I DONT KNOW IF MY TIME TO PAUSE HAS COME YET. ASK ME THAT QUESTION AGAIN IN 20 YEARS LOL.
 

if I could choose the moment and the length, I'd pick... my whole life

Call me crazy, but I think I'd get bored even with the most intense and happiest part of my life.

Besides, while some say hindsight is 20/20, I think looking back some things end up rose colored, some end up blue, and I don't have the right 3-d glasses to really judge them correctly anymore.

 

Summer, 1983 ~ first car, first real job, every afternoon on the beach, and first love...

 

I wouldn't...but I would like to sometimes. I'm kinda going through that funk myself. But I think it's an important question to ask...to pause for a moment and think about our lives. I remember much happier times...I also remember some really, really low times in my life. When I first listened to the Downward Spiral I was ready to quit on life...seriously. It made me see how sad I was...and how sad life can be.

I can't remember the best age of my life. My earliest memory was getting hit in the face by a snowball as I stood in an empty school yard. I must have been about 5 years old...That kinda set the stage for the rest of my life - constant bullying, disappointment, an angry father and a very peculiar upbringing in a steel town that has now crumbled.

I want to press the "pause" button all the time. And I do. I pause. I stand on the pier in Port Dalhousie or take a hike in the Short Hills to gain some perspective. Or I play guitar or listen to music. That's the best therapy for me. When I see the trees, feel the sun, or hear the sadness of other musicians I feel less alone...

I'd like to press the button at a time when I was surrounded by beautiful things (my definition ofcourse!)...a girl, a precious moment when I accomplished something I never thought I could do, a scenery, a certain smell, a melody...a combination of things that I can't really describe. I guess that's where that existential feeling comes in.

Anyway...you made me think...and that's important. Even if it means pacing the streets at night. Just be careful with your mind. It can really fuck with you under the right conditions and render you hopeless. Keep using the depression to your advantage because in the end...it will sound really good when you put it out there musically.

You've got a curse...but you also have a very special gift.



 

I'm 28 now and have been thinking a lot about this over the last year or so... feel like the best years are behind me already... so I wish I could've paused when I was about 22 or something, when the world still seemed exciting and full of promise.
 

8 months ago.

 

i'd pause that night in 2001 when i was in the kitchen helping my mom cook dinner, and i heard from the distance in the living room the most beautiful music that's blessed my ears...

it was the song nyja lagif from Sigur Ros and it was a live recording for a show called HBO Reverb...

that was the first day of my new life

it's what taught me that great music had to be sought out ... i grew up in a southern country town and didn't know about what all was out there, yet

 

That is a very good question and not easily answered. I shall have to think about it.

 

When you're young, I think you don't have the appreciation for those little things that make life at the very least tolerable... right now at 18 I wouldn't want to press pause because nothing is decided yet, I have nothing to hold onto for support (all the cliche stuff like parents divorcing, moving away to college, starting college, etc.) ... I think maybe after settling down, and any kids are gone, and I'm with someone I love very much, and I'm retired... then I might press pause. The excitement of raising children is over and all those other things as well! I'd be too old to be worrying about wrinkles or grey hair. Maybe it sounds really boring but I just want to be able to rest after everything is said and done. But perhaps that's death, and another post for you :p 
 

I don't think I've had that moment in my life when I would press the button. And when it does arrive, I don't know if I would actually want to pause the moment. I'm assuming that it'd be so exciting I would want to keep moving forward, not be at a standstill.

When would you press the button, Daniel? The mid summer magical moment you wrote about?
 

I would pause my life at the age of 5. Blissful youth and everlasting days.... when the world seems untainted and a joyous place to run free and play.  Don't feel detached Dan, we're all here for you :) and your fans will give you all the support you need. good luck with your album, make it happen!

 

There is one night in June of 1996... projekt records had a huge 2 day concert in Chicago... Oh, it was so brilliant and beautiful and fun!!  FUN!!!  I felt more alive that one night than almost any other since.  :)  And I fell so in love... hard... sigh.  I would like to visit that one night once again.
 

I'd have to agree with a couple of other posters here and say that I don't think I'd want to hit the pause button.  But in the spirit of nostalgia, which is where I think you're coming from right now...two ages come to mind immediately - 19 and 26. 

age 19 was just a fun, carefree time back in the early nineties....I enjoyed myself, my friends, even my old 1979 Dodge....a certifiable piece of shit, but in hindsight...my favorite car:D

and age 26...because I was living in Austin, Texas, had moved over 1400 miles away from all the family and friends I had ever known and took a chance.  That was indeed very exciting, thrilling, yet equally terrifying all at the same time....for that I would call it magical.  I would never trade that experience for anything, and one of my closest friends now is someone I met while living there and she is one of the dearest people in my life.
 

I'm not so sure I would want to pause my life, but I hear people enjoy their 60s the most. I wouldn't mind turning back time though.

 

I've grown and done so much from 2005 until now so if I had to pick a period it would be that, but I'd rather continue onward.  So like others maybe I haven't yet hit that point or maybe it was around the beginning of 2008 when I first met that special girl.  Everything seemed perfect, but it didn't happen.

I just don't know.
 

When I was 5, growing up in Campbell River, before my father passed. When I think of childhood, that is the place I measure happiness by.
 

 

NOW - age 37 - why?  I have some wisdom of these years, and still the youthful good looks  and physical stamina to enjoy it!
 

the time to pause hasn't come for me yet.  i rebelled against the struggle up and to this point. now i've succeeded, and the calm doesnt propel me nearly as much.

If i were to pick a moment, would i pick a time of suffering where I feel motivated to rise to the occasion, or a moment now, where things seem to be OK but there's no external motivation? I can't decide.

~N

 

I would choose summer 1993.  I was 13, and music was beginning to add an entirely new dimension to my life.  Nearly all the bands that would go on to become my "favorites" released stellar albums that year, I attended my first concert, and I could wake up early on Saturday mornings and still catch bands like Radiohead and New Order on MTV and VH1.  It was a magical time!!

 

Rewind and pause? pffft
Definitely not. And it's not that there aren't moments that i love to remember but i think about it and it seems that reliving them wouldn't be as sweet as the memory.
I'm a little anxious for the future and I think I would rather FF>> maybe five years. Or ten. i don't need to go back I need to get ahead.

 

I would pause it when I was 7... didn't know death or pain.  Everyone I loved was still around, I was living in the sun in Hawaii, all wide-eyed and full of dreams and creativity.  I was oblivious to my parents' financial issues because they didn't let it show.  Man... ignorance is bliss and childhood was sweet