The Blues

I think there are two kinds of blues that this world causes: the everyday blues and the humanity blues. I get the everyday blues when I’m working as hard as I can yet I can’t seem to make any progress, whether it’s writing a paper or learning a concept or practicing a new song, or finding a job. I get the everyday blues when everything is frustrating my attempts at a good day: the snow’s turned to slush, the caf closes just as I’m walking in to grab some food, the milk is sour and my umbrella keeps inverting. Those things are just little dissonant twangs in my good song.
The other blues, though, those blues you get from being human and being alive and living in the world, now those are something different. To tell the truth, sometimes I just block those out. Sometimes I only get them from watching the news. But when I see pictures of people hurting and nobody caring, when I see dying in spite of how hard peace is trying to break into those places of discord and suffering that’s when I get humanity’s blues. The tamping-down-earth-over-the-coffin drumbeat blues, the wailing infant saxophone blues, the back-breaking-strain guitar string blues. Those are the real blues.