The "Never again, not ever, I am NOT letting this happen again" Playlist

There is a large number of people whom I know are angry, sad and, for lack of a better word, lost given the events of yesterday. Seeing the team you root for lose is generally painful in and of itself, but seeing the team you root for lose in the manner in which it did is even more so. Just to extend this a bit further, the latter bit is best addressed elsewhere by other people - on Facebook, on media outlets, on social media outlets etc - but I'd just like to take a minute to talk about the former.

A simple calculus to life is this. Happiness = Actual - Expectations. If your expectations are low, and the actual experience is high, you have a lot of happiness. Think of a wonderful surprise you once had. If your expectations are sky high, and the actual experience is just 'meh', you come away feeling very dissatisfied. Think The Dark Knight Rises. Essentially, this equation works. Yesterday, a cognitive bias I think many of us unconsciously made was an overestimation of the probability of the team we support winning, thus increasing our expectations beyond the baseline level. It's an easily-understandable thing to do. For most of us, most of our social media networks are people who are similar to us and who tend to see things the way we do. At least, most of the time anyway. 

So, when people's hopes and expectations piled onto one another, it isn't difficult to imagine how the expectations were skewed beyond the base line. It was always going to be difficult going from 82 to 112, and perhaps it was naive to expect it to happen so quickly. In any case, it is important to set our personal expectations at the baseline expectations. Perhaps a reason many feel disappointed disproportionately more than they would have is because in the Happiness = Actual - Expectations equation, the "Expectations" was set far higher than it should have. It's a good lesson in reminding ourselves to manage expectations to the baseline. 

But, nontheless, people are sad, pissed and lost. Never to fear, I present to you my latest music playlist. I call it the "Never again, not ever, I am NOT letting this happen again" Playlist, which is essentially how I felt after several events that took place yesterday. It's a mixture of defiant hope and just plain wanting to Keyser Soze everyone. For those of you who have yet to watch The Usual Suspects, the movie features a master criminal known as Keyser Soze. The description of Keyser Soze is as follows:-

"One story the guys told me, the story I believe, was from his days in Turkey. There was a gang of Hungarians that wanted their own mob...After a while, they come into power and then they come after Soze...They come to his home in the afternoon, looking for his business. They find his wife and kids in the house and decide to wait for Soze. He comes home to find his wife raped and children screaming. The Hungarians knew Soze was tough, not to be trifled with, so they let him know they meant business (Cue: One Hungarian cutting one of the kid's throats). They tell him they want his territory, all his business.

Soze looks oever the faces of his family. Then he showed these men of will what will really was. (Cue: Soze shoots two Hungarians, then shoots his children and his wife as the last Hungarian watches in surprised horror). He tells him he would rather see his family dead than live another day after this. He lets the last Hungarian go, waits until his wife and kids are in the ground, and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids. He kills their wives. He kills their parents and parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in, the stores they work in. He kills people that owe them money."

I don't advocate Keyser Soze's methods, but I think we can all feel that sense of rage and injustice that just makes us want to lash out at something. But, I think we must also remain hopeful and to strive to do better. Because, eff this, I am not letting shit like this happen again without doing my best to make things work. I have the perfect music for this set of emotions. Here we go. Again, a shorter-than-standard 12 song playlist, in no particular order (except saving the best for the last).

1. Limp Bizkit - Break Stuff

This is actually the best song when you're super pissed off. Channels everything, really. Let's get the pissed out of the way early.

2. Michael Jackson - Beat It

"They'll kick you, then they'll beat you, then they'll tell you it's fair." Hm.

3. Oasis - Stop Crying Your Heart Out

Because at some point, you have to move forward. 

4. New Radicals - You Get What You Give

This world is gonna pull through.

5. Bob Dylan - Blowin' in the Wind

Suggest also watching this video. Very powerful. And the song itself was written about the meaningless-ness of things during the Vietnam War.

6. Blink 182 - Man Overboard

Excellent closing lyrics - "Man on a mission, can't say I miss him around. Insider information, hand in your resignation. Loss of a good friend, best of intentions I found tight-lipped procrastination. Yeah, later, see you around.

7. Blink 182 - Dammit

"And it's happened once again, I'll turn to a friend. Someone who understands, sees through the master plan when everybody's gone and I've been here for too long to face this on my own, well I guess this is growing up."

A very good song for realizing that there are friends among us who are willing to help and who want to help and that, sometimes, we don't have to face bullshit by ourselves.

8. Kanye West - All of the Lights

A haunting song. While it doesn't come across as that type of song, to me, it's a song that reminds me of hope. And about seeing the light. Cos goodness knows we need all of the lights we can get. "Turn up the lights in here baby, extra bright I want y'all to see this. Turn up the lights in here baby. You know what I need baby, want you to see everything, want you to see All of the Lights."

9. Coolio - I'll See You When You Get There

Coolio with Pachelbel's canon. A song of hope and striving for better and never letting your background and experiences drag you behind. "But I'll be rude to surrender when I know I can be a contender."

10. B.O.B, Hayley Williams and Eminem - Airplanes Part II

Don't really like the song that much, in fairness. But it's worth it for the Eminem bit. Very inspiring.

11. Journey - Don't Stop Believing

Think the title makes this fairly self-explanatory.

12. Lupe Fiasco - The Show Goes On

If you're going to listen to only one song from this list, listen to this one. I saved it for last because I think it best describes this playlist. The defiance, the hope, the idealism, and most of all, the hope. And the hope. I hope I made that clear (see what I did there). Because, dear reader, whatever happens, no matter what stupid shit life or whoever else can throw at us, the show goes on. The show always goes on. And, these lyrics seem particularly relevant, don't you think?

"So no matter what you been through, no matter what you into,

No matter what you see, when you look outside your window,

Brown grass or green grass, picket fence or barbed wire,

Never ever put them down, you just lift your arms higher.

Raise 'em till your arms tired, let 'em know you there,

That you struggling, surviving, that you gon' persevere,

Yeah, ain't nobody leaving, nobody going home,

Even if they turn the lights off, the show is going on."

I'll close with Samwise (BAMF) Gamgee who said, "It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."