Tanya | Week 4 | Ctrl Is More Than a Key
Ctrl Is More Than a Key
“That is my greatest fear
that if, if I lost control, or did not have control, things
would just, you know,
I would be fatal.”
(SZA, “Supermodel”)
I consider music to be my lifeline. I have listened to a wide variety of music over the course of my life, and yet, I don’t think that I have ever listened to anything more relatable. I first listened to SZA’s debut album Ctrl around 2019, when I was about 11 or 12, and I immediately loved it. However, I took to the album more because I liked the way it sounded, and not because the message of it deeply resonated with me. As I got a little bit older, I began to revisit the album on a deeper level, finally beginning to understand the layers of emotion and experiences that each song conveys. Moreover, I began to see myself in almost every word, and I had truly never felt so seen.
One of my favorite songs in particular is “Anything” from Ctrl, and in it, SZA sings, “Maybe I should kill my inhibition / Maybe I’ll be perfect in a new dimension” (“Anything”). In this line, it’s like SZA is speaking directly to that part of me that desperately wants to let go of my own control, but is so scared, because if I did let go, then how can I be so sure that everything around me won’t collapse? How do I know that everything is going to work in my favor, and how do I know that I’ll still be okay, even if things don’t go the way that I want them to?
I don’t know that. There is no way for me to determine that, so therefore, I don’t know that—which I think I’m beginning to realize is more than okay. It’s okay for me to not have all of the answers, and it’s okay for me to not have everything automatically figured out. For basically my entire life, I have always needed to account for every little thing and detail in my life, and for that reason, I have always hated uncertainty. For instance, I was never one of those kids who knew exactly what they wanted their career to be when they were older. So many of my friends were determined to become doctors and engineers and architects, and all I knew was what I didn’t want to do. I hated the fact that I wasn’t in control of my future and didn’t have a clear plan of what I wanted to do with my life. Thankfully, I now know that I want to be a lawyer, but I only felt secure and certain in myself when I came to that conclusion. Even now, I still cling onto control by planning every minute of my day on Google Calendar—a habit that I developed during the pandemic—and I feel so unproductive if I don’t stick to that schedule minute-for-minute. As I have gotten older, I have realized that true control is less about these controlling practices and more about knowing and trusting that I have enough control in my life to handle whatever might come my way.
So at the end of the day, just like SZA, a lack of control really is my “greatest fear.” I think that no matter how much time passes, I will always feel that way, at least to some extent. But now, I know that fear is not “fatal,” and that learning to lean into uncertainty and actually have trust is the best kind of control I can have.
I definitely agree that it can be scary to not have certainty and control over things. My religious parents often tell that they resolve this fear through religion: "in any given situation, you can only put in 5% of the work. The other 95% is up to god." Although I am not deeply religious, I understand why people have placed faith in some "higher power," as uncertainty is inherently scary. Preferring for a non-godly way to deal with this fear, however, I've settled on placing faith in myself. Even if I don't know what I want to do or be when I grow up, I know that I am capable of eventually becoming something valuable. Additionally, this uncertainty could even give us more to explore than previously thought!
ReplyDeleteHi Tanya!! I love SZA too! This album has to be my favorite from her because all the songs are so good, though I only recently got into her music. Trying to organize every part of our lives is so relatable; I also used to plan out my days on calendars, but as I grew up, I became less organized for some reason and rely on my brain to remember everything. I think that we all feel uneasy to some extent if some things are out of our control, especially because we don’t know whether it can go really well or really poorly, but I think that’s kind of the beauty to life in not knowing what will come out of it. If we knew everything that would happen, life wouldn’t have the same excitement to it. Whether we are taking financial risks in gambling (joke), waiting anxiously for a test score, or opening a gift, that sense of anticipation and mystery is what makes life different and interesting. From the way I see it, although there can be unfortunate outcomes, life being unpredictable is not necessarily always a bad thing. Not having control is natural, and sometimes all that we can do is just accept the reality and go with the flow like you said. Thank you for letting me see SZA’s album in a different light! Not only is this album a bop, its meaning is so deep!
ReplyDelete