The title of this post comes from a line by my favorite band The Hold Steady, in their song “Almost Everything.” It’s off of what most of their fans consider their worst album “Teeth Dreams,” yet the older I get, the more this album grows on me.
The full line is: “Sat in the back of the theater just drinking and talking about movies and Krishna and hardcore and Jesus and joy.”
This line has been rattling around in my head a lot lately. It brings up a lot of deep, middle-aged despair in my, fueled by nostalgia.
It brings me back to a time in my life, between 16 and 22, where I spent a lot of nights sitting around with my friends, usually in the back of diners, or Denny’s, parking lots, and riding around in cars, where we just listened to music, and debated religion and politics, talked about our favorite albums and movies and books.
Now every conversation I have is about money, or chores, or people’s kids. The religion conversations I have now are “you should join my church,” or “just trust Jesus.” These contrast steadily to conversations of old, where we debated the existence of God, talked about Christianity vs Krishna, where the councils of Nicaea held any merit. Political talk today feels the same. It’s “Democrats are bad,” or “Trump is a dictator,” or “ICE is the president’s private militia.” Any yes, I agree with some of these statements, yet they miss any nuance. I miss talking about what politics need to change, how to do it, why tax rates matter, where the money should go.
I miss having these in depth conversations, where when voices got raised, it was with passion and reason and logic, and not some blind faith to the absurd with no reasoning other than “you’re wrong because you don’t believe me, and I won’t and can’t explain my position.”