During a certain period of time in my life I was a fan of the music of Nine Inch Nails. This was basically a decades-long music project of an "angry-yet-sensitive" man from Mercer, Pennsylvania named Michael Trent Reznor. He did all of the songwriting and programming; all recording was done under his direction. On tours he would have a live band, including some musicians who are now famous in their own right, but it was nevertheless very clear that Nine Inch Nails was effectively a one-man-band, perhaps the greatest one of all time - or at least the one that's the most widely known.
Anyone who owns Trent's albums knows that each one has a "Halo" number, which helps keep track of singles, EPs, remixes, etc. dispersed amongst the relatively few full-length albums. The first full-length studio album was "Pretty Hate Machine" from 1989 and that was designated "Halo Two." "Halo One," the one that started it all back in 1988, was none other than an early single release for "Down In It," one of the songs from that first full-length album.
In that song, he says "everything I never really liked about you is seeping into me." Given the circumstances leading up to that point, which will not be discussed in detail here, there was a certain inevitability implied about this fate. Regardless of the means by which such a fate manifests, we are indeed naturally inclined to become like the people we spend time with. For things to work out differently would require an effort to actively avoid letting that happen. The easy way to make that happen would be to avoid spending time around people we do not wish to become. But if that is either counterproductive or simply not possible then we need to actively focus on what is right and just, and act accordingly. Don't let your place in life bring you down.
John 17: 11b-19
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