Deep Regret

I have wanted to write this particular post since I was in middle of my crazy excavator building project. I had all but forgotten about until I randomly came across a Owl City video on YouTube. Now, a little while back, right before NaNoWriMo about how I love this particular group's music. You can read that here if you wish. But during NaNoWriMo, a fellow Owl City fan gave me a link to Adam Young's personal blog. There, I saw a completely different side of my favorite artist. It wasn't one of those media gimmick blogs where someone else pretends to be the artist and writes stuff. Nor was it one of those blogs that seemed to be started just so that people could subscribe to it and make the artist popular. It was real.

Here, he didn't talk about tour stuff or try to promote his group. He talked about his childhood antics, his adult problems and all his little problems and inconsistencies, even randomly funny posts that had no real plot. He wrote his blog almost the same way I would, just because he wanted to write. I usually don't go fan crazy over any band, because sooner or later the person behind the music comes out with some kind of celebrity drama and you find that they're completely different from who thought. But here was Adam Young, a shy Minnesota boy, barring his soul for the world to see.

The post that convinced me that this was the real Adam, and not some underpaid ghost writer, was a post entitled, "Deep Regret". In it, he describes his theory of "Deep Regret" as the feel that you get when an extremely beautiful girl passes you by and you are far too nervous and/or stunned to do anything. The moment passes and the girl leaves and you are left, forever wondering or thinking about what could have been. And to reinforce the idea, he gave an example of an occasion while on tour when this exact thing happened to him. Every celebrity I've ever heard of like to talk about how easy it is to get with girls and how popular they are with the ladies, never about how nervous or tongue tied they get around them. The words he used, made me for a second forget that he was a famous musician. It was almost as if I had stumbled across a fellow blogger. He didn't describe the girl as a object of sexual desire, avoiding such words as 'sexy' or 'hot'. He was respectful, painting a picture of a beautiful person. After reading it, I felt as if I understood him and what he was talking about. I felt as if I had connected with him somehow, for someone who I have never met.

The other thing that made me fall even more in love with his blog was the fact that he wasn't ashamed to share his faith. Being an extremely popular artists with number one hits all around the world did not make him feel the need to hide what he believed. In a post named "My Hope Is Found", he talks about Christianity explicitly, not in a way as to shove religion down someone's throat, but calmly and gently, almost as if he were talking to himself. He even covered an old Christian hymn, and posted it there.

I never thought I'd say this about a celebrity, but I want to be like Adam Young. I want to reach for the stars but never move my feet off the ground. I want to be able to be the biggest and best there is and still retain the ability to relate to everyday people. And I never want to be ashamed of what I believe. I wonder that if more artists were like him, if the entire yellow journalism debacle that Hollywood breeds would affect our lives a lot less and bring some positives instead of the folly we see daily. Keep at it Adam. You've made a fan out of me.

See you tomorrow!!