Public Introspection: Wake Up, Already...

Art scares me sometimes. Inspiration can be quite frightening. The urge to respond, to do something because of art can be overwhelming, especially if you're not sure that you're capable of the appropriate response. If you're not sure that you can do enough, you wonder what's the point in trying, and when you begin to wonder that dangerous, annihilating little thought, well... You might get the urge, rather, to hibernate.

I saw Spring Awakening on Broadway last night. It was phenomenal. Important. Catchy. All the good things that a musical should be. Well, unless you feel theatre should be wholesome. It was about as wholesome as a deep-fried Snickers bar. But so good. The theme that ran throughout was the driving desire that humans have to feel something, anything. It's why we do anything that we do - sex, drugs, rock and roll. Fight. Run. We want to feel our decisions, our impulses, our experiences running hot in our veins, not just washing over us like a lukewarm bath. We want to feel, and yet... This civilization, this generation is plagued with a chronic boredom. How, in an age of complete overstimulation, do we ever get bored? So bored that feeling something seems so out of our grasp that we give up trying. We start forgetting how badly we need to feel something. Our lives cease to intoxicate us; they merely, instead, sedate us.

I enjoyed the percussion in the show, of course. It wasn't anything revolutionary or even particularly showy - in fact, it reminded me of jam sessions with friends in my past wherein we tried to breathe life and sincerity into the church music required of us. I envied the drummer. I know absolutely nothing of his life besides a short and clouded bio in the Playbill. His life may or may not be a suitable trade, but for two and a half hours a day, five on weekends, I'd trade him. I know what it is to feel when I'm in his shoes. When I gaze into certain eyes, when I look out on particular expanses, when I turn up the volume and wail away, when art moves me to intoxication... I feel human in the best way. For years, in the church, I was told that feeling human was precisely what we are to avoid at all costs. Maybe that's good advice, within reason. But when it drives you to hibernation, you have to wonder why we were made human in the first place if it was all such this tragic mistake that we were meant to run away from it, hiding. This sort of sleep is not restful or useful.

Evel Knievel, God rest his soul... He got it. Some might call him a fool, but he felt things. True, some of the feelings were bones breaking, but nonetheless... A lot of people out there could use the exhilaration of a good bone break.

Or something better...