I never particularly like Avicii's songs. I never enjoyed EDM. But his passing still hit me hard. You see, I first knew Avicii is because of this one particular song - The Days. The Days is a beautiful song and the melody is just so catchy, it forever lingers around after the song finishes. 4 years have gone since I first the song and this song still remain one of my favourites. In fact, there are less 10 songs which I gave full ratings in my playlist, and Avicii's The Days is one of them. It is rare. I am seldom this generous to give five stars. But The Days was exceptional. Part of the credits should be given to Robbie Williams for his vocal, but without Avicii skilfully crafted melody and his guidance on voice navigation, this piece of music wouldn't be able to liven me up whenever I am down. It is a cheerful song with inspiring lyrics that, whenever I listen to, lifts me up from the abyss which I am often thrown into.
From that time onwards, I searched for a number of Avicii's song. His trademark music - Levels - isn't the type I live. Wake Me Up is nice, but I dislike the melody. Like I said, I did not particularly like EDM. Hey Brothers was fine but it simply didn't stick around. Waiting For Love's MV moved me to tears but the song didn't move me enough too. The Nights' lyrics is beautiful, really a work of an angel, but I hate the melody. Too noisy for me. Without You is the second on my list, it is really nice and beautiful and I could listen to it all days. Lonely Together is the third. And my list stops there. As you can see, I am not a quintessential fan. I like only a few of his songs, and obsessed with only 3.
It is Avicii's life which is why I like him. I don't merely like him. I admired him. I revered him. I respected him because he was someone I looked up to. He and I are similar in many aspects. We were both inherently shy. Just like me, Avicii loved what he did. When inspirations come, he could build a fort around him and he could immerse himself so deep he couldn't pull himself out until someone intervenes and tells him to snap out from his own hallucinatory room. When he is devoted to making music, he, as a typical perfectionist, could spend hours and sacrifices sleep to perfect a piece of music. He was particular on details, and I guess that was what made him so charming. I can understand that feeling because I am also somehow a perfectionist. There are things I simply do not care, but those things that I care, I am very particular about them and would spend money and time to correct minor mistakes so that the piece of work achieve what I consider a perfect level. Like him, I often am willing to sacrifice time, sometimes entertainment and sometimes even social life, just to hone what in other people's eyes are already a masterpiece. This is actually very tiring. It is very stressful. I know because that's how I treat myself. You cannot possibly or realistically achieve a masterpiece without a hint of stress. It simply is impossible. Being perfectionist isn't as admirable as many people tend to think. Being perfectionist is very stressful, because you get bothered by minor disturbances. It probably is a mental disorder, and I am probably confessing to having one, but right now I see no reason why I should cease to be one. Yes, I give myself a lot of stress, but look at Avicii - without such stresses, can there be success? No, people like me and Avicii, we derive happiness, satisfaction and understand the meaning of life from such success. We generate and create our own happiness, and we are proud of that. Often, people don't understand why we get turn on by such small issue. What elated us was the investment we made something work actually became fruitful. People don't understand why we got so happy over such a small achievement, but it's only something the performer of the action can understand. And like Avicii, I understand completely.
Like me, Avicii was a person who had dreams, but like me, he was an introvert. He was shy. He shunned spotlights but he enjoyed making other people happy through his work. Like Avicii, I am an introvert. I hate crowds. I despise going out with a group of people because people like me we don't grow up socialising. We grow up learning to be responsible for our lives. We grow up learning to create our own happiness. We grow up learning that other people will not always be there for us, and we must learn to support ourselves because that's how we are going to survive. But, like me, I believe Avicii learnt how incredible it was to make other people feel good through what we do. Because I feel great if my friends like what I do, or becomes happy for what I do to them. I don't need the credit. My friends don't even have to know it was me who did anything that lightened up their day. Just looking at the look of their smiles on their faces, and knowing that I have the power to make other people happy, is a reason I can be happy enough for the rest of the day even if the recipients of my actions do not know who I am or who was the giver. It did not matter. For people like Avicii and me, we cared about what we felt. We feel good helping others, and we do it, and so we become happy. We didn't care whether they know, because, as mentioned, we have learnt to be responsible for our happiness. As long as I am happy, it did not matter what the other party feels or knows.
I guess like me, Avicii was not an expressive person. I am not expressive. I am never good in expressing myself. In the whole of my life I have gone through shits and hells and because I was still a little kid, I never learnt to voice them out, to share my sufferings, in fact I was so young, I didn't know what I was going through was not normal. There was no internet. There was no awareness. The only way I can express myself is through writing. I went through my shit and I grew up and I became who I am today. I am very quiet around people I do not know, and it takes a long time for me to warm up with people. I am an introvert and submissive person, and that's also the kind of person Avicii was. Like what his parents said, he was a shy guy who did not enjoy there he was. He loved his fans but shunned the spotlights. I can totally understand the pain he went through. People like us, we did not enjoy the public scrutiny. We need a private space of our own. Going out and always surrounded by people for a whole day can be very, very tiring for people like us, let alone being surrounded by crowd all the time, all year round and have no privacy whenever he went. It was mentally exhausting. And the sad part was, I can feel his pain. He must have suffered a lot, that's why he decided to take his own life.
Avicii's biggest passion was making music. But the outcome of it is that he became a tool his management used to gain money. He was kept busy by tight schedules. He had repeatedly said that when he stopped touring, he wanted a life of his own where he could do what he want. His dream was not granted. His management was not understanding enough to allow such simple request. Avicii is the prime example why I did not turn my passion into work. Studying engineering is not my first choice. It will never be my first choice. I like making my brains turn, sure, but deep down in my heart I know it is not what I like the most. The passion is simply absent. There's nothing to push me to do more than I should. And it's wrong, because there's something else in my life where I constantly push myself to do more. I often doubt whether I had made the right decision, but after Avicii's demise I think things just became instantly clear: Yes, yes I made the right decision. Passion is a passion. It should be something you enjoy doing. When passion becomes an obligation, it loses its lustre. Being inherently an interest, you cannot ignore its call when it knocks on your door. But being an obligation for it to be perfect for other people's scrutiny, it becomes stressful. The passion wears away. You slowly lose your interest, and you lost yourself in a hunt of an ironic race to be passionate. That's what happened to Avicii. Making music was probably the only reason he was living, but his management labelled him as a money making machine and he had to make songs not because he liked making them, but because his management needs money. Making music was no longer a hobby he could decide when he liked to do. It became an obligation and duty he must fulfil in a never-ending deadline-filled calendar. He must have realised his passion was betrayed. He lost the meaning of living because he lost the ability to do what he liked to do and he lost the meaning of happiness. This was basically what I was worried about and to avoid that I chose to bypass my first choice and went for my second. His death reminded me I made the right decision after four years hesitation.
There simply were too much similarities between Avicii and me, and that's why his passing was exceedingly devastating to me. Because when I look at Avicii went through, somehow I could relate a lot of it and I felt like he was living my life. The loneliness of having nobody understands your sufferings, and the inability to express that loneliness and sought for help slowly ate you pieces by pieces from the inside because that's also what I am going through. Like him, I felt alone. I felt depressed. Yes, it's time I face the fact I am suffering from some form of depression. I have fantasised killing myself and ending my life. I have thought of committing suicide. Avicii simply becomes who I would become had I not controlled myself. People like us, who felt alone and did not know how to seek for help, never display our sadness in public. When we join with crowds, with close friends, we, like all and sundry, can smile as if there's no worry. We could party like we do enjoy the party. But the fact is, deep down, we are broken. All those smiles and happiness simply were a mask that hid them. The damage was still there. People like us actually do need help, but we never learn to seek for help because, for one, majority of people would not understand what we are going through because depression is still a stigma and people don't understand how it affects us, and for two, we simply never learn to share our feelings. We keep everything to ourselves, and that's how it eats us from the inside until we decide to do something to end it. Avicii simply showed me how I would have become if I don't decide to turn my life over now. Yes, this is a post of me crying for help. I need help. But like Avicii, I simply never learnt to seek for one, because I did not have the privilege of going through joy-filled adolescence like most of my friends did, and none of them could possibly understand the hole in me. I am depressed. I am lonely. Like Avicii, sometime, all I need is one person to be by my side and tell me things would be alright. But like Avicii, I guess it simply will not happen.
Don't worry, after what happened to Avicii, ending my life simply is not a decision I will make. Avicii simply taught me that people who smile very often could very well be the person who needs the most help. I have no idea how many of my friends who often wear a smiley face are actually broken deep down. Come to think of it, it must have been more than imagined. If you need help, say it out. I understand the loneliness. I understand the pain. I understand the worry people may not understand what you're going through because people often think depression is often the patients' fault for their narrow view of the life. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong. I don't know. Avicii's life bore too much resemblance to mine and whenever I read what we he went through, I felt a personal relationship. That's why his death was so devastating. It seemed to be foretelling what would happen to me, because I am walking the same path Avicii was. I guess it's too late to turn back. I'll just have to find a way to cope. Avicii's death was a blow to me personally. Avicii, you were very strong and led a respectable life. I'll forever remember how tough you were in the face of challenges, because in you I see myself, and I vow to live on with strength no matter how difficult it is. Rest in peace, Avicii. If you can read this from above, I hope you can finally realise that there is someone who understands the pain you went through. You were never alone. And you'll never be. RIP. I'll forever revere you for who you are. You'll continue to serve as an inspiration for me that no matter how tough life becomes, there's always a way to live through it.
