judgments. But we have not lived their life. Do not know their failures and regrets. Their deep scars that they are desperate to hide. Someone accidentally cuts us off or makes what we feel is a rude remark, and we immediately label them without extending any sort of grace. The thing is though, we, too, have been insensitive. We too have been so caught up in our life that any perceived opposition resulted in lashing out. And so, sometimes we just need to be humbled. To be reminded that we’re imperfect. Messed up. Broken. When we can acknowledge that we suck, we can be more compassionate to others. My favorite definition of kindness I’ve ever heard is “loaning someone your strength rather than reminding them of their weakness.” Have you ever been weak? I know I have. Always.

This album has been in process for so long. It is hands down the thing in my life I have put the most effort into. Some of the song ideas started forming back in 2017-2018, and the last song was finished a few months ago in July 2022. It spans so many emotions and thoughts regarding the human condition as I’ve experienced it so far, and I would venture a guess that they are emotions and thoughts that you’ve experienced too. And a lot of the time they’re conflicting. Not only “I am a piece of crap,” but also “I want to believe I am good.” Not only “this is the worst I’ve ever been,” but “there is hope.”

I’ll try to be brief with some backstory, which is usually a struggle for me when I’m writing. The songs are a story of the last 7 years. Of course they’re overlapping a lot, so it’s not necessarily chronological, but in some ways it is. It is my story of becoming aware that I am NOT where I want to be. Where I always dreamed I’d be. It was getting caught up in the daily grind living the life I thought I was supposed to live based on what I’d seen. Get a decent job and miserably work for the next X number of years. Keep your head down and keep going. Because it was so bad, I sought out vices to cope with the suck. Now there are varying degrees of vices ranging from drugs, alcohol, food, video games, work, shopping, etc. Some illegal. Lots legal / socially acceptable, but still insanely damaging. I isolated from the weight of the guilt and shame and the cycle continued. Time passes. Before you know it, the things you enjoyed doing, and the things you dreamed of doing have fallen by the wayside and it is a handful of years later. I tried to keep going, but eventually realized it would not end well. I could NOT keep doing it. This life was not my life. Even though up to that point it was the life I had chosen, it would not be the life I would live going forward. I left that job and desperately searched for something to save me from myself. My pride. My vice. 2 steps forward. 3 steps back. For years. I’m in a ‘better’ place now (sometimes). Learned a lot through the experiences, which is littered throughout the songs. Got humbled. For real. And I’m still messed up.

I’m looking forward to working on a new project. Writing some new songs. Learning more about music production. Growing into the person I was created to be. Once again, probably not an album for musicians, unless you can get past the (insane amount) of imperfections and let yourself be taken away by the story, because it’s not just my story. It’s the human condition story, and part of that, is being humbled. If you want to get inside my head, consider taking ~40 minutes to listen to it with headphones and the lyrics. Not bad to visit, but a scary place to live!

Not a musician; just a guy.