One of the many passions that I used to have back when I was as available as a third-year undergraduate imposing self-retreat in my small hostel - is the luxury of freedom in indulging various hobbies that I used to dream of having during childhood and teenage-hood. When I have the luxury of time, I usually amused myself into 2 things: watching movies (good and bad) or listening to music. Of course, in the later part of my life I started to realize in the strength of playing music as well - but during those days when I don't have the skill set in place, I guess movie watching became integral part of my life. I won't say to the effect that the movie watching is inspiring (especially when most of the time I watched movies with mature contents, of which some of them if left without supervision of someone mature, tend to led us away from the truth in the proper context. With this in mind I often wondered if much of my immaturity in appreciating those movies came from the vibe of trend rather than an interest in seeking the truth within the movie.
For example, back in those days of mine, I have a few room mates (of which one eventually committed suicide the year after) that often inspired me to watch heavy metal concerts on Youtube. Introducing bands like Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Children of Bodom started my curiosity into what went into their mind when they wrote extremely Satanic and depressing songs. I don't remember many of them now - after so many years of leaving them behind, but one particular event excited me - as the one very close to me during that year happened to be a strong fan of both Metallica and Slayer. Of course, with the current vibe - it is hard to imagine that true hardcore fans of Slayer would totally alienate the fans of Metallica, of whom several claimed to have 'sold out' to the pop mainstream culture.
There's a period of time that I started to appreciate 'Angel of Death' after being continuous told to listen and appreciate the lyrical content and the Satanic devil '5th' on each end-of-bar of the chromatic scales, and as I started liking the groove, I was painfully disturbed by my inconsistency as both a Christian and a heavy-metal lover. It was in that context that I was exposed to 'Some Kind of Monster' documentary by Metallica.
Strangely the chance encounter with the documentary happened to be miraculously coincidental. I was prowling through the shopping complex in Orchard Road one day (having the luxury of freedom of course), when this particular movie caught my attention. Back then, I was quite distasteful about Metallica, knowing that they are a bunch of sell-out (and I couldn't appreciate listening to St. Anger too). Roaming through Borders in Singapore (back when it thrived in Singapore - you could see many British and Americans frequented this place), I saw this book 'This Monster Lives', a book written by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, at that time notoriously (or 'philantrophically' known if that's the right word to describe - as the filmmaker of 'Paradise Lost', of which these directors were proponent against accusation of 3 teenagers wildly speculated in the Murder case of West Memphis 3). One particular scene caught my attention - of which Dave Mustaine, the former guitarist of Metallica, who went on to become the influential figure in Megadeth, sought reconciliation with Lars Ulrich, the drummer and the founding member of Metallica), especially when James Hetfield (the guitarist of Metallica) went for his AA treatment.
After heavy read up post-visitation in Borders, (Wikipedia and etc), I realized that many claimed that Dave Mustaine has become a Christian of recent (that was 2007) and that he actually did claim that if the band mates were to actually force him to go AA instead of firing him, he would have gone. The word 'Christian' became strangely out-of-place, yet poignantly reflect the state of my spiritual health back then. I often asked, 'Where is God in the midst of my indulgence?', and apparently, it seemed that God mysteriously used the circumstances of my indulgence to bring Himself back in the picture.
Couple of weeks later, I bought myself the movie, and since then I have yet to regret getting it. Poignant scenes of tender love from James towards not just his band mates, but also his wife and his daughter (one particular scene of having him rushing over after his work at the studio to see his daughter dancing ballet - to thrash metal lover that scene is obscene - but why not? come to think of it, the love for his daughter allowed him the 'humiliation' as a metal lover to laugh with joy at the success of the gentle movement of a ballet dance by his daughter, and why shouldn't we all?). Besides, his reconciliation with band mates brought the image of 'heavy metal' to a more humanistic approach. Though none of the scene clearly depict anything close to what Christians should exhibit, somehow the act of reconciliation itself reminded me of brotherhood love and all the friendship that I had back when I was in active serving to God within my Christian circle. Although it may take several days to reflect onto them again, I am pretty sure if you browsed through those days written in my previous blog post (from mid-2006 till mid-2007), you would be able to appreciate the buoyant thought I exhibit during that time.
Now, after writing in such length of the previous context to where I presently am now, I felt that it is vital that I should always looked at those past of mine in order to appreciate where I am at present, and what I should avoid making mistakes in. As for now, indulgence in heavy metal music has mostly become a personal pastime, and my only time in indulging them would be mainly during jogging days (when you need a fast song to jog for many clicks to ignore the lethargy that comes along with it). Other than that, mainly I have listened to good ol' rock and roll from Texas, LA, Memphis country rock and nice New Orleans' jazz mix. Strangely time has evolved me to the degree that even my musical inclination has changed and evolved my guitar playing as well.
However, even with all these influences slowly gnawing away from the grip, my deep rooted resent towards societal conformity somehow still stayed within me, much to my distaste. Though subtle, I think there's still a part of me that yearns for anarchy (in very much different way now) - especially when it comes to work ethics and all those that matters to me. I have yet to see what will the end result during this one month break for me will be for me (and even if there's no result in the solitude attempt), I do hope that I find and discover more about the meaning in life.
Perhaps I will end this blog with a question for myself, and all you readers to reflect upon: as much as my writings reveal the state of confusion I have as a personal being, what are the things that sometimes lead to your confusion and how often are you able to reconcile your confusion with a resolution?
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