A lion's heart

There's this episode of Friends where Joey does some joke thing and some storyline fits in somewhere and the laugh track keeps up and he says something like 'I'm an actor. I have to keep my emotions just bubbling underneath the surface at all times, for easy access.' And as lightweight as Friends is, I feel like there's some non-ironic truth to the idea of that. 

I make a big deal about everything. My life is just one big deal. And it sounds pretty stupid to say but it's what I do; exaggerate, cry, laugh, hypothesise, philosophise, all within the space of a few hours. I can't keep up with the rate of change in my head and sometimes I short-circuit and begin crying at train stations listening to Counting Crows, or have to swallow waves of joy in a lecture theatre remembering something that happened almost a month ago. It's disorientating and frightening, not being able to track how you're going to feel from one hour to the next. 

But like Joey in Friends - kind 0f - there is something helpful with being able to feel lots of things all the time. It might mean you spend more time alone and sad than most people but it also lends itself wonderfully to that beautiful virtue empathy. And I think empathy is actually pretty integral to songwriting - even if only lyrically. If you know how to relate to people and how to communicate feelings and stories in a way that people like and understand, well, it's a mental health service as well as an artistic practice. If you can feel normal human emotions two-fold, then it's probably wise to look at it from this perspective.