Linkin Park - One More Light

Band:  Linkin Park
Song:  On More Light
Album:  One More Light
Genre:  Rock

I've been wanting to touch on this topic for a little while now, and since a lot of people in my newsfeed have been talking about mental health recently I figured now's as good a time as any.

I feel like I touched on people who sing about mad drug usage in the past.  Like back when I last posted Alice In Chains maybe.  Anyway, what I had said then is basically people really have no right to be shocked when somebody dies from drug use when half their music is about how, in the case of Layne Staley, they do heroine and they are depressed.  Not that people who sing about drugs and depression are always consciously asking for help, but there's something about what they're doing that makes them write lyrics about that, right?

Chester Bennington is a victim of the same kind of mentality.

For years he'd been singing progressively more subdued manner.  I mean obviously in interviews he said he was doing better, and I honestly believe that's what he thought too.  I don't think he was lying or anything, but at the same time I think he knew he wasn't as good as he needed to be.  I'm thinking though that he was committed to trying to help people, and that's what makes it rougher.  Songs like One More Light here give the dialogue of him saying he cares about your problems and wants to help you.  Right?  But then same album, you have songs like Heavy that are not only really heavy songs (no pun intended), but also have a really intense video.

This is a guy who was really trying to hold it all together for both his friends, fans, and family, but still gave in.  A man with the entire world to live for, who was tricked by his head into thinking that he had nothing left.  A man committed to bettering his own life and the lives of others and was, by all outward appearances, doing fine.

Stuff like this makes me wonder what I can do to help people cause in their own heads like this.  Like, it's way outside my comfort zone to do literally anything that talks about it, but this is a problem that needs to be addressed more than people just saying "oh, it's all just in your head, you need to get over it."  Things are a lot more open than they used to be with both the internet age making everything much more easy to access, but there's still this stigma about not talking about depression openly because, frankly, it's awkward and uncomfortable.  Depressed people don't want to be judged by friends and family and the average bystander doesn't want to be reminded that 11% of people under the age of 18 and 10% of people 65+ suffer from some sort of depression.

Just think about it from time to time.  Be less of a shit person to retail workers and people who work with and for you.  Don't be a dick in traffic.  Just do some sort of thing to make the world less of a trash place and, if you find somebody who needs help getting out of their head, don't put them down.  Just listen and help.

There, I'm off my high horse for a bit, we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

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