Acid for the Children: A Memoir

by Flea

facts and figures aren’t important to me, the colors and shapes that make up my world are; they are who I am, right or wrong. The limits of my memory are their own reward. Like Rashomon, the same thing looks different to everyone from their angle. The greatest fault of humankind belongs to those who think their view of what’s real is the only truth.

“That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest,” said Thoreau, and my father taught me early on to realize this most important truth.

Pain was something to be grateful for, not to be pursued, but inordinately valuable. Before Walter, I only knew anger and rage as my enemies and sources of terror. When my father was furious, or when kids in the street or school lost their tempers, I was scared. They were bound to do something ugly that might hurt me. Walter showed me that this tortured energy could morph into a love that would uplift the world. True alchemy, letting go and letting anger articulate a divine vibration.

The universe gives us the ones we need. And the ones we deserve.

It became clear that virtuosity and musical sophistication were no longer essential to me and could even be an impediment to the power of expression! This realization did not diminish my love for the most complex music, but made my world a less limited place, blowing to smithereens the walls of judgment that obscured my view of art.

Bob Marley said that it didn’t matter what kind of music one played, or even the quality of it. All that mattered was complete commitment in the creative process of channeling it.

I was reading the great book Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver, who, discussing racism, wrote, “You either have to be part of the solution, or you’re going to be part of the problem.”

Because your childhood beat you around and left you in pain doesn’t mean that you’ll continue the cycle. Let your hurt be the source of the greatest compassion, the deepest love and understanding. You can do anything. Walk through it, don’t numb or hide.