Hieroglyphics

When he settles in the passenger seat firing up his playlist, it’s pretty likely what’s coming out of the speakers is nothing I’m interested in hearing.  But this time I like the melody and so I listen intently to the lyrics. Absorbing what this artist is saying leaves me thinking in a different way about expression, judgment, the root of defiance and everything my teenager fights for so passionately. It goes like this:

Graffiti the land with skyscrapers
Graffiti the sky with airplanes and satellites
Graffiti the minds of children with your man-made laws
Graffiti the world, I saw the writing on the wall

It’s amazing, really, that mindful attention to one rapper could be so powerful, but all of a sudden I understand why my boy is so upset. 

We have covered a once pristine land with buildings of all shapes and sizes.  Sure, we require architects to go to school in order to design structures that are safe and sound, but who gets to decide whether they are truly beautiful enough to pepper our landscape?  And then we take it to the next level, branding these buildings.  Corporations and retailers imprint their logos in all shapes, sizes and colors, complete with lights and neon; homeowners choose paint colors for doors and shutters, accent with trees, flowers and seasonal decorations ranging from twinkling lights to statues to plastic figurines.  Who gets to say whether this is aesthetically pleasing?  We complain tactlessly about the choices of others, yet we’re all outraged with homeowners associations trying to infringe on what we believe is our right to ornament our piece of property however we see fit.

Our world is full of virtual graffiti, too. What about social media as a form of self-expression?  Our Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are flooded with graphics tagging the internet with our photos and thoughts in hopes of being liked, friended, somehow called-out, noticed for our unique brands.  Life is a rolling advertisement for millions of individual messages.

I get how we can confuse, deflate and disappoint our kids when our actions don’t seem to match our words, and how a feisty teenager could be driven to taunt a hypocritical world with his own small mark on an already littered universe.  Isn’t he just expressing himself like everyone else is?

I’m striving for understanding.  While I may not like most of my son’s musical choices, I often find I can connect with him when I take the time to wade through the booming bass, foul language and screaming to get to the message in the song.  Like all of us, he’s just trying to figure out how he can make his mark on this world.  I see his writing on the wall.

You can find “Graffiti the World” by Rehab here.