Are You Waiting On a War?
I’m a guy who gets really moved by powerful music. Sometimes there is a concerto from Mozart that helps me chill out. Sometimes it’s something as down home as Don Williams, “Good Ole Boys Like Me” that takes me back to my Gran and Pop’s house when I was a child.
For the moment the song is “Waiting on a War” by The Foo Fighters. Man, I love this song. It has had a really profound impact on me like no song has in a while. Maybe it’s just because I can relate to it so well. The song was inspired by a conversation between Foo Fighter’s Founder and lead singer Dave Grohl and his daughter. He once said in a statement:
“Last fall, as I was driving my daughter to school, she turned to me and asked, ‘Daddy, is there going to be a war?’ My heart sank as I realized that she was now living under the same dark cloud that I had felt 40 years ago. I wrote ‘Waiting on a War’ that day. Every day waiting for the sky to fall. Is there more to this than that? Is there more to this than just waiting on a war? Because I need more. We all do. This song was written for my daughter, Harper, who deserves a future, just as every child does.”
The first war I remember waiting on was with my father. My Dad had a way of dealing with people who had wronged him. He often spoke of his methodology.
He would say he’d “write em off.” Once Frank Wright Jr. wrote you off there was no coming back. He had written you off for good.
He never clarified whether this applied to me or not. The history of my childhood and into adulthood has proven it did if only temporarily. There have definitely been moments of my father “writing me off.”
So I spent my entire adolescence trying to keep my father from writing me off. The more common term would be to “disown” me I suppose. I was in constant fear of my Dad disowning me. This fear followed me throughout my adult life. I would do almost anything to keep my father from disowning me.
This really wasn’t fair to either of us. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe he would never fully disown me. For that matter anything that might resemble disowning me was probably a self protective measure. I like to believe him writing me off was his way of protecting himself from any pain I might cause him. I think he’s spent a lot of his life waiting on a war with me.
Waiting on this war has caused so much damage between my Dad and I. We currently don’t speak very often. How can you fully love someone you are constantly waiting on a war with? In matters of international diplomacy we can never fully call someone an ally who we imagine the potential of a war with one day.
As I look back on my life I realize there are a lot of wars I’ve been waiting on. Waiting on these wars has held me back so many times. There has to be “more to this than that” to take a line from the song.
Waiting on this war with my Dad has definitely impacted my relationship with him. Even to this day my wife has to listen to me prepare for my visits to his and my stepmother’s home. I go there waiting on a war. This means I have to prepare my defenses. I have to plan out a strategy. I have to be tactical. Most importantly I can’t be free to just love him. After all, I’m waiting on a war with him.
What war might you be waiting for? I look at the world today and see so many people waiting on wars. If they can’t find one they will wage one. They see a potential war around every corner. It’s sad. Even though this is the most amazing time to be alive, many can’t enjoy it. Why? They are waiting on a war.
Rarely do we fight the wars we once did. Even if World War III came to pass it would look much different that I as a child of the 80’s would have imagined it back when I was a kid. Now the wars are with our neighbors. Today wars are reserved for the people within our own homes. How can we ever fully love and be loved if we are constantly waiting on a war?
If we can stop waiting on a war, we can then and only then be truly free. To be free we must put down our arms. We must stop waiting on a war. Want to fully love your spouse? Don’t wait for a war with her. Want to truly love your children? Stop waiting on a war with them. Want to better coexist in this thing we call society? Quit waiting on a war with the members of it who don’t think, act or look exactly like you.
Stop waiting on a war with your children. I’m a father now myself. My daughters are 20 and 21. We’ve had many battles. I’m sure both of them would categorize some of these battles as all out wars. At this stage of their life my wife constantly warns me, although she doesn’t use these exact words, to stop waiting on a war.
She repeatedly tells me “Don’t do to them what your father did to you.” Instead just love them. Love them freely. Quit expecting the sky to fall on my relationship with them. I have had to learn to stop waiting on a war with them.
There has to be more to “this than that.” There has to be more than just waiting on a war. I implore you to examine your life. What wars are you waiting on? What if you conceded there is no war. The war only exists in your mind.
Like Dave Grohl I grew up during the Cold War era. We lived waiting on a real war. The kind where things blow up and lots of people die. As an adult I realize we still wait on wars, but these are the kind that kill your soul. They take away your joy. They kill relationships. As with all wars they freaking suck.
I want to stop waiting on a war with my Dad. I hope I can. I hope he can. Until then, I’m going to keep repeating Dave Grohl’s words in my head every time I feel the anticipation of a war arise, “There has to be more to this than that.”
Lyrics to “Waiting on a War” by: The Foo Fighters
I've been waiting on a war since I was young
Since I was a little boy with a toy gun
Never really wanted to be number one
Just wanted to love everyone
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this
More to this, more to this than
Just waiting on a war?
Just waiting on a war?
Every day waiting for the sky to fall
Big crash on a world that's so small
Just a boy with nowhere left to go
Fell in love with a voice on the radio
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this
More to this, more to this than
Just waiting on a war?
Just waiting on a war?
Just waiting on a war for this and that
There's got to be more to this than that
Just waiting on a war for this and that
There's got to be more to this than that
I've been waiting on a war since I was young
Since I was a little boy with a toy gun
Is there more to this
More to this, more to this than
Just waiting on a war?
Just waiting on a war?
Just waiting on a war for this and that
There's got to be more to this than that
Just waiting on a war for this and that
There's got to be more to this than that
Just waiting on a war for this and that
There's got to be more to this than that
Just waiting on a war for this and that
There's got to be more to this than that
'Cause I need more
Yeah, I need more
Just waiting on a war
Just waiting on a war
Yeah, I need more (for this and that)
(There's got to be more to this than that)
Yeah, I need more (just waiting on a war, for this and that)
(There's got to be more to this than that)
Just waiting on a war