Embracing the Abyss: Farrah's "Formula" and the Power of Today

There is a brief moment, before all of the voices begin to settle down into your chest and all of the music starts playing, that you feel as if you're losing your breath. It's similar to just having walked off of the late-night Tube at a platform; the smell of metal and of rain that are still clinging on to each other from the day before; it is the smell of someone else's cigarette. This is how Farrah views her normal life. Or at least, it was the life she lived before it burned down.

Standing here in her late twenties, she sits in a purgatory-filled with group chats of weddings, jokes about mortgages and posts from friends boasting about their lives. Every single scroll through those posts seems to be quietly accusing her, making her question her timeline compared to those which she did not agree to.

The first line hits and there is a noticeable dip in temperature. It's not a huge drop, but it's noticeable.

Farrah does not rush through writing her song. Instead, she is just allowing the harmonies to stack up on top of each other, as if there are so many thoughts that need to be released, at 2:00 a.m., but they keep circling back on each other in her mind. The majority of the questions that she comes up with to write about are things that she has been thinking about, but has not said out loud for some time; e.g., "Am I ever going to be a mother?", or "Am I ever going to find a partner who I can be with forever?" These questions are not written in a dramatic way. They are more similar to how people are often afraid to speak what they've been feeling for a long time. It is the injury before the blade.

The track features no angel or perfect mentorship. It only features a voice of a father recreating the memory of a phone call. The father says, “tomorrow is not real” and that “there is only today.” Later, the father’s concept of the confusion of panic from the future is tattooed as emrooz (today) on the artist's skin; the father taped that panic in the future. You can hear the tattoo every time the beat holds back instead of breaking down. You can hear the tattoo every time the melody chooses to hold back instead of release.

The artist’s journey from the abyss is not triumphant. Instead, the artist has stabilized herself on the pathway of truth, and she realizes the pathway may have been made to be crooked on purpose.

The formula does not give you answers; it gives you permission to: 1) to stop moving toward all types of obstacles in the “milestones” of your life; and 2) trust the math you create along the way.

Finally, when the track stops, it feels like the artist is no longer in a transition. Instead, it feels like a message not yet finished; it is like the last transmission received.