Radio Static

Perhaps it’s the combination of still being kinda sick and not having slept more than four hours a day all week, but I’m feeling a little off.
And y’know “off”, for me, is more than a little off.

Breakdown Lane

Earlier today I was stuck in traffic. What would otherwise have taken fifteen minutes took about an hour.

At one particularly straining stretch, I look to my right to see a giant tractor trailer only inches away from hitting me. Unsure of how I hadn’t noticed it creepin’ up in the shoulder before, I attempted to scoot a bit to the more leftish area of my lane.

Of course, there was really nowhere for me to go. I couldn’t speed up to leave room behind me or slow down to leave room in front. Whichever way I might budge, so would the metal monstrosity. Closer when I would move away, and even closer than that when I wouldn’t.

Finally, I was able to work out a space big enough in front of me by inconveniencing those behind. The driver would be able to squeeze that barrel of terrors inside this lava flow and we’d be all fine and dandy. I mean, the truck’s signal had been going for the past ten minutes. Surely, I was solving everything.

The hole didn’t take. At risk of being crushed from behind this time, I gave the truck a generous twenty seconds to make a move toward the gap in front of me, but no luck. Just as it seemed like it was making a move toward the lane proper, it pushed back in the opposite direction.

Remember, this whole time my little silver world was entirely and quite nearly crushable.

After an uncomfortable, confusing, and snail-like procession through the next quarter mile, the super truck began to scoot forward a little faster in its special lane and head straight for the corner of the rock wall beside us. Barely missing letting the wall do to its own side what I had been sure it was going to do to mine, the roaring decepticon screeched to a hault by some wild foliage.

Able to catch a quick glimpse, I saw for the first time that it was not its turn signal, but its hazard lights that the robot-in-disguise had been flashing. Furthermore, when the motor-grind finally let me pass by the scene, two haggard-looking gents had popped out and opened up the beast’s belly. Steam poured from its draconian mouth-piece, but as I peeled toward my exit, I caught a glimpse in my rearview mirror—one man patting another on the back, a resigned despair on both their faces.

Opinions

Okay, fine.

I agree that we should respect other people, and in no way does that exclude their right to an individual and sometimes quite differing set of opinions. From trivialities to moral necessities, you have a right to form and hold and change your mind about what you like and how you think.

However, that does not mean I have to allow you to hurt or otherwise disrespect others because of those opinions. It also doesn't mean that if I disagree with you, I have to hold my tongue and tolerate every bit of nonsense you may spew in defense of your viewpoints. I am in no way showing you any sort of respect by allowing you to demean yourself or others will ill-conceived, baseless prejudices just as you would be doing me a disservice by allowing me to hurt others with my own ridiculously intolerable notions.

That said, I have so much admiration for someone who can hold to something they believe in with all their heart.

The problem is that ideas are not as rigid as we like to pretend they are. We can't box something in as completely right or completely wrong, because we distance that idea from real world application. When we try to apply those kind of black and white perspectives to real world problems, we end up dismissing the actual people who will be affected.

This is why I'm completely fine with someone having different opinions and/or beliefs about major issues than I do, if they've put honest thought into it. I know not everyone is where I am in my thoughts on every issue.

When I was in middle school, I had completely different opinions on war, capitalism, institutionalized religion, hamburgers, superman, and most other things. Those opinions have shifted from a little bit more expansive all the way to complete opposite opinion as my experiences have broadened. My experiences, though, are not the same as everyone else's.

This can often frustrate me because people my own age can hold opinions I find vastly more immature, bigoted, or ignorant than my own. I think they should be at the same place I am because they've had the same amount of years to reach that place. What I tend to forget is that they're coming from a very different point of origin. I was raised by certain people in a certain culture in a certain area, and all the twists and turns of my life since then have helped shape my ways of thinking. Thus with those whose opinions frustrate me to no end, I must remember that their certainties have not been the same as mine.

[I didn't really grasp anything about classism in the U.S. till I was living out of my car and driving around looking for somewhere to park for the night. The same cops who made the streets safe for the middle-class white kid I was growing up made it very difficult to get a good night's sleep a few years later...and I was still white, so I got off fairly easy the couple times I got caught. The fact that I got off at all showed me how easily I could fit into the role of a middle-class white kid, pretending I was simply out late and had parked somewhere to rest my blue eyes before heading to my safe, warm bed somewhere close. "Of course, Officer. Thank you."]

I was very blessed to get to go overseas for the first time at age eight and two other times since then. I've had teachers, friends, and mentors in my life who have been patient enough with me to walk me through multiple sides of some tough issues. I had parents who filled my life with books and music and art and science and ideas. "Hey Dad (or hey Mom), why...?" was always followed by an honest, thoughtful answer. Best part, when he didn't know, he'd tell me he didn't know. All these factors and many more have grown in me a spirit of introspection, philosophical discovery, questioning pressupositions, and abstract mental exploration.

And still, I'm often quite wrong. Blatantly, disgustingly, where-in-the-world-is-he-coming-from wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

Does that mean it's not worthwhile to share my opinions? Not at all. To work through a thought process by employing an open, respectful dialogue can be one of the best ways to develop as a thinking person.

We gotta be prepared to be wrong. We gotta be prepared to feel silly or even stupid sometimes. We gotta know we're all coming from different places.

Most of all, it helps if we give one another the benefit of the doubt.

But what do I know?

Bleed like a Human

Sometimes I recall instances in my my more impressionable youth when ideas I viewed in the light of righteousness and justice and goodness were so prevalent in my mind and experience, but now looking back I see how blatantly judgmental, shaming, hurtful, and close-minded they were.

I wasn’t a uniquely cruel child, so far as I could tell.

My entire culture was full of people telling me how intelligent, how godly, how caring I was, ready and willing and groomed to be a leader in my generation. How many times was I told of my leadership skills?

How many times did I break down in shivering, anxious agony at the amount of pressure I felt to feel something and experience the great mysteries of the universe? Then in my hauntingly breathless and sweat-soaked misery, I was gloriously praised for how in touch I must be with the voice of the most high God?

How proud they all were of the kid who wanted so much the one I was told to want. How incredibly pleased they were with my questions back then, saying I was wise for my age, anointing me and prophesying of my future where I would be used as part of a plan.

The adults in my life who I looked up to were always those who could speak well in public and had almost inhuman confidence in the certainty of their rightness. That’s how it seemed anyway. They always knew what to say. They had all the answers. Well, they had one answer.

And I think they were scared (maybe?)...

And when I was at my most desperate and needing guidance, I was reminded that their ministry was not for me, for I was a leader. My job was to reach out and recruit from the evil sinful lost society into our club of holy people who knew the one answer.

They never really told me what it was, the answer. Their hints were attractive, but really it was the idea of being part of something.

Even if being a part of something meant being blatantly judgmental, shaming, hurtful, and close-minded.

Even if when I started asking my own questions, really using the mind they had so adored every time before, they didn’t want it anymore. They didn’t want me anymore. Years of hearing about forgiveness, and when I finally ask for what it means to forgive and be forgiven, it was unforgivable.
An entire childhood spent learning about love and hope and a freedom of spirit that could really change things for the better, and when I noticed a contradiction or two, when I reached out for someone in need, when I spoke up about the hate and the oppression that broke my heart in two…

“This place would be better off if you weren’t here anymore. In fact, we’d all be better off if you weren’t around.”

Dress up like an angel and they’ll call you their brother, but bleed like a human and they’ll murder you like a god. 

Then again:

What is is what is, but what could be is better.

Respect or Sexism?

Okay, so I feel like maybe I should call him out on this but don’t want to go in rage-a-blazin with only my self-righteous entitled impulse where he has a long thought out and heavily favored by his fanbase idea-stream.
The other night, I was at a house show and an artist for whom I have a mad amount of respect for (as an artist) and a decent amount of respect for (as a person, don’t really know him that well), prefaced one of his songs by saying the following:
“After years of making mistakes, I finally realized a tough lesson, that all girls—all girls—want to be treated like a princess.”

Those were his words, and as I heard them, I couldn’t help but think about all the many feminist blogs I’ve been reading these past couple months. I’m still new at this whole thinking-outside-my-male-dominated-inequal-culture mindset, but I knew something felt off. Looking around the room, I saw the mostly conservative Christian male members of the audience nodding vigorously in that “oh you know it brother, amen” kinda way you get used to if you grow up around that sorta thing. I also saw, though, a large amount of the females in the crowd looking down or away or really sad as he went on.

Now, I know enough about this singer to grasp at his best intentions, but if what he meant was to show these women respect than I’m pretty sure he missed it. “All girls” is troubling both as a generalization and how it’s usually not a good idea to use to the word with the more young connotation in an effort to sound wise and learned in how to respect said group.

The whole conversation sounded more like he was talking to the guys about having finally figured out the real secret to those mysterious females, as if once you know this one trick then it’s all easy street from here on out. But that’s not how real people work, is it?

And here’s why: people are never that simple. The idea that all females want to be treated like a some unspecific fairy tale ideal of an outdated patriarchal(remember he didn’t say queens but princesses), monarchical (you didn’t earn respect, you were born into it), and at very least vague (are we talking Princess Peach or Princess Mononoke or Princess Diana here) construct just was not in any way settling for me.

He proceeded to break into a very catchy, grooving, well-performed, obviously talent-laden rendition of a song about wanting to express affection for a female he liked (and referred to as baby, but maybe that’s just a pet-peeve of mine). However, he wasn’t sure if he should maybe just keep it to himself out of fear of “respecting her”. How it came across was more like out of fear of tainting her pure and delicate sensibilities. This honestly sounds more like the fundamentalist bearing that all males are sex-crazed maniacs and all females are pure and clean-minded prudes.

Does he actually think all the things that he conveyed with his speech and song? I doubt it, but perhaps that’s just another reason we need to think more about what we’re really saying about gender-identity, sexual identity, sex, love, relationships, and humanity in general with our songs, poems, and speeches.

After all, I don’t think all guys or all girls ALL necessarily want to be treated a certain way, but I’d bet that treating every single human being like a human being is a great place to start. That’s respect.

Wannabesandhasbeens

Hello Internauts,

Lately, I've been thinking a whole lot about what the point is in pursuing this dream of mine.

Any artist, if they really care about it, will probably tell you that what they want is to be able to make a living doing what they love- creating and sharing that creation with those that can appreciate it and get something honest from it.

We all want to spend our time doing something worthwhile. We want our lives to be significant, to mean something more than simply doing what we must to survive day to day. Or maybe that's just me (though in a rare case, I doubt that).

I've met so many people with such similar goals in my life, but especially since moving down to Nashville. Everyone wants to "make it big" to "break" into "the scene". Everyone wants something tangible to say that their life and their art is worthwhile, and unlike folks pursuing certain other goals, artists have a history of driving themselves mad and even to death in this pursuit.

Thus why I now live in a town of wanna-be's and has-beens. It's never good enough and it's never going to be good enough. It's the thrill of the chase, the desperate hunger for not the perfect step so much as always the next step.

We delude ourselves, though, with the very tangible idea of numbers. If we're making enough money or if we're playing enough shows or if we're selling enough records, then we're successful. Then we've made it. Then our art is finally as worthwhile as we always believed it could be.

Sure, there are formulas for this, how to write the perfectly catchy, marketable song that will be a hit just long enough to make bank before fading into obscurity. But that's how you get "Call Me Maybe" not "Like a Rolling Stone".

Honest art--that can last and grow and affect change and make people really think--comes not from a place of shallow satisfaction but from a place of deeply constant dissatisfaction.

For instance, throughout most of human history, singing a song wasn't a way to become rich or a celebrity, it was a way to express oneself.

As much as I really want to be able to leave my job and spend all my time working on creating and expressing honest art, even if that never happens, money doesn't make you more of an artist.

Comfort doesn't make you more of an artist.

Health doesn't make you more of an artist.

A label doesn't make you more of an artist.

Pretty lights, a fancy sound system, and a huge crew don't change who you are on the inside, and that's where the fire really burns. That's where the real truth happens.

Then again, you gotta hone your craft. Honesty can take a good song and make it great, but there are also a lot of really terrible yet honest songs.