Bottleshocked

I have a love-hate relationship with music festivals. The cacophony of discordant G sharps and EDM BPM's clashing as they drift to meet each other from neighboring stages is oddly calming. The medley of enticing aromas wafting from Vietnamese, Japanese, Mexian, and Italian food trucks is intoxicating (oh, and so is the beer, while we're on the subject of intoxicating). The noodle flop that white people call dancing, is hilarious. I like music festivals. If I didn't, I wouldn't have already gone to two in the past year and scheduled a third for this summer.

But I'm conflicted.

I recently read a book by Dan Brown called Inferno. Without revealing too much of the plot (in case you decide to pick up the book after reading this), I will say this:

Brown explicitly unveils his own thoughts on global over-population in a brilliantly subtle way. But before my post starts sounding like one of my high school AP book analysis reports, I'll get to my point. The main antagonist in Inferno is a prodigious biochemist with the dastardly dream to wipeout 2/3 of the world's entire population with his own DIY pathogen. Everyone in the story, at hearing the biochemist's mission, immediately declares it preposterous, evil, lunatic.

And while I wouldn't normally condone his proposed method of extirpation, I found myself conflicted. He was a self-declared Transhumanist who believed in bettering the human race, regardless of the consequences. And he was bat-shit crazy, yes, but were his core ideas that insane?

I'm sure at this point you're wondering how all of this Transhumanist babble has to do with music festivals. Well, I want you to scroll back up to the top of this page and look at the first picture.

Yesterday when I was at Bottlerock, I was reminded of the sheer mass of humanity. The conglomeration of bodies was so dense that at one point, I couldn't even move.

I was appalled. The previously endearing mass of muscle-tanked, flower-crown clad Bottlerockers shape-shifted into a grotesque physical allegory of our impending human condition.

I thought, "Shit, man." (I know, heavy stuff).

Here I was, bathed in entrancing moonlight and music, dancing with my parents to Bruno Mars' "Runaway Baby" and all I could think about was the impending mass extinction of the human race.

Who the f*ck am I?! I may be just as crazy as Dan Brown's imagined evil genius--but this is the stuff I think about and although it's dark, I believe that it's important to think about. And to be honest, I don't think that enough people are thinking about it. And shouldn't we be doing something about it?

Oh, and by the way, Bruno Mars was great.

That pelvic thrust, though.

*Sidenote: I know that music festivals aren't exactly an accurate representation of global over-population (as they're intended for large crowds), but nevertheless, I was shell-shocked and I wanted to share my experience.*