Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soul Food

I’m a massive fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Not just because they create great music but because they possess a spirit unlike any other rock group I’ve ever encountered. Let’s face it, if a band’s charm is so magnificent that they can make a grown man in tighty whities look cool while playing bass guitar, then they’ve got something.

The Chili Peppers made me want to be a rock star. Hell, I think they made everyone in my generation want to be rock gods or goddess. When it comes to having an incredible presence they just give it away, give it away, give it away…

My adoration of the band made me pick up the lead singer’s biography, Scar Tissue. In Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis shares a belief I found to be incredibly inspiring. He feels that a soul picks its parents. This made me rethink my childhood and the role my parents had in raising me. What if we picked our parents? What if we needed these two people to come together and make us who we wanted to be? What if, in an early attempt to shape our destinies, our souls picked the people maybe even the circumstances that defined us?

Revolutionary, is it not? We couldn’t see ourselves as victims anymore unless that’s what we wanted to become in the first place. My soul must have seen something in the people that raised me and knew it needed what they had to offer. I thought about it for a while. I still think about it. I haven’t been able to find all the answers. Just a few. In this hypothetical situation I came up with the following observations.

I was raised by a grandmother that taught me unconditional love, sacrifice, and a belief that one could live by simple means and still be happy. My father taught me how to be tough, calculating, and that you can’t trust people blindly. He had a love of books and of knowledge that needed to rub off on me. He was also a gambler and at one point, my soul must have known that I needed to learn one important life lesson. If you’re not taking chances, you’re not living at all.

My mother raised me with enough personal freedom to be my own person. She cherished independence and she loved America even though she was born and raised in a different country. She also taught me to stand up for what I believe.

I’d like to pose Kiedis’ belief to hopefully change your outlook on your past and childhood. In my collection of short stories, High Stakes, family is one of the three main themes within the tales. For me, nothing shapes who we are better than love, fear and family. If we look though the eyes of a rock star we should be able to see that our first audience, first fans, and first promoters are our family. A soul knows this and wants to pick the right venue to make us the stars of our own show.