Dragonforce may be one of my favorite bands. And I'm dead serious.
It has been an emotionally charged week, or at least more so than it usually is for me (which is not much at all). I left work today with a heavy heart. People are usually very predictable. Rarely does anyone do anything that shocks me. But there are some people in this world who are predictably unpredictable - the only thing that you can safely say about them is that they're probably going to say or do something crazy. You can be going about a normal day minding your own business and then these people show up and suddenly everything just goes crazy. This can be a good or bad thing. Today it was bad. Or maybe crazy is a better word.
Leaving work today - after having come across said "circumstance" - my head was going in circles, my heart was pounding, and my body was physically tired. For the drive home, musical choice was crucial because I needed an artist to bring me down - to help me sort things out. I had some really good choices from the soothing and melodic tunes of Jeremy Casella to the driving, emotionally charged songs of Thrice. But I passed them up. I skipped over my new Robbie Seay Band and David Crowder Band CDs as well, because I needed something deep. Caedmon's Call might have been a good choice, but I'm trying not to wear them out (which is hard because that CD is AWESOME). So as I thumbed through my repertoire of CDs you are probably jealous of because my taste is so good, I came across a very cliche looking CD case. It looks like a science fiction novel, but actually it's not. Don't let the lightning bolts, galloping horses, and scantily-clothed, sword-wielding vixen confuse you. This is a Dragonforce CD.
"Perfect," I thought to myself.
Five minutes later I was speeding down highway 79 and I was literally getting my tail kicked by the face-melting guitar solos and high-pitched vocals, not to mention the out-of-this-world drumming. And it gets better. What were they singing about? Well, what else than riding into battle on a cold winter night with swords and black fire blazing in the sky?
Yes, it is cheesy.
And yes, it is awesome.
Dragonforce is good for the world. I realized that tonight on the way home. I don't know how seriously they take themselves, singing about dragons and wizards and whatnot. I don't take them seriously but I love listening to their music. Why is that? Mostly I listen to serious, thoughtful, inspired (and GOOD) music. No "You and your hand tonight" or "I dug the key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4-wheel-drive." But music by people who actually think. Dragonforce is a step away from that and on a different level it speaks to me about life. It says this: stop taking everything so seriously.
For a long time I have felt like I have had to take on the world. And I mean that in a lot of ways. At one point I think I convinced myself to stop feeling good about my life because other people have it so bad. "That could be me," I used to think to myself. So I took on what I thought to be a humble role in sharing the burden of sorrow, but it didn't do any good. In doing so I never took the time to enjoy the good things about my life because I assumed it was going to get worse. It didn't help anyone, and it only made me sad.
Another thing I used to do was try to please everybody. Although I sincerely would have told you that I wasn't a people-pleaser then, now I would tell you that I was. My Christian faith had a lot to do with this too. I didn't necessarily want to please people because I wanted them to like me, but it was because I wanted them to like God. As a Christian, I have always felt like I had to sell myself as a good guy who cared a lot about people and tried to live a pretty upright life. And it's not that at times I can't be that, but the truth is it was a mask I put on to get people to like God. I thought that if I followed Jesus' teaching as well as I could and got people to like me because of that, then they would like God too and go to Him if they had not already.
The problem is that if someone I came across didn't show me respect or thought I was a loser then it just hurt really bad. That's obvious. But a lot of times instead of focusing on the people who accepted me and loved me for who I was, I focused on my negative qualities and what pushed people away from me. If I felt like I didn't have a good relationship with someone, it weighed on me a lot.
So I took a step back and I went on the offensive. I looked at a few key relationships I have had with people that weren't necessarily good ones. Sometimes it was my fault, but other times I found that it wasn't really my fault it all. I found that some people are hard on you, they focus on all your weaknesses, and they don't accept you no matter what you do. And the only way to please them is to be what they want you to be. If the right people are like that, then you will go on feeling like that for a long time. You may never get over it.
I don't know when it was, but over time I just finally said I'm done. I'm done feeling like I have to always measure up to other peoples' standards so they will accept me. If they don't accept me how I am then I don't need them. And if people are looking for the Bible in me then they might get a glimpse of it every now and then, but the real me is better than a righteous mask any day. It may not be pretty, but it is real.
Sometimes I need to take that step back and really stop taking everything seriously. Instead of listening to the super-serious Andy Osenga CD (Photographs), I need to pull out the Dragonforce CD and laugh at these way-too-serious metal heads who write songs about darkness, thunder, and sorcerers. Sure, I think it's cheesy. But it opens a world that I don't see most of the time - one where people actually cast their cares aside once in a while and just have a good time.
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