The Arbiter.

The ongoing process of self healing and becoming a better person post divorce always seems to have me thinking. Over the last few months, a reoccurring thought has kept coming back to me in regards to the the Music scene and the impact that It had on shaping who I was through my twenties and into my early thirties. I initially got into the local hardcore and punk scene as a form of release and therapy during a time in my life where I did not really fit in. Of course I am referencing high school. Trying to find out who you are, trying to find the place the world where you fit. I was bit by the music bug. I was at the point where nothing that I was hearing on the radio really spoke to me, or I was able to see through the commercial garbage that it was. Once I found the hardcore and punk scene it was easy for me to know where my time was going to be invested over the course of the next two decades.

I attended every show that I could, weather that be in state, or out of state. I made friends. I supported their bands, I was blown away at the fact that I could have a release, an outlet of all the angst and rage that I had inside of me through music, or moshing, stage diving etc. We hit all the shows in state, and whatever shows we could out of state. I was in a band, I wrote a fanzine and I tried to give as much back to the music scene as it gave to me. At the end of the day we were a bunch outcasts, listening to outcast music. Although rather violent in nature, I often took it to be a positive thing. A positive outlet and channel for everything that I felt and was going through in life. Not that I came from a broken home or a bad environment, but mental illness and the every day pressures of life made a confusing world that much more confusing. Finally, it gave me something to believe in.

I find that it reached a point though where it started to become a negative thing. Looking back on it , it was probably the people that I surrounded myself with, and the fact that much of the music is negative. The further I got into the music scene, the more that it started to consume me. I found that I started to turn into someone that I was not. There was a lot of hard posturing, and a lot of negative talk. A lot of shit talking. The values that drew me to the music in the first place had started to become diluted  and dissipated over time. Not that I had turned into a complete asshole, but I became very narrow sighted, and certainly highly judgmental during my time in that particular scene. I had lost sight of why I became part of this in the first place.  It provided me a place to fit in when I didn't have a place to fit in to begin with. Why was I then denying or making it hard for new kids to appreciate the same feeling that I had. Why was I looking down on them as a lesser of a person because they didn't fit my exact definition of what that music was about. What the fuck. I wasn't born with a Minor Threat t-shirt on. I had to learn, and cut my teeth and come up the ranks as well. Who am I to be judgmental?

I'm not sure what caused me to become that in the end. Was it the people that I was hanging around with? Was it the years of negativity? Was it hive mentality and elitism of the music scene? When the fuck did the punk/hardcore scene become serious business? It's not. It's supposed to be about community, and fun. It certainly wasn't in the end. I'm sure I was a jerk to a lot of people, and I shouldn't have been. For that I apologize. Part of the reason that I became part of that music scene is because it gave me a place to go where I wasn't judged, and I became the one judging. A lot of us did, and sadly this many years removed, a handful of those people still are. I see it every day on the internet, or hear it through conversations, or in passing.

I have since removed myself from that music scene, and most of the people that I used to associate with in that time frame. I still hold that music in high regard, and most of it I do not regret in the slightest, with the exception of becoming the person I did in the end. I bring this up, because it's something that I have certainly been working on since my divorce. I've been doing a lot of soul searching, and I am trying to not be a judgmental person  anymore, realizing that everyone's situation is different. That person that just unloaded on you at work might have just lost a loved one, or have received news they didn't want. There seems to be so many judgmental people out there now a days, especially with the political state of our country.  It doesn't make sense to be part of the problem, when you can be part of the solution.