Jack Whitlock and the Chamber of Reflection
Title sounds like Harry Potter, makes me feel cool.
As the year comes to a close, we all get to look back and either admire or cringe at our Spotify Wrapped. It’s honestly a pretty telling way to see what kind of year you’ve had. In general, how’d you feel?
What’d you listen to? What do your stats say about your mental health? Here is my Spotify Wrapped. Mac Demarco in an easy first place. With all 5 of my top songs coming from him. Way to go Mac; you did it.
The lofi beats are what I listen to when I read, write, and do work. I promise I’m not a freak.
This year has been a crazy one. I started going to therapy, can’t recommend it enough. I became more social, creating weekly recurring events with a few people, and growing really close in the process.
I ran 2 half-marathons. (I have to thank Billy Joel for the motivation there.) I also visited my brother in Romania. Lots of stuff happened. Lots of growth and quenching of old anxiety. I couldn’t have done it without Mac calming me down.
I opened myself up to feel sadness for the first time. In doing so I listened to sad songs. I previously hated “Chamber of Reflection,” but I was surprised when looking at my “Wrapped” that it had made quite the dent.
I really didn’t expect a sad song be in my top five, if at all, so I thought it would be appropriate to analyze the song, see why it impacted me and try to figure out what Mac was saying when we wrote the “Chamber of Reflection.”
“Spend some time away
Getting ready for the day you’re born again
Spend some time alone
Understand that soon you’ll run with better men
No use looking out
It’s within that brings that lonely feeling
Understand that when you leave here, you’ll be clear
Among the better men”
All the rest of the lyrics are “alone again”
So what does this mean, and why did so few words move me enough to listen on repeat?
What this song means to me
I have surrounded myself with impressive people. My friends excelled in academics without trying, while I toiled and twisted my way to moderate success.
My wife is probably the closest living example to the perfect human being, wickedly smart and endlessly patient; that’s one unstoppable combination. My parents have boundless energy.
My dad specifically has endless focus and drive, all while I deal with anxiety and turbulence in my effort to produce and grow.
That first stanza tells me to prepare for a race that I know I am bound to lose. Spend some time preparing and try your best to impress, against the giants and titans you surround yourself with (better men).
The second stanza I believe talks about what happens after you retreat back into the chamber of reflection. When I retreat I check for wounds. I look to see what brought me back to the chamber.
When I retreat it feels subconscious, a self-preservation tactic that I can’t help but act on. On instinct I look for an outside source of what brought me back here, an embarrassing failure, a need for help while others breeze by.
Mac reminds us that not all problems originate on the outside. It’s within that brings that lonely feeling of being less than.
The chamber of reflection is a place outside of performance, a hidden corner where you can pause and forget about the success you’re expected to claim, a place where you don’t have to think about your faults.
It can also be a place to lick your wounds, a place where you can plan and tinker with your approach to the race happening right outside your door. The chamber of reflection can be happy or sad, but no matter what, you are alone there.
You can’t stay in the chamber forever, you always have to get out of the chamber, plant your feet and try your best to “run with better men.”
What sends me to the chamber? Feelings of weakness, thoughts of being left out, the notion that you are trapped and overwhelmed. All are great reasons to retreat and hide.
When I feel this way all I want to do is shut myself off, and be alone again. I need time to get away and understand my feelings. But I think what Mac is telling us is that those feelings of inadequacy, come from within, and that’s a good thing.
Those feelings are felt by you and you alone. No one else finds you weak or less than. They are in awe of your strength, just as you are of their’s. It’s when this feeling of awe and being impressed becomes negative that we find ourselves cut off from the better men pushing us to grow, alone again.
Is the feeling of inadequacy bad? I think yes, a little bit. It’s a negative emotion, and negative emotions impede growth. But, I think the feeling of not measuring up to your peers’ and your family’s high expectations is telling two truths more based in reality than your current feelings.
- Your family has realistic expectations of you, and your self-doubt is blinding you from your path to success. Your strengths have grown inside of you from the beginning. No one has a better idea of what you are good at than your family.
- Your friends like you. Your envy and pride in them has a match in their hearts as well. Your strengths are something they will never possess. Instead of internalizing their strengths and turning them into your insecurities, let them phase through you and become appreciations. Praise them for what you envy, there is no higher compliment.
With those truths in mind we have to abandon the chamber. Reflection can only get you so far. Action requires courage. Remind yourself of your strengths, lift up those around you, and run with better men.
P.S. Your Anxiety Buddy made a very dramatic piano cover, it sounds great.
