Music for Grown-Ups

Wow.  It's been a long time since I've written anything.  It's been a long few months.

What the hell am I doing in Afghanistan?

Here's something I wrote this morning.  It's unedited, stream-of-consciousness, and maybe a bit rambling, but oh well.

Music is raw emotion.  Music expresses feelings and thoughts that words alone can't.  I think so much music is geared towards teens is because that's when all these feelings make their first appearance, and music gives shape and form to them.  These feelings are pretty much universal.  Everyone goes through these times, everyone feels like this.  Everyone feels like they're the only one.  Music lets them know that they're not alone.  Not just in an intellectual way, but in a more real, raw, visceral way.  

Growing up, I must have heard a hundred youth pastors and rally speakers tell me that I wasn't alone, that people knew what I felt, what I was going through.  I never really believed them.  I believed the music.  I believed groups like FIF.  Their music connected with me in that raw, emotional way that counts.  In their music, I heard the struggles, hurts, small victories, successes, failures, and overall confusion that I experienced.  I knew - REALLY knew - that I wasn't alone.

I could write a whole piece on FIF alone.  Their music let me know that it was okay to be uncool, geeky, nerdy, clumsy, bad at sports, socially awkward, and have no friends.  God still loved me.  He made me and he loved me.  I knew it, not because some youth pastor who "had it all together" told me so in some lecture.  I knew it because they were the same way and they managed to distill those experiences and feelings into music.

Then I got older.  FIF broke up, my friends started careers, started families of their own, and I still had no clue how life was supposed to work.  Guess what?  Those feelings of loneliness, isolation, desire, confusion, frustration, anger, excitement, and everything else I felt in the music never went away.  I always looked at adults as people who had outgrown these things, who had learned what it all meant, who had everything figured out.  Was I wrong.

I think a lot of people my age are in denial.  They deny that they still have the same questions and feelings that they had as teenagers.  That's why there's so much pressure to "grow up".  People want to appear as though they have it all together.  Maybe they do it out of good intentions.  Maybe they want to turn around and give young people the hope the inspirational speakers of their generation failed to give them.  But they're giving them a false hope.  I'll be perfectly honest and say that I don't have it all figured out.  If anything, I feel more lonely, isolated, and wistful than I did when I was a teenager.  I can definitely elucidate it better than I could back then. 

Maybe that's the reason for what I've heard described as "adultolescence."  As teenagers, people felt hope, optimism, and a certain naivete that they lose once they reach adulthood.  They're just trying in some small way to hold on to that.  I can't fault them for it.  This world will make you jaded, bitter and cynical.  I can speak from experience.  While their actions might be missing the point, I think it comes from an honest place.  Instead of berating grown men for playing too many video games and trying to be rock stars, why don't we address the real underlying issues? 

Honesty.  It all boils down to honesty.  Our parents' generation was able to succeed through diligence and hard work.  Our economy is collapsing.  That simply isn't the case anymore.  We've seen people who dedicated their lives to a company or career have it all disappear overnight.  We've seen people who were supposed to have it all together get caught in crimes and scandals.  We've seen people who supposedly "won the game" - had material wealth and happiness - disintegrate into nothingness because of crippling insecurities and loneliness.

So we're not buying it anymore.

Clearly, there's something wrong.  There's something they're not telling us.  They keep telling us to grow up, be responsible, etc.  But we've seen where it's led, and we don't like it.  We'd rather be irresponsible and happy than successful and miserable. 

Tell kids the truth.  Be honest with them about the fact that while you're chronologically an adult, inside you there's a teenager who just wants to understand what the hell's going on around you.

That's why there's so much music geared towards teenagers.  Why isn't there more music geared towards adults?  Because so many musicians, as they age, are pressured by their families to "get a real job".  They give in to the lie that grown ups have it all together, and they don't want to seem like they're in a state of "arrested development." 

The older I get, the more selective I am about the music I choose to listen to.  I tend to listen to artists older than me, because the fact that they're still making music means that they've stood their ground and (hopefully) have something to say about life.  Maybe, just maybe, they can offer me some insight into what life is, into what these feelings mean.  Maybe, through their music, I can still know - REALLY know - that I'm not alone.

Or maybe I just need to "grow up."

So there it is.  Whatever.  I feel like I'm vacillating between apathy and fanaticism lately.  I still love music.  I'll always love music.  Few things make me angrier than music that's used to mislead and manipulate people.  Just be honest.  Find something good, make something good, be something good.