discomfort content
I look at comfort content in a different way, I think, than the average person. Sometimes I will find a song, a scene, a poem or a passage and bookmark it in my mind to go back to when I feel disconnected from myself or the things that bring me joy, and it usually does the trick. Some of these include The Weepies’ “San Francisco”, which I cannot find anywhere except this YouTube link, Jack Gilbert’s “Failing and Flying”, a poem I read in college and have carried in my heart ever since, and Jeremy Jordan’s instant classic cover of Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back To Me”, which occasionally just plays in my brain absolutely unprompted.
But today, the specific piece of content I want to talk about is “Opening Doors” from the musical Merrily We Roll Along, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. I initially fell in love with this version, featuring Darren Criss, America Ferrera, Laura Osnes, Jeremy Jordan (I promise this is the last time I’ll mention him), and the most wonderful cameo from Sondheim himself. More than the brilliant storytelling folded in the music and lyrics, broken down in the most shamelessly fangirlish way by Seth Rudetsky, what gets me every single time I listen to this is the earnestness that comes with the desire to create something. The song focuses on three of the musical’s main characters as they venture out into 1950s New York with hopes of creating the next great musical: idealistic creatives struggling with their own artistic block, rejection from publishers and producers, putting off Doing The Thing, and then doing it anyway. It perfectly captures the feeling of being young, unstoppable, and like you have the world at your fingertips, if you would only be bold enough to reach for it.
A line from that song that has always stuck with me, as evidenced by both my Twitter and Substack bio, is “learning to ricochet”. I’ve kept this line close to me for four, maybe five years now, and I still can’t fully explain its magnitude. In just three words, Sondheim was able to encapsulate the hardship of learning how to go with the flow, trusting it to take you where you need to be, because sometimes what you need is a hard bump to push you in the right direction.
When I found out about Sondheim’s passing last Saturday morning, I found myself strangely catatonic, wondering why he had this effect on me. Apart from West Side Story, I didn’t really grow up with much of his work; I only discovered the breadth of his catalogue in my twenties, appreciating Into The Woods and Sweeney Todd as an adult, and I found comfort in his songs like Opening Doors, and Being Alive, and Losing My Mind (okay, I lied, that’s the last Jeremy Jordan reference I have) as individual songs, rather than parts of whole musicals. And then I realized it’s because I discovered him in my twenties that he means so much to me - he found me when I was also discovering myself, and served as a reminder to nourish the parts of me I kept hidden: the dreamer, the creator, the idealist.
Deciding to watch Tick, Tick… Boom that same day was either pure coincidence or my subconscious playing a cruel joke. Anyone who knows me and knows what the Netflix film is all about would make the logical assumption that it would be right up my alley: a rock monologue penned by Jonathan Larson, the creator of Rent, adapted into a biopic directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Literally all of those are buzzwords for me.
Knowing that Rent was semi-autobiographical for Larson, and knowing that Rent wrecks me every time, I should have expected Tick, Tick… Boom to wreak the same emotional havoc.
I really should have.
And yet, I don’t think any amount of Seasons of Love, La Vie Boheme or I’ll Cover You could have prepared me for this journey.
We join Larson as he begins his musical monologue with the number “30/90”, where he tells us he’s turning 30 in a week and he’s stuck writing this musical that he’s been working on for eight years. His best friend, who he grew up dreaming of doing great things with, left their bohemian lifestyle for the promise of stability and healthcare as an advertising executive. As a 29-year-old advertising executive who still remembers being a fresh-faced college graduate hoping to tell the world’s great stories, I suppose you can see why this hit close to home.
We stay with Larson and meet his colorful cast of friends, all struggling to make ends meet, but they get to make art, and chase their dreams, and they all look like they’re having the time of their lives. They are Doing The Thing, no matter what it takes, and that’s all that matters.
The latest addition to my list of comfort content is triggered by a specific scene in the film, where Michael, Jonathan’s best friend, asks him, “Are you letting yourself be led by fear? or by love?”. It’s the kind of question that gives you pause, that gave Jonathan pause, so much so that he made it a prominent lyric in the song “Louder Than Words”.
Cages or wings, which do you prefer?
Ask the birds
Fear or love, baby, don’t say the answer
Actions speak louder than words
It made me think about my life, the circumstances that have led me to become the person I am now, and it made me think - did love lead me here? Or did fear? I’m ashamed to say that it has been mostly fear that has shuffled me from one milestone to the next, but it makes the choices I made out of love, specifically love for myself, stand out all the more.
Sondheim’s appearance in the film as one of Larson’s greatest influences and earliest champions serves as another reminder, maybe his last reminder, to choose honesty, and love, and to fucking Do The Thing, even when you think you can’t.
I’ve struggled with being creative for as long as I can remember, because it always seemed to be the path of most resistance (even when the resistance was mainly from me), but I’ve come to a point where the fear is getting tiring. Why shouldn’t I learn how to play the piano? Why shouldn’t I start writing again? Cages or wings, which do I prefer?
The content I have bookmarked in my mind, the ones I keep coming back to, has always been a source for comfort - it keeps me grounded and reminds me to get my head on straight when I feel a few screws loose. And then there’s content like this that actually provides so much discomfort that I can’t shake it off.
So this is me, doing the thing, learning to ricochet, letting my actions be louder than my words, letting myself be led by love. We’ll see where this goes.