Ameba: The Everyday Struggle

By Homura

Ameba is a Finnish rapper, producer, and skateboarder. He has motivational lyrics——okay, I PROMISE this post will not be corny, or I’ll do my best to not make it that way.

There are plenty of “motivational” rappers out there that end up talking to you like youth pastors. Ameba doesn’t feel like that to me. He raps about his own experience in a humble and self-focused way. He doesn’t try to make you do anything——when he says you he seems to be talking to himself most of all.

VIDEO: Ameba - I Try to Stay On My Way

I’m thinking about another way

The easier one, may I say

But I still stay on the Way that I have chosen

That’s what it’s all about. There’s always the easier path of giving into anger or depression and turning it into violence or self-harm. It’s alright to feel angry or depressed, but the Way you choose to deal with those feelings is under your control.

But the mud is too thick so I have to compete my Way

Through the sickness, through all the twisted

People and the evil shit that they maintain

There are some wicked people out there. Or depending on how you see it, there may be no wicked people, only wicked actions. Bad energy will continue to come your way throughout your life, but if you focus on your own path, you can trudge through it.

I’m feeling too much, all that outcoming negative energy

And I can’t stand it no more, so I try to push it away from me

Just always I don’t always know how to do it

Cause it’s got power but I’ve done it before so I had proved it to myself

It’s not impossible, the highest knows how it goes

But people are too weak to trust him unless he shows

The highest is whatever it means to you. It’s whoever you place your faith in. Whether you are trusting in God or trusting in yourself, you are releasing some of your control in exchange for a little freedom.

It’s scary, especially when someone has broken your trust before, or you have broken a pact with yourself, but trust over time will build your strength.

It’s that pain you are living, it’s that hate you are giving

Why don’t you believe you know the Way? Love is the king

You are not at fault for feeling pain. I hope that your pain can be healed, both from your own efforts and from others showing you kindness.

Pain can fester and turn to hate. It can even turn to hate of people that did not directly hurt you, but who are living freely and easily without your pain and burdens. I know I felt bitter towards people I saw as living easier lives than me... but feeling hate and lashing out at them didn’t ease my pain. It was only when I started to forgive myself and forgive others that that pain started to get better.

Once again yesterday was one of those days,

I couldn’t handle my emotions, they all turned to be hate,

I was full of anger and rage

I wouldn’t even think about the given embrace

But I’m doing my thing, which is all daily struggle

In my life is practicing my striving for surviving

I should stop hiding, hiding myself

So I could not continue the climbing higher

I’m hoping that it all gets better and I know it will,

I know I mean it, for real, so I won’t ever let you steal it

Give back what you took

Sometimes all you can do in a day is survive.

You might just wake up wrong, or something might have happened that day that feels like the last straw. It feels like that in that moment, but you must sit with that feeling. Use all the coping skills that you have, talk to a friend, post on a forum, reach out to a hotline.

Your situation may not change, or the people that cause you pain or anger may not change themselves. But they do not have the power to steal your contentment and gratitude from you. If they have stolen it, you can create it again.

I’d like to thank

Every one of you

I never show that

But believe me I do

This is the outro track of “Stolen Moment”. It’s hard to find things to be thankful for in some situations, but gratitude is one of the most important things to hold onto. Ameba finds it in nature and being able to move his body and skateboard, to walk and look at the sun each day. He finds gratitude in people, even when those people make selfish decisions. Gratitude will keep you grounded.