”The age of the understatement” By Belinda Huso

The age of the understatement

Going through the little corners of my mind  this title pooped up in my brain “THE AGE OF UNDERSTATEMENT”. Its been bugging me for days.singing it over and over again in my head, visuals of the music video in front of my eyes. Thinking to myself this surely has a meaning, I guess my subconsious is trying to remind me of something. We all like to bitch about the modern society, technology, how we have driften apart from one another.but my question is, werent we always? I dont think it has been a greater era of comunication, even if that communication comesingfrom social media. At least we talk, we express our feelings, even to strangers on the internet. But, have we  missed the point? Having this much access to comunication and still we feel like we are “understating” ourselves. The vulgarity of being missunderstood. We talk and we talk , we crave the ears of others to hear us out, or more so to understand our own thoughts that surely come from a deeper place. Every word that comes out of our mouth has its roots deep in something we heard when we were 5 and it stuck with us.

To the words left unspoken, our fear is expressing what we truly think, and to be honest here, sometimes its better. People often use this just to be just bluntely rude, and one advice from me, its better to feel that you are understating yourself than to be rude. “Openess” i guess is being hurt as a term, we just shout it out loud and proud, we have almost made it into a race who is more open, especially if you live in a close little society.  But at the end of the day, our mind has been programmed from the previous generation, were words would cost you a lot. Growing up with the idea that talking too much might hurt you. Its quite hard to escape from what we know.

Enough has been said about this topic,i just believe we love to complain about every little behaviour that a new generarion creates. One thing that I love about Alex Turner, the half of The last shadows puppets, is his way with words. He is a modern day poet, knowing were and how to use words, put them in a papper. His greatest gift i guess. He is a creator of little stories in his songs. Simple words that immediately take you to the place he is singing about. That place is of course different for each one of us.  

Sure communication is the key, but why it is so hard? Why many times while we are saying something it comes out completely wrong, we are thinking of something different and what we express its completely something else. Then we continue living our life’s, with that thought, with all the unspoken words. Wouldn’t be just easier to say, yes I fucked up, I’m sorry let’s find a middle ground together! Imagine how many human interactions would have been saved if we were brave enough just to say those so simple words! But no, we usually choose to just leave it there and even leave. I find it problematic, because talking it’s not only meant for lovers. What if we could talk openly to our friends, to our family even to our boss? That would set us free, we would walk out of every situations being lighter from the heavy load of words, of the  fucking words that we never say! I guess my association of this song with words it’s the heavy feeling. The song isn’t only strong with words but also with its melody, with the chore singing, with the speed of it. The music video also takes you to Russia, there is snow and the military. Immediately takes you to the Soviet Union. To communist places, that are yet so familiar to most of us! So to speak or not to speak , is that the question? Or was it a different one? 

In conclusion, learn yourself and then teach yourself to express what you are in the best way possible, it would a great gift to society if we stayed a bit in our heads and put all those words in order , so when the mouth would open  flowers would blossom. Kiss me properly and put me apart as Alex says.

Belinda Huso