I recently put together a new playlist built around Linkin Park.
Not just the songs everyone knows — but the ones that lived quietly in the background of my life. The ones that felt less like music and more like private conversations. Listening again, I realised this wasn’t just nostalgia. It was memory. It was identity. It was a timeline of who I was, who I became, and who I’m still becoming.
Linkin Park was never just a band to me.
They were a language for feelings I didn’t yet know how to articulate.
Headphones, MP3s, and the Years of Not Quite Fitting In
Back in school, I didn’t stream music. I carried it with me.
MP3 files loaded onto whatever device I had at the time. Headphones on. World muted.
Those songs became my escape.
There’s a specific kind of loneliness that comes from feeling slightly out of sync with your environment — not necessarily rejected, but not fully understood either. Music filled that space between who I was and who I was expected to be.
Late nights, looping tracks, lyrics repeating like quiet affirmations. Songs that understood frustration without judgment. Songs that held space for vulnerability without demanding explanation.
It wasn’t just noise.
It was permission.
Permission to feel deeply. Permission to question. Permission to exist outside the mould.
Johannesburg, First Job, First Concert
When I moved to Johannesburg for my first real job — stepping into the world as a low-code developer — everything felt new and uncertain.
New city. New responsibilities. New identity forming.
And that same year, Linkin Park came.
It was my first concert.
Standing there among thousands of people who somehow understood the same lyrics that had lived privately in my headphones for years felt surreal. Something that had once been deeply personal suddenly became collective.
For the first time, I realised how many people had been carried by the same music.
It felt like belonging — not because we knew each other, but because we had all survived something similar in our own ways. Every culture, religion, background, belief – united by an experience, and a feeling.
The Day Everything Changed
I remember exactly where I was when Chester passed.
I was at a client site in 2017, deep in one of those intense work cycles where time blurs together. Early starts — around 6 or 7 am — and sometimes working until 1am. The kind of focus where you just zone in and keep going until the work is done. And suddenly, for the first time in weeks, it’s just before 8pm and we’re waiting for the last of our team to finish. I’m burned out, just reading the news before we make our ways to the parking lot…
Driving home, something shifted.
The songs felt different.
Lyrics that once felt symbolic suddenly felt painfully real. Words I had grown up with carried a weight I hadn’t fully understood before.
I cried driving home.
Not just for the loss of an artist, but for the loss of someone who had unknowingly helped carry me and so many of us through our darkest moments.
It was the first time I truly realised that heroes go through battles we may never see.
The Moment You Realise Heroes Are Human
Growing up, we place people on pedestals — musicians, leaders, creators — anyone whose work resonates deeply with us.
But eventually, you realise something uncomfortable:
The people who inspire you are often carrying invisible struggles.
And sometimes the voices that help others survive are quietly fighting to survive themselves.
That realisation changes how you listen.
It changes how you see people around you.
Much later, I began to notice similar patterns closer to home — in family, friends, colleagues, people I care about. The struggles no one talks about openly. The signals that only make sense in hindsight.
You never fully know what someone means to you until you pause long enough to feel it.
And you never fully know what you mean to someone else behind closed doors.
Isolation, Humanity, and Finding Our Way Back
The last few years have changed how we connect.
Somewhere between digital life, constant productivity, and periods of isolation, it feels like many of us lost touch with what it meant to be human together.
We forgot how lonely people can feel even when surrounded by others.
We forgot how important shared experiences are — not just online, but emotionally.
And maybe we’re still learning how to rebuild that sense of community.
Navigating Without Heroes
As we grow older, something shifts.
The heroes who once guided us don’t disappear — but their role changes.
At some point, you realise you’re no longer just following someone else’s path.
You’re responsible for creating your own.
And maybe that’s the real transition:
Not losing heroes — but becoming someone who carries forward the light they gave you.
One Small Step Forward
This playlist reminded me that music isn’t just memory — it’s continuity.
Chester’s voice helped many of us survive chapters we didn’t know how to navigate alone.
And now perhaps our role is to do the same — in whatever form that takes.
Not through grand gestures.
But through presence.
Through listening.
Through building meaning together.
Because maybe taking humanity forward isn’t about saving everything all at once.
Maybe it’s just about carrying the light forward, one small step at a time.
The Playlists
Apple Music – https://music.apple.com/za/playlist/s36-the-keegzverse-trailer-6/pl.u-AJ4eFjYYbJJ
Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3YC04qjvFWy4b2L2QeWPMl?si=varncWaGTiKF2tG68wYgcw&pi=7I1Il-6BThWDO
