You're (Still) More Like an Onion Than You Think
Revisiting and reviving an MR Classic
Hey reader,
Today’s essay is all about progress. And Shrek. The title, referring to onions, is what draws the two together. This is an essay I’ve long wanted to put onto paper (or screen, as it were) because it’s been in my head for years. In writing, I confirmed to myself that all aspects and phases of life are intertwined and build off one another, often in more ways than are at first apparent.
This essay first appeared in Mountain Remote in April 2022. It’s been updated slightly and added onto.
Resources from this week’s essay
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You’re more like an onion than you think
Five years ago, I bought a splitboard (a snowboard that splits in half to become skis, used for uphill ascents in the backcountry) and began spending much more of my riding time out of bounds. This was something I had long dabbled in and wanted to do more of, but for reasons including its upfront cost and the dedication required to undergo avalanche safety training, among others, I hadn’t.
After the purchase, I began venturing out with a couple of friends who had recently bought splitboards as well. I also signed up for an AIARE Level 1 training course. These outings birthed an entirely new level of snowboarding for me. Not so much skill-wise, though touring does take a unique skill set that requires honing through practice, but because it opened the door to new experiences.
Along with my most frequent touring partners Andy and Neal, we explored new zones of the Colorado Rockies that I had never seen in winter, and often not at all. We summited snow-capped peaks on frigid spring mornings and then rode down them. We dug snow pits and performed snow stability tests. I took an AIARE Level 2 course that required camping in the high country in the dead of winter.
Within two years I began to travel with my splitboard, first venturing to Northern British Columbia and to ever-more remote places in Colorado. The experiences reinvigorated my passion for snowboarding and my desire to push it as far as I could for myself.
It was a personal renaissance.
The Arc of progress. You gotta start somewhere.
Progress is essential to being a complete person
Shortly after the 2012 presidential election in the US, a guy I knew in high school posted the following comment on Facebook, as part of an argument he was having with someone about the policies of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney:
“Progress is inevitable. You can spark a legal joint to that.”
It was the cleverest statement I’d heard throughout the entire election season (and not ironic to those in Colorado or Washington at the time).
In the early 2000s, a large wave of momentum brought on by years — decades even — of lobbying and educating both government and the public, combined with the pro-Cannabis attitude of a new generation of voters, had begun to drastically reshape drug policy in the United States. That wave crested in 2012 and barreled through 23 states and the District of Columbia over the coming years. This young generation, as many before it, represented a new layer of thought — one where many prior taboos would be embraced and even celebrated.
I think often of a quote from the movie, “Shrek.”
Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
Donkey: They stink?
Shrek: Yes. No.
Donkey: Oh, they make you cry.
Shrek: No.
Donkey: Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin’ little white hairs.
Shrek: No. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.
Becoming a splitboarder added a new layer to my life experience as a snowboarder.
That’s because for a few years prior to buying the splitboard, I’d begun to feel as though I’d plateaued as a snowboarder. I was riding the same resorts and the same terrain over and over again, drinking beers at the same apres bars, and generally not progressing in any meaningful manner. It was as though I was continuing to snowboard simply because it was nostalgic.
This terrified me, in part because I wasn’t sure what I’d do for a hobby if I got bored with riding a plank down a mountain.
Because of this, I clung to splitboarding as a fresh part of my identity. I was new to it, and progress happens quickly when you’re new. With each zone I toured, I regained the stoke to keep going, to find bigger and better lines, and to travel somewhere fresh with my board simply to experience it.
I had regained progression.
Connecting the dots
Another benefit of the activity is that skinning up a mountain before riding down it provides a lot of time to think. On my tours, I began to connect the dots between my progress as a snowboarder and my progress in other aspects of life.
Since my early teens, I have identified strongly with the punk rock movement of the ‘90s and early 2000s. Going to shows, playing NOFX and Rancid CDs at obscenely loud volumes in my bedroom or car, and maintaining a healthy skepticism of the powers that be became mainstays in my routine from the 7th grade. In my 20s and early 30s, I spent a decade+ playing in a band myself.
Progress happened each time I found a band I loved, every live show I attended that captured the essence of hormone-fueled young love and teenage angst. Each time I was reinspired to buy a ticket to the next one.
Now in my upper-30s, there is much I still admire and hold on to from this scene. However, making my way through a snow-packed forest, surrounded only by evergreens, aspens, and my thoughts, I started to pick apart aspects of the punk movement that no longer resonated with me — or never actually did in the first place.
In April of 1999, a song called “What’s My Age Again” by a band from San Diego, California, called Blink-182 entered regular rotation on mainstream alt-rock radio stations across the country.
Over the prior two years, Blink-182 had become one of my favorite bands. Their guitar player, Tom DeLonge, was and still is my most vivid iteration of an idol — his lead was the reason why, at 15, I bought an electric guitar and at 18, put a hole through my lip that for over a decade would remain occupied by a rotating cast of metal rings.
I didn’t mind hearing them on the radio. It added a new song to look forward to among what was otherwise a mundane playlist. Thing is, getting on the radio and being “punk” don’t go together, at least not according to a large swath of the punk rock community.
Indeed, following the success of Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” mainstream acceptance had already happened for a legion of punkers including The Offspring, Bad Religion, Rancid, and many others. Each had received scores of criticism from segments of their fanbase. And while I admired these other bands, with Blink, I took the criticism personally. I knew these guys before they were “big.” I loved their songs. In 10th grade, I had forced my ex-girlfriend to listen to the song “Untitled” on repeat until, out of exasperation, she agreed that it was the perfect metaphor for our relationship.
I had no intention of abandoning Blink, no matter how many kids from the Abercrombie crowd appeared at their concerts.
Almost daily at school, I found myself defending Blink-182 from being cast as “sellouts” and “posers.”
For those who care to hear it, my general argument in Blink’s defense goes like this:
Every day, Mark, Tom, and Travis wake up and live the dream they worked hard at, and sacrificed for, for many years. Their dedication allowed them to travel the world, make good money, and create influence over wide swaths of people.
Every day, you wake up and go clock-in for somebody else’s dream. Your schedule is dictated, your income and status defined by another.
Who is the real sellout?
Harsh, perhaps, but it gets the point across.
The misguided tendency of the punk scene to frown upon success and progress contradicts everything that “punk” supposedly stands for in the first place.
Why must a band — or anyone — remain relegated to the sidelines of society? Should the acceptance of our ideals, style, and passion not signal a victory for us all? If we’re really against the way society runs, why are we shouting down any forward movement in creating change?
This is one aspect of punk I never liked, and will always counter. I have plenty of evidence to support my argument. The most successful and long-running bands, labels, speakers, activists, and whomever else from this lifestyle are the ones that continue to progress and adapt to change.
They are the ones that bring their ideals to society, rather than building a wall around themselves to keep society out.
Tom DeLonge is the perfect example. He was cast as crazy when he quit Blink-182, no longer wanting to play the same songs every night and be constantly away from his family. He’d found another calling to dedicate his time to (and a more progressive band comprised of musicians excited to try new things).
He progressed.
Other examples of such society-shifting progress from within the punk scene include Bad Religion’s Greg Graffin (a university professor and author) and Texas politician Beto O’Rourke (formerly of the band Foss).
Each found success by bringing their ideals forward into the next chapter, the next layer. The naysayers are the ones who hold onto the way things used to be, often for nothing more than their own insecurity at their inability to keep up. They fail to shed layers, and in turn, this rots their core.
The aspects of punk that I still identify with as a 39-year-old dad and journalist are that of sticking to your ideals, holding truth to power, and building your life based on passion and on what you feel is right, rather than trying to “keep up with the Jones’s.”
Punk is like an onion. Punk’s not dead, because real punk is about progress and doing what is right for you in the moment.
The trees and the yeti are real.
The layers of life intertwine
Progress plays out constantly in life. As an individual, as a partner, as a father, as a self-employed writer, and as an aspiring impact investor starting from nothing and building a sustainable career, I’ve learned that happiness and peace of mind come by moving with progress and change rather than against it.
As each transition has happened, I’ve become better at thinking big picture and long term. This has helped me to understand when these transitions are happening, and why they are taking place. As a new layer forms, you have the chance to shed aspects of the prior layer that are holding you back, while holding on to the good stuff.
What’s most exciting about having layers is that it means you don’t have to leave behind who you were. With time and life experience, you grow a new layer around who you are in this moment.
This also frees a person to move on from aspects of their lifestyle that no longer suit them.
I still listen to many of the same punk bands I listened to when I was 16. I still snowboard as much as possible. That will likely never change. Now, as a dad (the most intense layer yet, for sure) I am excited to teach my daughter to pursue passion and truth above all else.
I’ll close with a quote from Ty Vaughn, in a song he wrote for his band Broadway Calls called “Basement Royalty” -
Closing my eyes and dragging my feet
I'm praying for rainstorms and earthquakes nightly
What little remains, three years I have changed
How boring would life be if we all stayed the same?
See you next time!