I have a lot of it. Part of it is the control freak in me—I want things to go my way; I want things to be done the way I would do them. And part of it is simply my inability to accept—people as they are, circumstances, life. Certainly I would be more at peace if I could consistently stop resisting and start accepting.
But then there’s Resistance with a capital “R.” Every generation seems to have some flavor of it, but coming of age in the 80s/90s, it was all about Fuck the Police, Raging Against the Machine, Fighting the Power, and Feeling Stupid and Contagious. And I still have that, engrained in me, but tempered with practicality and a certain docility that comes with age and responsibilities. Still, those things—racism, corporate greed, corrupt government, social and economic inequality, things that destroy the environment—are all worth Resisting, no matter what I want for myself or my family.
There are times when I think there’s nothing more powerful than music to convey the broad spectrum of human emotion and experience. When that music has words, whatever meaning is left out by the words is picked up by the melody, harmony, and rhythm. And the history and cultural depth and experience that’s brought with the music, either in the music itself or through it’s performers and their interpretation, tells so much more than just words or pictures alone.