Though I was a big fan of The Beatles, I'd never heard of The Beach Boys until the recent passing of Brian Wilson. I listened to what is said to be his greatest song, 'God Only Knows'. It's a beautiful song, but some particular lyrics set off a train of thought in my head.

If you should ever leave me Well, life would still go on, believe me The world could show nothing to me So what good would living do me?*

I really felt this. I know what he means, because it feels to me too that there is nothing in my life worth living for except the one I love, if it weren't for her I don't even know where I'd be or if I would be anywhere at all. Then I started thinking of what other people would think of this, if it were not from the mouth of Brian Wilson but from a person today?

• This is extremely problematic and manipulative behavior. It's emotionally abusive to hold your life over somebody elses head.
• He's suffering from codependancy and suicidal thoughts. He needs to go to therapy or the psych ward and get a diagnosis and get on the lexapro.
• What a retarded cuck, no woman should be put on a pedestal like this.

The media has inserted these ideas into us. The first two are from our society 'top-down', i.e the ideas the 'approved' people impose on us. The other is bottom-up, ideas from marginal people that caught on. I think it caught on because young people are burdened with tense relations between men and women.

Could a song like 'God Only Knows' be written today with the same sincerity? It's reminiscent of the Borges story of Pierre Menard, Author of Quixote, wherein a contemporary author Pierre Menard 'becomes' Cervantes to such degree he also writes the entirety of Don Quixote, but being modern, Menard's Quixote is considered infinitely richer than Cervante's Quixote. In our case, rather than the story being infinitely richer, it's more insincere and despicable. Is it possible to shake off the chains of our culture, remove the diversions of our media, and embrace the truth in our feelings? Could this be intentionally fixed in our society, or must we wait for time to erode it? Is it possible or impossible to achieve this with media, seeing as it's why we're here in the first place? I cannot think of another thing that affects the ideas of a whole society as media does.