Progress?

Any technology that is built for the purpose of making life easier has the danger of making us lazy inherently built into it. We get lazier about the things we were trying to do better (or faster) and start getting more hectic about a whole bunch of other things. Text messaging is a great way to speed up organizing plans and other shit, but it breeds this whole world of text-life.
Similarly, we recently were in San franscisco. A couple of the guys were staying with a friend of ours who had an amazing house with not only a balcony, but a pool and a hot tub. We went out one night and picked up this group of girls, bringing them back to our friend's place with promises of alcohol, pools, and hot tubs. One of the girls seemed to have a fun time (she hooked up with the host), but the other two girls, hanging out with a bunch of cool guys with drinks, a balcony, a pool, and a hot tub, decided to sit down and watch mtv. Now, regardless of what you want to do with the people you're with, which is fine, why would you waste your time in such an exciting place watching fucking mtv? Maybe if you spend too much time on facebook you forget how to talk to people in real life.
My point in this is just that technology makes this substantial change in what things you are and aren't doing with your time, what things you are too busy with, and which ones you are lazy about. But it shouldn't be making these choices for you. You can choose whatever combination you want for yourself, but when someone or something else is making that choice for you, there might be a problem.

Fear of the Unknown

This is what I think about the beginning.

It all goes back to the fear of the unknown. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of your life being meaningless, fear of the end of the world, it all goes back to this. And it's amazing how much fear plays a part in everything we do. What things do you do to keep from having to think about it?

Fire keeps the dark away. I imagine that for prehistoric man, going to sleep in the darkness with predators all around them must have been terrifying. But fire provides a ring of light, an area that is no longer unknown, it’s visible.

Then we built houses. Now we actually have buildings to keep the unknown out. Not only do we not have to see the darkness, but we have created a physical barrier.

Then we built roads, and developed better means of transportation. We had already created safe havens from the unknown, but we still had to cross the unknown to get from one to another. So, we had to speed up the process of getting through it.

And so on.

Science is basically the process of making the unknown known. The giant furry beast that raises on its hind legs and roars, barring its claws and fangs, is fairly frightening. But the brown bear, which is a vegetarian, can be easily scared off if one makes loud noises, and will only attack if its child is in danger, is a much safer idea. The process of science is basically the quest to make the unknown knowable.

The problem with this whole thing is that we are trying to deal with the fear of the unknown by making everything known. If we understand everything, if there’s no corner left unexplored, then there’s nothing left for us to be scared of. But fear, and especially the fear of the unknown, is a primal experience we will never get rid of. 5 year-olds will always be scared of the darkness when they try to sleep. Adults will always be scared of what will happen when we die. Cause that’s really the great unknown that we’re scared of, isn’t it?

Instead of dealing with the unknown, maybe we should try to deal with the fear. Embrace the fact that we feel fear, and not let it make us run away. Face it, feel it.
There’s a game we used to play called fear of the dark. You walk out into the forest in the darkness and keep walking until you’re too scared to go any further. When you reach that point, you simply stop. You wait until the fear passes over you. When you can, you take the next step. And the next. Eventually the signal is called and everyone returns. What did you learn?

Sacred Cows

I recently got asked in an interview to write some comments about the meanings and processes of songs from our upcoming album, Urgency. I thought I'd periodically add some of them here.
Here's the one from Sacred Cows....

Sacred Cows

This song is a call to arms to people to find out what matters to you and go for it. The idea of a sacred cow is something, in religion, philosophy, martial arts, whatever, that can no longer be questioned, it must simply be accepted. I first experienced this idea in the context of martial arts (I train and teach Jeet Kune Do). Many martial arts aren't interested in whether or not what they do is effective or useful, they're just interested in maintaining their traditions.

Sacred Cows applies this idea not to an external, but to an internal. What elements of yourself do you just blindly accept and no longer question? Are you living as you'd like to? Are your outlooks on the world your own or ideas you got from other people? Accepting where you are at without question means you will never get anywhere, never grow. We need to build our own rituals, find what matters and is sacred for ourselves, not for other people.

This is one of my favorite songs. I feel like the groove just starts, picks you up, carries you along, and never stops. And Gerard's whammy guitar parts are just great! Quite the call to arms. Also, Leigh is playing 16th notes on the bass for the entire song. He likes to warm up before playing this one.

Starting with a Road Trip

Aiiiieeee!!!!

Some part of me is always screaming out. Restless.

Being on the road both helps and makes it worse. I just got a speeding ticket in Texas. Never fun in a vehicle with NY license plates. The last time I got pulled over in Texas two people got arrested and I spent the day trying to get them out of jail.

Finding out what makes you genuinely happy seems to me be one of the hardest and most worthwhile things you could possibly spend your time doing. I mean, what else is there really? The quest for power? What a waste, you’re going to die. Doctrinal obedience to religious decree? Sorry, but any god who doesn’t want his creations to love themselves and discover happiness is no god that I want. To me, whatever supernatural god-type thing that might be out there would have to measure our lives in terms of how well we explored ourselves and enjoyed the time we’ve had.

The big issue then is how to find what makes you happy. And that one is pretty fucking hard, if not impossible. Forgetting the fact that we all change, that what makes us happy now probably won’t be exactly what we want ten years from now. Think about how much crap in our modern lives tries to force us to believe it knows what we want. Parents, schools, friends, tv, commercials push us to accept this or that view. Have this job, focus on this subject, buy this piece of shit.

I just saw a line of people down an entire block waiting to go into a phone store to buy an iPhone. I mean, I’m sure they’re the coolest thing that has ever happened, but waiting on line for hours for a fucking phone? How did that become such a priority?

The thing is, any of them could be right, Maybe you really should become a doctor, study English, or buy an iPhone. But as long as your reason for doing it is someone else’s, is from someone else, you’ll never understand how it fits in to what you really need. You have to reject what you’ve been told to believe in order to be able to start over and find out what you believe. And it might be the same thing, completely different, or some of both, but at least it will be your reasons.

If you don’t explore your reasons, how can you ever learn any more about yourself? And if you aren’t learning about yourself, you’re not growing, which means you’re dying. And that’s a terrible way to live.

Maybe you can never fully understand what is needed to make you happy. But the pursuit of figuring that out, of figuring yourself out, is probably the most worthwhile thing you can do with your life.