So the last few weeks have been very heavy as the whole world reacts to COVID-19. This virus impacts everyone worldwide and it really feels like we still don’t know the long-term consequences. Lives are being changed on a daily basis.
It’s been weighing on a lot of us and for me, it sort of sucked out a lot of energy while scrambling throughout the day to adjust to home quarantines, school cancellations, worrying about family members, and spending way too much time up at night watching the various newscasts.
However, I received some insight during a virtual happy hour yesterday with our Leadership Denver coaching group led by Margie Thirlby. We explored resilience and through an exercise, I discovered that my creativity trait has really been running on empty.
As I continued to reflect last night, I began to feel that it isn’t just creativity that is missing. I’ve stopped working out, I’m not as present as a husband and father that I want to be, and I’ve engaged less with my pods. I’ve been a bit frazzled and dreading the impact this is having on so many people.
So when I woke up early this morning wanting to change my attitude and to get some of that creativity flowing again. I turned on some tunes and started writing this blog. In some circles, I could be considered a Boy Scout and get labeled as a prude (probably deservedly so), but I do love myself some good hard rock music. Most of my tunes are generational and old school, like Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, and artists that were on KBPI in the late ’90s.
I suppose various types of music would work, but here are the reasons why I like to rock out a bit to the heavier stuff.
- It gets me moving: Beats and riffs that you can’t just sit still and listen to in a chair. I’m usually inspired to go workout, start tackling big projects, get organized or even clean the house (one reason why Katie lets me jam out sometimes).
- It focuses me on the future: For me, my mind always goes to my future-self rather than dwelling on the past when I jam out to the hard stuff. I think more strategically and begin envisioning what could be. I think this started when I use to run back in high school to make weight for wrestling.
- It’s rooted in themes of resilience: Although I don’t understand most of the words in the music, I get a sense of resilience and mental toughness through it. For me, it’s usually not the lyrics, but the instrumentals that give me energy.
- It releases tension: This may seem counter-intuitive, but I think it is a channel to let out my anxiety, anger, and other emotions.
My go-to band during times when I want to manufacture momentum is the band Tool. I was a bit curious about why this morning and I made some interesting observations. I correlated the Tool album release dates with what was going on in my life during that time.
- Undertow (1993): I was going through puberty. Enough said.
- Ænima (1996): I was a freshman in college and figuring out the man that I wanted to be. I was active 18-20 hours a day and didn’t sleep much. Heavy Metal helped.
- Lateralus (2001): This was the time of the dot-com bubble bursting and my first taste of a recession while in the workforce. It was my first experience with friends losing their jobs and dealing with uncertainty. Ohh and then there was 9/11.
- 10,000 Days (2006): An album that I listened to a ton while working on major projects to stay busy throughout the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 and beyond. It was a time in my life when I struggled to find resiliency and was initiating the transition from being work-centered to a desire to be more family-centered. It wasn’t until today, that I discovered the album title is referring to roughly the period of time it takes Saturn to orbit around the sun. Tool’s lead singer said this about the origin of the album title:
“That’s the time in your 28th, 29th year when you have presented the opportunity to transform from whatever your hang-ups were before to let the light of knowledge and experience lighten your load, so to speak, and let go of old patterns and embrace a new life,”
Maynard James Keenan ( Source)
I was 29 in 2006. I was definitely enlighted in the years following and going through a transition that definitely didn’t happen overnight. However, the best thing that came out of that period for me has been the insight to see when others are going through it, remembering the way I felt, and offering ways to help.
- Fear Inoculum (2019): After a long hiatus tool released this album, (about the same amount of time we had a bull market and thriving economy). Not until today, did I know that the definition of inoculum is a substance introduced into the body to create or increase the body’s resistance or immunity to a disease. Prophetic or not, that is about a freaky as Disney quarantining Rapunzel to a tower in the movie ‘Tangled’, set in the Kingdom of Corona.
So if you see a Half-Italian / Half-Lebanese guy running through the neighborhood with headphones on. It’s just me getting some heavy metal in my day to get through these heavy times.
Also, if you need someone to jam out with, let me know and we’ll get through this together. The girls will always be willing to put on a show.
