Rage and the alternatives to hate and violence

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Rich

My friends got me thinking about rage (and hate) and what to do with it. When I assert that violence is not a healthy path for rage, I do think that I have some responsibility to present an alternative path.

I want to start by addressing rage for what it is. It is a human reaction to some form of extreme danger that threatens life or limb. Like any emotion, it has its function and is not something just to be written off as “evil”. In its primitive form, violence (fight) was the reaction to the emotion of rage. The flip-side reaction is flight.

As an evolved species (one able to form concepts) we humans have a unique opportunity to understand rage and direct it in such a way that does not perpetuate violence. I think that it is ideal to our evolution to move away from violence since we have come up with such massively destructive ways of eliminating one another. In fact I would say it is essential for our long term survival as a species since we do have the means to destroy ourselves completely.

That is why I do not accept violence as an acceptable action to rage and want to figure out as many alternatives to violence as I can before resorting to violence.

It has taken me decades to do but now when I feel rage I sit with it rather than react. I may sometimes react immediately through some threatening act such as violent language or shaming others, but so far I have been lucky enough to avoid outright physical violence in my adult life. This has not been an easy feat. Often I want violence and demand it. As mentioned in my previous post, I initially supported violent action when Osama Bin Laden was able to instruct others to carry out his violent thoughts. It has taken a decade of self reflection to slow down that automatic response and try my best to understand it when I feel it, rather than act on the violence that it desires.

A side effect of this is that I feel a lot of anger when I see other people supporting violence. First it reminds me of my own potential for rage, hate and violence. It also reminds me that we have a long way to go as a species and that it is like pulling teeth (forgive the violent language) to guide others towards accepting that violence is never a solution to problems.

So my suggestion for an alternative to hate and violence when you feel rage is to sit with it a bit and try to understand why you are feeling what you do. For me I often find that I am deeply afraid of something. Sometimes it can be something as deep as a dark desire that I have and want to act on. Others it is simply self preservation. The problem with self reflection is that it is often more difficult and a more frustrating formula than violence. So far I have found the long term benefit to be more satisfying than a violent encounter.

Please let me know if you have any other alternatives to rage, hate and violence. I know that most people want an alternative, but few have ever been presented with one.

HUGE DISCLAIMER: If you ever feel rage in a situation where your life is immediately threatened, act on it without pause. It will probably save you, as it has evolved to do.

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Celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Rich

“If Osama is dead…” showed up in my Twitter feed shortly after an announcement that President Barack Obama was going to make an unscheduled announcement. I felt a wave of relief and anger well up in me and the thought, “fucking finally, I sure hope this is true” floated through my head.

9/11/2001 had a permanent effect on me. In that moment last night I had almost the exact same feeling I had when I saw the planes plunge into the twin towers nearly 10 years ago. I remembered climbing my way up my parents’ flagpole to untangle old glory. I remember wanting vengeance and George W. Bush was saying all of the words that part of me wanted to hear. We were going to get Osama. I felt immense pride in my country and made sure to display it with as many mini American flags that I could get my hands on.

I never thought I’d feel that way again, but for a split second I did. Over the past 10 years my patriotism has died along with the concepts of government and god. What I witnessed the government do after 9/11 fundamentally shifted the way I look at humanity. I no longer accept violence as a solution to anything. Not even a mass murdering terrorist. So that split second of being transported back to 9/11/2001 last night only lasted a split second. My mind quickly reminded me of the path of bodies and blood that led up to this moment.

If you don’t know the body count, it is in the hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands of people died to avenge a few thousand. Even if you could justify it as the ethics of a life for a life it is horrific. But I can’t even do that. I think the past decade proves that violence is not a solution to problems like these. It only creates more.

Immediately after Barack Obama’s speech concluded I started shaking with rage. I knew what was going to happen next. I was going to see people who live in the same country as me celebrating and being joyus. I couldn’t get my mind out of the perspective of those who live in the middle east who have had family members slaughtered at the hands of The United States military and its allies. I was sickened by the immediate panning shots of crowds in D.C. jumping up and down and screaming with joy. I turned off the news and reacted. I made an angry post on my Facebook page, chatted with some sympathetic friends and became further enraged as I saw some of my other Facebook and Twitter friends celebrating. I had to shut my computer off and lie in bed trying to calm myself down. The feelings of being in the shoes of a mother, father, sister, brother or friend of someone who had experienced violence as a reaction to 9/11 were too much to even try to be curious as to why people were celebrating.

I woke up the next morning feeling peaceful. I even sat up in bed pretty quickly to start the day, which is rare for me. I had temporarily forgotten about the night before. I can only imagine it was my minds way of giving me a moment of protection from the wave of emotions to come. The night before suddenly came rushing back to me and I slumped back into my bed and thought about calling in sick. Somehow I got going and tried my best not to engage in any conversations about Osama at work. That was pretty difficult since it was what a few people were immediately talking about at the office and just about every news story and Twitter post that I saw had the word Osama in it.

I’ve learned something important in the past couple of years. If I am feeling this angry there must be something I am afraid of. So I started to explore that rather than lash out at others. I quickly realized it wasn’t one thing I was afraid of but many things. First I was afraid of how my opposing opinion would be perceived amongst my friends. To be the only one at a party experiencing rage at the party goers when everyone else is experiencing joy is a lonely feeling. Second I was afraid that my friends would never come to see that this was not an occasion to celebrate. The horrors we have all witnessed with the wars over the past decade are something I am not prepared to witness again, and I truly think this marks the beginning of more violence. I mostly fear becoming the victim of retaliatory violence or witnessing those I care about becoming victims.

Osama is now a martyr. He is a symbol for both sides. For the U.S. he is a symbol for all of the pain and suffering we all felt when the twin towers fell. For those in the Middle East he is a different symbol. He is a religious symbol for the extreme. History shows us that martyrs propel movements into the stratosphere. Without the story of the crucifiction of Jesus, Christianity would not be as rampant as it is today. Without the recent martyrs in Egypt, Iran and other Middle East countries the revolutions would have not had the impact on others. Martyrs give people a symbol to project all of their strong emotions onto and this moves people to die for these symbols. The United States has been fairly terrorist attack free since 9/11. The rest of the world has certainly suffered for the government’s violent actions overseas but now there is a catalyst that will bring that violence back to the United States.

This also gives many Americans a reason to support violence once again. I saw many people last night turn from questioning Obama’s continued use of force to unquestioningly supporting him. It was a well played move by Obama as many have been wondering why the U.S. is still in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Syria, why Guantanamo Bay is still open and why people like Bradley Manning are being prosecuted. Now suddenly violence is acceptable again because it got Osama, that symbol for all of the collective American hatred.

It took awhile for me to refocus my anger. I was truly angry at everyone who was celebrating. But then I remembered I had that flicker of celebration in my mind. It took a huge amount of effort over the past decade for me to see past my hate and realize that accepting violence as a solution to a problem was never going to help humanity. So I do not blame people who celebrated. I get it and I don’t find it to be shameful (even though I REALLY wanted to shame those who were celebrating). It’s natural to want a psychopath who killed thousands to be eliminated from our world. It’s natural to feel joy and relief when a murder is made impotent through death. It’s deep in our primal nature and used to protect us as a species.

But I want to remind everyone who had that feeling last night that the revenge wasn’t worth it. I am hated by people I have never met because of what some violent men in this country have decided to bomb and bomb and bomb people that are outside of our direct experience. And I don’t get off that easy. At first I supported the violence. I was completely behind Bush when he bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. And now I am doing my best to make up for that initial support of violence against others. It is one of the biggest goals in my life to help others see that violence is not a solution to problems. Ever. I encourage you not to make the mistake I made and think twice about supporting further violence.

I hope I have been able to convince some to think twice about their blood lust. For the rest that are not convinced, please take a minute and try to comprehend how a middle easterner feels. One that had nothing to do with a terrorist organization. One that just wanted to live their lives like you or me. One who watched their families brutally and violently killed by men wearing the American Flag. Think if that happened to you, and your family, and then you saw people celebrating.

*EDIT* After a discussion with some friends, I wrote a followup post about hate and the alternatives to violence.

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One last god

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Rich

When I transitioned from a Christian to a deist to an agnostic to an atheist, each time I thought I had reached the pinnacle of understanding about truth and reality. Even as an atheist, one who holds reason at its highest, I have to admit that I thought I was done. No gods. Check. I must have slayed all of the illusions in my mind and now it was time to just revel in the glory of taking such a risky journey in the name of truth. But then I started to ask myself bigger and bigger questions. What were my goals in life now that I realize that this is the only life? How does one determine right from wrong without an ancient text to rely on? What does this mean about pure thought concepts like love and beauty? I felt afraid of the challenge I had stumbled onto and I still do feel afraid. The more I know about reality, the more infinite the body of knowledge seems to be. And that’s just it. The amount our species can know is virtually unlimited since we have the ability to share ideas throughout time with our languages and ability to document ideas. Our discoveries about reality grow and grow, and don’t run out of storage as long as we have a way to convey those discoveries in a meaningful way to the next generation. It’s overwhelming but at the same time amazing that we have that ability.

I found next that concepts like the government began to fall away as easily as concepts like gods. When I broke down the idea of the government in my head, I started to realize that we blindly accept allowing one group of men to make decisions about another group of men under the threat of violence or forced isolation. And yet as a species we continue to espouse the values of human independence and the right of one person to control their own destiny as long as they do not violently impose their destinies on others. Why is this concept of government needed then if it is so hypocritical to our stated values (at least in my little corner of the world)? Is it natural? Or is it just left over from our tribal days as a species?

I suppose some would say that some people need to be controlled with force. But who decides that? And when faced with that violent control yourself, why then and only then does it become unjust?

So another god evaporated in my mind. The government didn’t make sense to me as an idea. It was just another vestigial part of our evolution, much like religion. This thought paralyzed me for awhile. If yet another god fell in my mind and I was yet again brought to a better understanding of reality, then how many more gods needed to fall until my curiosity was sated?

Apparently more, because I now have finally given in and have decided to state that I don’t think I have figured it all out. And although saying that does send a chill down my spine and make me wonder if there is even a top to this mountain, I do think I will be better prepared and open the next time that my worldview is drastically challenged.

I hope as a reason thriving being that you will take some time to say, “I don’t know it all” and really understand how much more fulfilling life can be by living as if you don’t know everything. I don’t mean that in a condescending way like your parents did. I understand how good knowledge feels and how sometimes that feeling can make you feel superior to others. But I have found that there is always one last god to be dissolved in the mind.

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Gringo in Nicaragua

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Rich

I recently traveled to Nicaragua and have been chronicling my experiences on my other blog. Check it out if you are interested and let me know your thoughts!

http://road.livinguptomyname.com/category/trips/nicaragua/

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Hip Hop Thanksgiving

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Rich

Last year I had a solo Thanksgiving. Much different from this year. But this post is more about how I picked up on hip hop music rather than how I have spent my Thanksgivings.

I was driving down to Florida when I heard “Empire State of Mind” come on the radio. Before this point in time I had never really paid much attention to hip hop. I kind of liked this song and heard it play while riding in someone else’s car a few weeks before. Now on a solo road trip to Florida I challenged myself to listen to something new. So from Atlanta to the Panhandle of Florida I listed to hip hop stations and nothing else.

I found I really enjoyed the music, despite my previous prejudgemental attitude towards it. I think I never really gave it a chance because my parents and most of my friends made fun of it. Now it was just me and a chance to give something else a try.

I soaked up hip hop after that for a few months and stopped listening to rock completely, which was a first for me. It was a strange time in my life, but one that led to me discovering great artists like Kid Cudi and Outkast. I even started to appreciate everything from Snoop Dogg to Kanye West. I now am listening to rock again but I can’t help but lace in hip hop.

I am still trying to figure out the appeal of this genre to me. Part of it is the attitude, part of it is the way the beat makes me feel and another part is an appreciation of the poetry of rap music. It’s not all the most intellectual poetry in the world, but much of it does strike a chord with me, especially a handful of Kid Cudi’s songs.

I related to these two in particular on some of those insomnia ridden nights when I was contemplating my past relationships and trying to figure out what I wanted for the future.

So now I have a new Thanksgiving tradition that I’ve created completely on my own. Listening to hip hop as I drift into a turkey coma.

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I didn’t vote. And why.

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Rich

I got some good response from this today on Facebook so I think I’ll repost here for anyone who wants to share.

A lot of my philosopher friends have been posting about how they did not vote in this election and why voting is wrong. For some reason this made me feel like being an anarchist Buddha, floating on my cloud of “not giving a fuck” and not posting about why I did not vote. I really didn’t want to give a fuck this year. Really. Thanks guys.

On top of that I saw some Tweets and Facebook updates from other people about how if you don’t vote you are an idiot. I felt like I was personally being trolled. So I stapled my lips shut. I wouldn’t fall for this trap.

Then I remembered that is the reason people are being so hostile towards non-voters. To shut us up. Their message is clear, “We don’t want to hear your nonsense about how you don’t ‘play the game’. Idiot.”

So how to respond without falling into the troll trap and not be a douchey floating Buddha? Here’s my attempt.

Voters, I know how you feel. I was there once too. And I don’t mean that in a condescending “I’m just so much wiser than you” way that reminds you of your parents. All I mean is that you don’t know about the other side of an idea until you explore it. And obviously you haven’t.

I get it that you’re not really into hearing why I don’t vote but give this idiot non-voter a chance. Even if you don’t continue reading hopefully I’ve at least made you consider that there is another side to this topic.

I don’t vote because I see the entire political system as an idea that makes no sense to our existence in reality. To me politics is just a big human game that is a lot like religion. A lot of people did it for so long that everyone forgot why so everyone just keeps on doing it and fervently supporting it without question. Again, I don’t really blame people for this anymore. Mainly because I did the same thing for most of my life. But just like religion, I came to see it as false and stopped participating. Why do I see it as false? Because it does not make sense that someone else can represent my desires. Also the idea that my desires have to be violently upheld by the police and military (the end result of voting) is downright scary. I don’t think that anyone else has any say over how I live my life (as long as I am not infringing on anyone else’s say on how to live their own), so why would I think that I have any (violent) say in how other people should run theirs?

I would really like people to stop writing each other off as idiots and consider the possibility that someone who doesn’t vote has a good reason for it. I also don’t think people who vote are idiots. I think they just haven’t yet considered any alternatives because they were brought up in schools that taught them how important voting is and were surrounded their entire life by people who echoed the same sentiment.

If you truly are curious you can just ask me for clarification if you don’t understand my position. I am not the hostile philosopher that I used to be. Also, I might be wrong. If you have an argument why I should have voted (or more accurately why the government is a valid concept) then please educate me. But calling me an idiot and failing to educate me just makes me want participate even less.

I also waited until November 3rd to post this because otherwise I’d be the one trolling.

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An to Ist to Er and back

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Rich

I watched a couple of documentaries recently on the punk rock music genre. I was curious about how the music emerged because I have enjoyed punk rock since I was in my teens. Whenever I am attracted to an art style I wonder what it says about me, to me. I get almost obsessed with understanding the art form for awhile because it seems so important to understand myself through the music I enjoy. One way I do that is by exploring the history of the music. When I do so, I think my hope is that the historical exploration of a subject like a favorite music genre will help me to better understand my own history.

And other times I find that the exploration of a topic reveals that it says something different about me altogether.

After I finished watching another punk rock documentary tonight, I walked away feeling disillusioned by parts of what the interviewed artists said and connected with others. I connected with the feeling of helplessness and rage in the face of the established order that many punk rockers feel and was shocked by the violent response that many had as a result of these feelings. I felt a little scared because in the past I sometimes felt like taking the violent, self destructive route that many punk rockers do. I started to realize that the only punk rock band that I really identify with is Bad Religion, where the rest of them seem to take a much more self destructive path that I do not want to be a part of. I realized too that calling myself a punk rocker isn’t really accurate for me any longer. I identified with a key punk rock band and came to appreciate much of the genre as a result, but that doesn’t make me part of the concept of “a punk rocker”.

Then suddenly I saw another pattern. I saw my exploration of my artistic tastes as a metaphor for how I explore philosophy. I become enthralled with a certain branch of philosophy because of an idea that I connect with in it and dive in head first. I become that philosophy for a time until I find parts that don’t fit me. That’s how I’ve evolved from a Republican, to a libertarian, to a liberal, to a moral relativist, to an Objectivist, to a market anarchist and now to a “I am having trouble stuffing myself into a label anymore.” For now I’m calling myself a philosopher. I still occasionally refer to myself as an atheist anarchist, but really that’s just to help people understand my basic footing onto where I’ve arrived. Even the concepts of atheist and anarchist come with a whole slurry of prejudices that I like to distance myself from.

What’s changed? I used to look at all ideas as their own independent reflections of who I am. Now, I think I am starting to look at ideas compared to reality, whether that jives with who I am or not. That’s the reason I am giving up the concept of punk rocker. I’m Rich. I really like one band in the genre of punk rock. Bad Religion. An even then, I don’t connect with every lyric and every note. I like a lot of other bands in the genre as well, but mostly because they sound like Bad Religion and remind me of the connection I felt with that band when I was younger. That does not necessarily make me a punk rocker or less of a person because I no longer identify as that. What this does make me is a human who figured out a piece of myself through the music I like. And identified the ways that I am unlike this music as well.

I like music. I like philosophy. I like being conscious. I like finding others who are trying to become more conscious as well. Because of that I like figuring out what is true and what is not. Like isn’t quite accurate. I love it.

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Moral Landscape and Battlestar Galactica

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Rich

I’m in a writing mood tonight so I am going to keep up the momentum with a nice jumbled random post. Really, I’m not going to try much to structure this. Fair warning.

I recently finished an interesting book by Sam Harris. If you are interested in the continuing discussion of secular morality, I suggest picking up a copy of The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. Sam Harris starts off strong discussing the need for a scientific look at morality. He gives some fairly difficult to look at examples of moral issues with human kind and the proliferation of moral relativism in the scientific community. I enjoyed the first half of the book and thought Sam made great points on why morality does not belong in the domain of religion. The second half gave me some major heart burn. Particularly with Sam Harris’ conclusion that we are deterministic beings. This is a philosophical debate that has frustrated me to no end. I understand the scientific evidence (so far) that our brains are as causal as the universe but philosophically it makes no sense to me. Especially when a hard determinist is trying to make a moral argument! If we are determists we have NO WAY of knowing if what we are doing is correct or incorrect. If we are just a series of cause and effect, the concept of judgement flies out the door. That said the free will argument is just as frustrating. It seems that those who hold free will as a truth can only hold it as an axiomatic truth, because there is no way to really step outside of our consciousness and verify whether we have free will or not. Ultimately I remain a frustrated free will advocate (because that is what I experience) but wonder what Sam Harris is thinking in advocating determinism and secular morality in the same breath. I don’t know if this is something I will ever find a satisfying answer to. Harris also seems to be stuck on the concept of government, but I can’t completely blame him. The concept of government is such a more prevalent false concept than religion in this world. I don’t think Harris is a utilitarian as many of his critics claim, so this book is worth the Audible credit if you want to get your mind into gear about this subject again.

Battlestar Galactica. As comic book guy would say, “Best Show Evar”. At least in the Sci-Fi genre. I guess I should have a spoiler warning here just in case I talk too much about who the cylons are and what not. So if you haven’t seen it yet, all I can say is that it is an amazing metaphor about the multiple personalities that everyone has spinning about their heads and the conflicts and resolutions that one can achieve through their interactions. As a base story and drama it is beautiful. As a metaphor it becomes genius. If you think of the Battlestar Galactica and its fleet as a part of a personality and the Cylons as another part, you can start to understand the complex battle of personalities that many of us experience in our heads. What I really appreciate about the metaphor is how it resolves. At the end of the show you see two of the characters discussing whether the past will continuing to repeat itself. Since the personalities did come to a resolution with one another they discuss the chance that what has happened before won’t happen again. In the show they did destroy the nihilist representative of the personality, so if I were to continue the show, I would have that come back to bite them in the ass. There was also a ton of eastern philosophy used in the show to further this metaphor of the human experience. Unfortunately it did bring along some bullshit into the metaphor but overall it didn’t matter. I highly recommend this show. It can be difficult to get through as it does sometimes get extremely depressing, but it pays off.

What else? Life, she is beautiful.

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Anarchy Evolution – Book Review

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Rich

As I mentioned in my previous post, the most influential band in my life so far has been Bad Religion. So naturally I pre-ordered Anarchy Evolution the day it was posted on Amazon. I can’t remember how many months ago it was but I have not been this excited about a book in a long time.

I have been interested in evolution ever since I got into philosophy. To me the two go hand in hand. In order to understand the complexities of human ideas I think it’s  also extremely important understand how our species came to be. I knew that Greg Graffin has his Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and is also an atheist (he prefers naturalist, which I totally understand), so it excited me even more to see a book by him that also included the word anarchy in it. As a philosopher who has so far come to the conclusion of anarchy, I was weary of what to expect since many who use the word anarchy use it incorrectly.  I was also afraid that my impression of Greg Graffin would change if he wrote a book with anarchy in the title and then wrote about government intervention.

What made this book such an interesting read is that he was able to intertwine a lesson on evolution with the story of his life. The main appeal to punk rock to me has been the angry response to authority. I also enjoyed the spontaneous order and surprising politeness (with the exception of one concert) that would emerge from mosh pits at Bad Religion concerts. Punk rock spoke to the side of me that rabidly pursues truth. Greg also seems to have this same view about science and punk rock, which was exactly what I was hoping for in this book. Although he does not go into his personal politics in any part of the book, he does explain the beauty behind the anarchy of evolution. The natural order in evolution that arises out of seeming chaos, free of rules and only regulated by reality speaks deeply to a philosopher like me.

Greg Graffin also writes about his adventures into the Colorado mountains and rain forests of South America to do field work.  The interconnectedness with the universe that he feels when he is alone in the wilderness, studying a tree or a rock formation is exactly the way I feel when I step onto the trail.  I have never been a conservationist because I abhor the government intervention that it usually implies, so I was surprised to find myself intrigued by some of the ideas that were presented in this book about leaving nature better than you found it.  It doesn’t require a gun to make our environment a better place and I think I would find pleasure in voluntarily helping to preserve natural environments.  I’m not sure how yet, but this book did get my mind going on this subject.

There were also some great psychological insights throughout the book about human empathy and the importance of relationships.  I didn’t expect that from a book about punk rock and evolution so it was a pleasant surprise.

He also goes into how even scientists and atheists are prone to rigidity and dogma.  He cites a few challenges he had in academia when presenting an alternate theory on a specific branch of evolution.  I love that kind of constant challenge of authority, because I know from personal experience that even atheist anarchist philosophers can get locked into a cycle of dogma.

The last few lines of the book evoked a strong emotional response in me.  I don’t know what the rules are on citing books, but fuck it, I’m an anarchist.

When I create, I feel that I am a participant in the grand pageant of life, a part of the ongoing creative engine of the universe.  I don’t know if that feeling is enough to replace the solace of religion in the lives of most people, but it is for me.

I think this book will speak to more than just punk rockers.  If you are into evolution and are up for a good story, I highly recommend this book.

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Going for a Walk

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Rich

Bad Religion has had more of an impact on me than any other band.  There are a number of factors that appealed to me about the band, the musical style and the lyrics.  I first heard Bad Religion listening to Love Line back in 1997.  I’d stay up late at night to catch Adam and Dr. Drew purely as a rebellion against my parents rules (little did I know that I’d actually learn something too).  I’d listen on headphones under my covers and constantly feared getting caught.  I knew there would be consequences because I had been listening to The Offspring on my headphones when my mom marched into my room, unplugged my earphones from my boom-box to hear what I was listening to.  She obviously knew that I had been listening to music that she wouldn’t approve of.  Sadly the side-B to that mix tape was a song by Silverchair called Abuse Me.  I knew that would enrage her so I shut off my tape deck and told her that was the song I was listening to.  From then until I was 18 my music listening was filtered through my parents, or so they thought.  A bumper to one of the first Love Line episodes I listened to was the song “I want to conquer the world“.  It reminded me of a raw, fast paced Offspring song (Bad Religion was the reason that bands like the Offspring were played on the radio, but I didn’t know that at the time).  What I also noticed was how the lyrics were atypical of the other punk rock I had been listening to.  They were multi-syllabic, sometimes humorous and very intelligent.  I would sit up until 1:00 in the morning just waiting for the bumper music for Love Line to kick in, hoping it was another Bad Religion song.

Sometimes after school my friend and I would hang out at the mall hoping to “accidentally” bump into one of the many different girls that we had crushes on.  We also spent a ton of time in the CD store looking for new music to sample.  I had been wanting to buy a Bad Religion CD but knew that the parental censor board would strike it down for the name alone.  I also knew if they ever saw anything with the Crossbuster (->) logo on it, I would not be able to listen to music at all.  I decided to go ahead and risk it and buy the album with the least offensive cover on it.  I settled on Stranger than Fiction because it basically looked like any other cover in the CD store.  I also recorded it onto a blank tape and played it at night on my Walkman when I could have privacy to listen to it.

I still considered myself a Christian when I first started listening to Bad Religion.  I started to slowly pull away from religion and listening to songs like “American Jesus” helped me to solidify my growing distrust in what I was raised to believe.  The more I asked why we had rules in my house and the more I only received the answer “because I say so”, the more I realized that I was being lied to.  The anger behind punk music and lyrics in Bad Religion songs helped me to keep some of my sanity through my teenage years.  I knew there were others out there like me and I appreciated the poetry that Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz were putting out there.

When I turned 18 I started buying whatever music I wanted to and my parents seemed to finally back off (unfortunately I lived at home until I was 22, so there were still “rules”).  Nearly all of my collection had become Bad Religion and various other punk and hard rock bands.  Bad Religion continued to produce ever evolving records that spoke to me scientifically, philosophically, politically and religiously.  By the time I was 19 I was no longer a Christian, although I told no one.  I considered myself agnostic for some time before I was open about it.  I was still pretty scared about coming out about my waning faith, especially to my family.  So I held Bad Religion close and continued to explore my life and try to figure out what was true.  It took 22 years to figure out faith, but finally I gave up the false concept of god.

When I was 19 or 20 my first girlfriend bought me tickets to a Bad Religion concert.  I’m not even sure if she realized how much it meant to me, but it was one of the best gifts I had ever received.  I was extremely excited and nervous to go to my first punk concert.  I’d heard they could be pretty rough.  We had seats that were outside of the pit so I was a little more comfortable watching from afar.  Another favorite band of mine, Less Than Jake, was opening for Bad Religion.  This was the first time I was witness to the chaos that is the punk rock scene.  One of the opening bands told the crowd to “fuck the pit wristbands” and storm the stage.  Almost everyone in their seats fell like waterfalls into the pit and packed it so tight that the security guards could do nothing to stop it.  I started laughing hysterically at the sight.  I loved it.  No authority could stop these punk rockers.  I wanted to join in but was still weary of the potential violence involved with a mob of that size.  So I stood in my seat like the remaining people in the stands and jumped up and down to the beat of the music.  It was one of the most freeing and exciting moments of my life.  Watching my favorite bands perform and the chaotic excitement all around me was a sensory overload.

Unfortunately I didn’t catch another show until after my first breakup.  After that though I unleashed myself onto punk concerts.  Anytime Bad Religion would come to town I would be the first to buy tickets.  The first concert I went to was in a small venue near the Sports Arena in San Diego.  There were no seats.  It was just an open floor.  I realized that I was going to be part of the mosh pit whether I wanted to or not so I decided to throw myself into it and see why so many punk rockers lived for it.  I was sucked into a human whirlpool and flailed my legs and arms like I had seen my ska friends do at previous concerts.  I was thrown back and forth by the wall surrounding the pit.  I fell a couple of times but found myself lifted quickly up by the other people around me.  I lost my shoe at one point and someone held it up at the edge of the pit and I grabbed it as I passed.  It wasn’t the violence I expected.  It was just a fun, rapid swirl of humans all enjoying the heavy guitars and beat of the drums.  I did get hit in the ribs a few times by elbows, but other than that it was an experience that I lived for.  My body was free to express itself as chaotically as I wanted to, without any judgement from my fellow punkers.  I am very self conscious when I attempt to dance, but I never feel that way in a pit.  I threw myself into the pit of every punk concert from then on.

At a Bad Religion concert at the House of Blues in San Diego I found myself in a skinhead pit.  I had heard about skinheads and their tendency to be violent at punk concerts.  I noticed the pit was moving the opposite direction than I was used to and there were many more studded leather punkers all around.  I’d never been hurt in a pit before that night but found myself being violently thrown around and also saw that most of the punkers were actually punching one another.  I panicked and literally threw myself on top of the wall of the pit and found myself unable to escape.  Soon I found that the only escape was under so I went under the people on the edge of the pit and escaped to the edges.  One of my friends emerged as well with blood dripping down his face.  We bought some beers and laughed it off, but that night I realized that I didn’t want to be part of a group that was violent.  It was fun to swirl around in a mosh pit, but getting punched and bruised wasn’t fun.  I hit one more punk concert (not Bad Religion) before I quit going to punk shows where I had a similar incident happen.  A young woman was looking desperate to escape the pit so I tried to help her out of it by clearing a hole in the wall of humans with my body and pushing her through.  Unfortunately I realized in horror that I had pushed her into a bigger pit that had emerged spontaneously next to us.  I desperately tried to find her and help her, but apparently she had found her way out or been lost in the chaos.  I was then pushed over and lost my cell phone and a shoe and spent the rest of the night trying to find both.  I found my cell phone a few weeks later in a lost and found but my shoe was gone for good.

What I appreciate about Bad Religion is that they never became the punk rock group that you see today with the spikes, tats and piercings.  All of the members of BR wear jeans and t-shirts and don’t spike their hair.  Their concerts (with exception of the one with the skinheads) are also more fun than violent.  I think their more intelligent lyrics attract a different kind of punker.  They’ve also been around for 30 years now, so the crowd also tends to be a little older.  I’ve had my fair exposure to the harder side of punk and it just doesn’t measure up to the shows that Bad Religion puts on.

I think that my taste in music isn’t as sophisticated as most of my friends and this is mainly because I was not exposed to a wide range of music growing up.  That said, I think I do have a different appreciation for punk rock because of this.  It may be simple musically, but it strikes at the root of all of the emotions and thoughts I had as a teenager.  It’s angry, hard, fast, and free. In Bad Religion’s case, it’s intelligent too.  It helped me to open my mind up to new ideas and embrace philosophy whole heartedly.  When I was a teenager I was able to hold onto a hope that there were other people out there that felt and thought like I did and will always be thankful to Bad Religion for that.  The band has also evolved musically over time as well, so their newer albums feature much more rich, clear and complex tunes.  It’s nice when a band evolves along side with you.

I just finished up Greg Graffin’s book Anarchy Evolution and I absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about evolution (yes, a punk rocker is also a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology) and more about the band’s history from Greg Graffin’s point of view.  I’ll write another detailed post about the book either tonight or very soon.

I leave you with one of my favorite Bad Religion songs, A Walk.  The music video is great too, because Greg Graffin expresses himself physically in such a humorously awkward way that I identify with.  I am also putting together a Youtube playlist of all of my favorites, if you are interested in hearing more of Bad Religion’s great songs.

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