Chapter 36: The Cynic's Lecture
Mid-September 2015
Michael was in his new professional studio. The success of 'White Iverson' had been huge, attracting a mainstream audience that his earlier, darker songs would never have reached.
It had been an easy victory. Fun, even.
But now, that same ease made him feel... empty. The anxiety about his Ethereum investment remained a constant hum in the back of his head. The superficial success of 'White Iverson' did nothing to soothe that fear.
He needed to get back to something real. Something that hurt.
He sat in his Herman Miller chair. He ignored the 'White Iverson' project, which kept racking up plays. He opened the project he had started and abandoned: life_is_beautiful_v1.
The System guide floated in his vision. The simple guitar melody, almost like a lullaby, and the emotional imprint: "Optimistic cynicism."
He spent the next few hours building the foundation. Unlike his other songs, this production was deliberately minimalist. It was an act of trust. He knew the lyrics were the center of everything, and he didn't want the production to overshadow them.
He recorded the electric guitar melody with his Squier, but this time he recorded it clean, almost cheerful, using his new Apollo interface.
Then, he programmed a hard-hitting but spartan trap beat. A deep kick that hit hard, and a crisp, fast hi-hat. The juxtaposition of the innocent guitar and the aggressive drums created an unsettling tension.
He was ready for the vocals. He got into the booth (his closet, now professionally lined). He stood in front of the Neumann microphone, its quality capturing every detail. He looked at the lyrics.
It was a catalog of tragedies.
He didn't have to act. The constant anxiety about Ethereum, the feeling that his entire life was a ridiculous gamble, the cynicism he felt toward his new fame... all of that was on the surface.
He sang the lyrics not with sadness, not with rage. He sang them with an almost clinical coldness, with total detachment. As if he were reading a shopping list, not a suicide diary.
'I know that you want me, you know that I want you...'
'The way that she teasing me, telling me, "Wait in the room"...'
'Takin' them drugs, she bleedin' on my shoes...'
His voice was monotone, almost robotic, in direct contrast to the "pretty" guitar melody.
He finished recording all the vocals. He stepped out and started mixing. He made the guitar sound bright and cheerful. He made his voice sound dead and centered.
He listened to the final mix.
It was... disturbing.
The cheerful guitar melody clashed violently with the brutal lyrics and the apathetic vocal delivery. It was the most cynical song he had ever made.
He hesitated.
'Is this too much?' he thought, listening to the line 'She'll be dead by the morning'. 'Too dark? Too cynical?'
He thought about the people who had just discovered him through the laid-back vibe of 'White Iverson'. This was going to scare them. It was going to alienate his new mainstream audience.
He was about to delete the project. It was commercial suicide.
But then, he thought about the System's rule. He thought about the Impact Points. The System didn't reward safety. It rewarded honesty.
And this song, in all its dark and twisted glory, was the most honest thing he felt at that moment.
'Screw it,' he thought. 'I'm not going to play it safe.'
He had to keep publishing songs to reach the milestone of ten. And this was the next one.
He pressed the "Export" button.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Michael spent the week in a somber work trance. The song 'Life Is Beautiful' was finished. It was a walking contradiction: an almost pretty guitar melody over a hard-hitting trap beat, and his voice, cold and clinical, reciting a litany of tragedies.
He didn't stop there. He knew this song needed a video, but not like 'Sodium'. The lo-fi aesthetic would distract from the lyrics. He needed the opposite.
He mounted his new Neumann microphone on the tripod. He hung a black sheet he had bought, creating an infinite black background in his studio. He turned off all the lights except one, a single desk lamp he placed to the side, illuminating only half his face.
He played the song in his headphones and recorded. Just his face, singing directly into his camera lens. His expression was dead. Apathetic.
In the editing software, he took the concept further. He added a video distortion, a glitch that made his face warp and break during the most intense parts of the lyrics. And most importantly, he added the lyrics. Simple white words appearing on the screen, forcing the viewer to read every syllable.
By Friday night, everything was ready.
He finished the song and video and uploaded them to SoundCloud and YouTube.
Then, he went to his social media. The anticipation from his thousands of new fans was palpable. They were expecting another 'White Iverson'.
Michael knew he was going to disappoint them.
His tweet was simple, direct, and unapologetic.
"Sometimes life isn't so beautiful. New music. 'life is beautiful'. (link)"
He pressed "Send".
He didn't feel the euphoria of 'crybaby' nor the confidence of 'White Iverson'.
He felt... empty. As if he had just published his darkest confession. He closed the laptop and went to bed, preparing for the inevitable backlash.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
He woke up the next morning with a sense of dread. He opened his phone.
Just as he had feared, the initial reaction was massive confusion. His new fans, the ones who had arrived for the laid-back vibe of 'White Iverson', were baffled.
The Twitter feed and YouTube comments were a battlefield.
"What is this? It's so slow."
"Dude, are you okay? These lyrics are super depressing. Go back to making songs like Iverson."
"This isn't a hit. It's a downer. I skipped halfway through."
"The video scares me. Why does he just stare at the camera like that?"
Michael read the comments, feeling a pang of "I told you so." He had scared his new audience. It looked like commercial suicide.
But then, as he scrolled down, he started noticing a different type of comment, buried amongst the confusion.
They were from his original fans. The 'crybaby' tribe.
The "ghosts".
"Shit. The irony. The melody is so pretty but the lyrics are so dark. This is art."
"This guy is a genius. He's singing about how fucked up everything is."
"The minimalist video forces me to listen to the lyrics. It's intense."
"Ok, this is the realest thing I've ever heard."
The Impact Points in the System started trickling in, confirming that his fan base understood the message.
But then, over the weekend, something new happened. A different type of listener started finding the song. They weren't the sad kids. They weren't the hype fans.
They were the ones who were truly broken.
The song started to circulate. The 'White Iverson' fans were confused. The 'crybaby' fans were intrigued. But then, the song found a new path. It left the music blogs and started appearing in different places: mental health forums, chronic illness support groups, and among people who knew a darkness that went beyond teenage heartbreak.
Point of View: Sarah (Room 305, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles)
Sarah was seventeen years old. Her world had shrunk to four beige walls and the constant beeping of machines. She had been fighting leukemia for six months. Today was a bad day. Chemotherapy had left her weak, nauseous, and furious with the universe.
She was sick of people telling her "be strong" and "keep fighting." They didn't want to see her rage. They didn't want to hear her say that everything was bullshit.
Her best friend, who knew she liked sad music, sent her a link via message. "Hey, this guy is that Demiurge guy. This song is... I don't know. It's weird. But it made me think of you."
Sarah put on her headphones, suspiciously. She hit play.
The guitar melody began, simple, almost like a lullaby. She thought it was pretty. And then, Michael's voice came in, cold and distant.
'I know that it hurts sometimes, but it's beautiful...'
'Sure it hurts,' Sarah thought, an ironic grimace on her pale face.
'Working every day, now you're bleeding through your cuticles...'
'Passing through a portal as you're sittin' in your cubicle...'
Images of nurses, of paperwork. The world kept turning out there.
'Isn't life beautiful? I think that life is beautiful...'
The chorus hit her. The voice was so apathetic, so devoid of emotion, that it made the lyrics even more brutal.
'Tryna keep your cool at your grandfather's funeral...'
'Finding out eventually the feeling wasn't mutual...'
'You were not invited 'cause you're nothing like the usual...'
She understood that. The isolation. Feeling like a weirdo because she could no longer talk about normal things.
'Isn't life beautiful? I think that life is beautiful...'
And then, the song stopped being about her in a metaphorical sense. It became literal.
'You wanna see your friends, but you're stuck inside a hospital...'
Sarah stopped breathing. Her eyes widened, fixed on the wall.
'Doctor walks in and he tells you that it's terminal...'
'Tumor in your brain and they're sayin' it's inoperable...'
Tears welled up in her eyes, hot and instant. It wasn't her exact diagnosis, but it was her reality. The terror she felt every time the doctor walked in with a folder. The fear that one day, those would be the words.
It was her deepest fear, spoken out loud, bluntly.
'Isn't life beautiful? I think that life is beautiful...'
This time, when she heard the chorus, Sarah burst out laughing. It was a dry, broken, painful laugh that came from the pit of her stomach.
It was exactly her dark humor. It was the same twisted joke she made with the nurses. The world was burning, and wasn't the fire beautiful? She felt, for the first time in months, understood.
Point of View: David (Apartment in Chicago)
David was forty-two years old. He had been out of work for three months. His business suit hung in the closet, gathering dust. He hadn't left his apartment in two days.
Clinical depression was a physical weight, a monster whispering in his ear that he was a failure. His wife had left him. His friends had stopped calling.
He was browsing YouTube aimlessly, watching stupid videos so the silence wouldn't consume him. The algorithm recommended a video. "Michael Demiurge - 'Life Is Beautiful'". Probably because he had been listening to a lot of melancholic rock.
He clicked, expecting nothing. The guitar melody played.
Michael's monotone voice was the first thing that connected with him. It matched his own apathy.
'I know that it hurts sometimes, but it's beautiful...'
'Working every day, now you're bleeding through your cuticles...'
'Passing through a portal as you're sittin' in your cubicle...'
He remembered his cubicle. His past life. Bleeding through cuticles. A perfect metaphor for the soulless office job that had consumed him for twenty years.
'Isn't life beautiful? I think that life is beautiful...'
He felt the chorus as cold sarcasm. And he loved it.
'Tryna keep your cool at your grandfather's funeral...'
'Finding out eventually the feeling wasn't mutual...'
He thought about his marriage. How he thought everything was fine, until the day she told him she was leaving.
'You were not invited 'cause you're nothing like the usual...'
He felt like an outcast. A middle-aged, unemployed man. He was no longer "the usual."
The song went on, every line a small cut.
'They'll kill your little brother and they'll tell you he's a criminal...'
'Welcome to America, the type of shit is typical...'
A dull rage. The cynicism of the world. This kid... this kid understood.
'Wake up in the morning, now you're doing the impossible...'
'Find out what's important, now you're feeling philosophical...'
'When I die, I'll pack my bags, move somewhere more affordable...'
A dry laugh escaped David. 'Move somewhere more affordable.' It was exactly the kind of bleak thought he had.
'Isn't life horrible? I think that life is horrible...'
'You think she's adorable, she thinks that you're intolerable...'
'You think you can do it, but your chances are improbable...'
'Once you feel unstoppable, you run into an obstacle...'
It was his life. Every time he tried to get up, life hit him again.
'Isn't life comical? I think that life is comical...'
And then, the tone of the song changed. It became more intimate, more direct.
'And if you ever need a friend then you got me...'
David leaned toward the speakers, as if the kid were speaking to him.
'And in the end, when I die, would you watch me?'
'And if I try suicide, would you stop me?'
'Would you help me get a grip or would you drop me?'
The question floated in the dark room. They were the same questions he was too scared to ask.
'Run away, make friends with the moon...'
'Why you trippin'? You'll be with your friends soon...'
'There comes a time, everybody meets the same fate...'
'I think I'ma die alone inside my room...'
David closed his eyes. "I think I'm gonna die alone inside my room." It was his deepest fear, articulated by a stranger on the internet.
The final chorus returned, repeating. 'Isn't life beautiful?'
It wasn't a song that gave him hope. It was something better. It gave him company. It told him the world was shit, that life was horrible and comical. And that it was okay to admit it.
He wasn't alone in his darkness.
Sunday, September 20, 2015 (Night)
Michael was in his studio. The weekend had been a chaos of notifications. He had seen the confusion of the 'White Iverson' fans and the deep connection of his 'crybaby' fans.
But he had also seen the comments from Sarah, the girl in the hospital, and from David, the man from Chicago. He had seen dozens of other people sharing stories of their own struggles: clinical depression, chronic illnesses, the feeling of being cursed.
He realized that this song, the most cynical and dark one he had ever made, had reached a place his other songs couldn't.
His other songs were about the sadness of being a teenage outcast. 'Life Is Beautiful' was about real pain. The pain of the adult world, the pain of sickness, of real loss.
With a mix of dread and curiosity, he summoned the System interface. He expected a reward, but didn't know what size.
The cyan panel appeared. He looked at his balance.
TOTAL BALANCE: 87,445 IP
Michael gasped. He did the math in his head. His previous balance was 55,945 IP.
He had earned 31,500 Impact Points.
He opened the transaction history. It was an avalanche.
[IMPACT ANALYSIS COMPLETE]
Source: 'Life Is Beautiful' Release - Multiple Sources.
Resonance Level: Exceptional (Despair Catharsis).
New Soul Connections detected: 315
Impact Points generated: +31,500 IP
Three hundred and fifteen deep connections. Three hundred and fifteen "Chloes" and "Victors" in just a couple of days.
This song, the one he almost didn't release for being too dark, was one of the ones that had given him the most points. It was his biggest success in the System so far, surpassing even 'crybaby'.
He realized something fundamental.
The System didn't just reward teenage sadness or fury. It rewarded honesty. It rewarded vulnerability in all its forms.
He didn't have to choose between being a "sad" artist or a "viral" artist. He could be everything. He could be the vibe kid from 'White Iverson', the anthem from 'crybaby', and the cynic from 'Life Is Beautiful'.
It was all part of the same story. His story.
He closed the interface, a new sense of calm and purpose filling him. He was no longer afraid of what song to release.
He looked at his list. 'Ghost Girl'. 'let's pretend we're numb'. 'Drugs You Should Try It'.
They were no longer strategic decisions. They were just the next chapters of his diary. And now, he had the points and the confidence to tell them all.