Nothing ever stops all these thoughtsMy wife hates Linkin Park. I think that the screaming and anger stresses her out. Their music is an interesting fusion of rap, hard rock, and hip-hop that probably shouldn't work but that I find pretty compelling. Strong feelings seem to yield the best art and anger and pain are perhaps some of the strongest emotions we experience. I've always liked Figure.09 but I only listened to the words closely this morning and realized why I like it so much. It expresses perfectly one of the great frustrations and struggles in my life. I grew up hating my father. One of my great motivations in life as a teenager was to graduate from high school as soon as possible and go away to college so I could escape a controlling, dominating, abusive father. A big reason I went out for wrestling in high school was so that I could protect myself and my siblings from my father on those occasions when he completely lost it. Yet despite my hatred I catch myself acting like him. Like the song says, I took what I hated and made it a part of myself.
and the pain attached to them
Sometimes I wonder why this is happenin'
It's like nothing I could do would distract me when
I think of how I shot myself in the back again
'Cause from the infinite words I could say I
Put all the pain you gave to me on display
But didn't realize
Instead of setting it free I
took what I hated and made it apart of me
It never goes away, It never goes away...
And now
You've become a part of me
You'll always be right here
You've become a part of me
You'll always be my fear
I can't separate
Myself from what I've done
Given up a part of me
I've let myself become you
Figure.09, Linkin Park
JLO commented in his blog that he hates the fact that even after escaping the mental cluster-fuck of Mormonism it still seems to define him as an ex-Mormon. It's not just Mormonism though. Like it or not our personality and behavior are strongly influenced for good or bad by our life experiences and we only escape our past with great effort and difficulty. Whether it is the anger from our childhood or the deeply ingrained irrational beliefs of a fundamentalist religion we can change. But first we have to confront the thing we want to change, name it, and then constantly remind ourselves of where we want to be and work on change. Even then, we never escape our past since if we are successful in our transformation we now define ourselves relative to what we once were.
3 comments:
Yes. :-)
It is truly a constant struggle to take the good and toss out the bad of our pasts. I have many of the same shared past experiences of "bull" and am grateful he took up wrestling. However, somehow I have been able to let the bitterness go (for the most part) and try to focus more on the positive things of my growing up years. There are many years (mostly the adolescent years)when I can't say that there was much positive but I do have a lot of great memories of growing up and truly did learn a lot of good values from my family. Those are the values that I want to pass along to my daughter. I know it will be a struggle not to let some of the other demons creep in but at least I think I will recognize that they are demons and not acceptable behavior.
Thanks for your blog "Bull." It helps me know and understand your point of view. I hope it helps you heal the past wounds of our disfunctional family.
I love Linkin Park too, and agree with your assessment that it's a weird fusion of different styles that shouldn't work, but do -- and very well.
My current favorite is "Numb" -- that's my life theme song right now with my marital issues.
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