65. Bon Iver - “715 - CR∑∑KS“

I imagine this song as the heartfelt soliloquy of an artificial lifeform first feeling emotion. It’s a short and gasping scene as heavy as it is cryptic, slightly out of phase as if brokenly translated, blurry and unknown, ethereal and confusing, almost as if the emotion is suddenly gripping a previously unknown soul and wringing it dry. It’s a testament to the overwhelming weight of loss, because contrary to what we would all probably like to believe, it’s not the high of love that ends up defining humanity and acting as the ambassadorial emotion to first pierce the existential veil of robotic apathy, but rather the crushing low of its absence. It’s witnessing love through the lens of loss. It’s hearing its echo and feeling the pang of heartbreak, but then using the loss for warmth and holding on to the memory even as it tears the soul apart, because even though its awful, feeling the absence of love and knowing that it once existed is still better than to have never felt it at all.