James Del, LTD

The Good Life 87

Someone recently asked me if my screen name was a reference to the positive psychology concept of “The Good Life.” This is what I told them:

I’ve had this screen name since the 9th grade (before that my s/n was LiveFr0mNYitsSNL, seriously). I hit my awkward peak sometime around November of my freshman year, and that happened to coincide with my girlfriend, Heather, leaving me for this scumbag pothead, Lenny. I was completely destroyed…she was my first *real* girlfriend, and no matter how many times your heart breaks, nothing is as rough as that first time. I was fucking devastated. I was pretty much excommunicated by my group of friends because I spent all my time with Heather, and when she left me I pretty much had no one.

But I did have Weezer’s Pinkerton.

Every day after school I’d come straight home and take a nap with Pinkerton blaring. My sleep schedule back then was even worse than it is now if you can believe it…I was getting maybe 4 hours each night, and then another hour or two after school. I rarely made it past the 4th track, Why Bother. In my opinion it’s probably one of the most boring songs on the entire album, and when I listen to boring songs my mind tends to wander and shut off.

One afternoon though I was pretty restless and wound up making it through Why Bother. Lying there in bed I listened to Across the Sea, a song about wanting to be with someone on the other side of the world, and coming to terms with the fact that it just isn’t going to happen. I had heard the song a hundred times before, but this was the first time I actually *listened* to it, ya know? The words, the intricacies of the notes, dynamics, etc…you can hear a song 100 times without actually listening to it. I was in a listening mood that day.

Besides having an amazing chord progression, I totally related to the song because it made me think about the girl I was into that previous summer. We never actually dated…she and I went to acting camp together and lived on different ends of Long Island, but we had the most amazing time together and she ultimately wound up being my first kiss at the end of camp. It was bittersweet, but the memories of her were all good, and we’re still casual friends to this day. That set me up for song #6 (coincidentally, that number still follows me everywhere) on the album, The Good Life.

The song starts with one of the most amazing riffs in all of rock music, and if you disagree with me I will smack you. G, G, G, E (though I believe it was tuned a half step down on the album). Brilliant in its simplicity. The first line immediately grabbed me: “When I look in the mirror, I can’t believe what I see. Tell me who’s that funky dude staring back at me.” Again, simple. But it was me. I had been in such a terrible funk because of Heather. She fucking ruined me, or so I thought. The song goes on…”Broken, beaten down, can’t get around. Without an old man cane, I fall and hit the ground. Shivering in the cold, bitter and alone.” G, G, G, E.

Sometimes I hear a song and I’m like, “Oh, that kind of applies to my situation, if you ignore some of the lines and references.” But there’s an infinitely SMALL number of songs that feel like they were written FOR you. This was one of those songs. I thought it was going to be a long lament at how emo and terrible life was. And it goes on like that, until one line…”Who do I got to blame? Nobody but me.”

That’s some mind bending shit right there. Until that moment, Heather was—in my mind—the reason I was so bummed. After all, she did this to ME. I was the victim! This, as it turns out, was complete bullshit. My “woe is me” mindset is why I was depressed, not because Heather dumped my lanky ass.

“And I don’t want to be an old man anymore. It’s been a year or two since I was out on the floor, shaking booty, making sweet love all the night. It’s time I got back to the Good Life.”

The song goes on in this fashion, and by the end of it I was in tears (I’ve always been a bit of a crier, sad but true). I had one of those moments where I was so in shock by what I had just heard, I had to hear it again. And again. And again. I must have listened to that song a half dozen times that night.

In doing so, I quickly realized I was completely in control of how I felt. If I wanted to go out there and get over Heather, all I had to do was think positive. I became incredibly mindful of my emotions that day and realized that even the pain I was feeling was a good, life-improving learning experience. Granted, I don’t think I could have worded this revelation at the time, but looking back the seeds were planted. I was going to pursue the Good Life, because there was no reason to do anything else. As the years rolled on, that song didn’t just signify getting over a girl my freshman year of HS, it generally stood for that feeling you get when you just need a change. When things seems so dark that the only way you can go is up.

That said, it’s been awhile since I’ve studied any kind of psychology, let alone the one day we spent on positive psychology my senior year, but I attribute everything (good and bad) in my life to this mindset I adopted 8 years ago. That song was the best thing that ever happened to me.

So uh, to answer your question…it is a reflection of “positive psychology,” but I couldn’t have told you that when I picked it out. It was just my favorite song in 9th grade. But like all works of substance, meaning can shift with the ebb and flow of time. Time can take something you’re intimately familiar with and turn it into a completely transformed piece. In some cases, time can diminish the value of something; usually when we inflate something beyond what it’s really worth. On the flip side, something of true value only gains worth as time rolls on, so that your favorite song one day can, in time, become the driving philosophical force in your life.