Let Your Freak Flag Fly

Let Your Freak Flag Fly-March 08, by Glenn Moore and Carrie Stewart

I used to work in a cubicle. Maybe you know the life… spending hours everyday in a small, three sided box with only a computer, keyboard and monitor as companions. Row upon row of other identical, threesided boxes completed the office matrix. For me and many of my colleagues, it felt like a minimum security prison. Although there were no bars on the windows to keep us from escaping, there were prison guards; so adept at feeding our learned helplessness, that the thought of escape rarely, if ever, crossed our minds.

These guards weren't middle management micro-managers, far from it. Hell, those poor guys are just other inmates, one rung up on the ladder for good behavior. It wasn't even the boss and his cronies. No, these guards were much more powerful than a mere mortal could ever hope to be. You may have encountered them yourselves, at some time or another. The guards were FEAR and the psychology around that fear that keep us trapped in our circumstances. And that is what kept me trapped in my cubicle. How I got to that place and why I stayed so long can only be explained as a grave miscalculation on my part. I felt as though I was living someone else's life, not mine. After all, I had grown up on the streets and had lived with hippies, freaks and bikers from an early age during the late sixties and early seventies.

How did I stray so far from myself? Let me give you a bit of background on my formative years so you can see for yourself how this phenomenon slyly creeps it's way into even the most free-spirited of lives. I had been motorcycling from an early age. When I was twelve years old, I bought a Yamaha 250 with my own money and I rode it like the wind. I was the wind. The feeling of freedom one gets from riding got into my blood and changed me... My thoughts, my cares, the world as I knew it… everything was permanently transformed. After that, anything less than feeling free became an unnatural state for me.

So what happened to me? well, it's kind of a long story, but I'll make it short. For one thing, life happened to me. I had made some poor choices along the way and I was paying the price. Enough said. The other thing that happened (and had been happening throughout my life), was that I was sold a bill of goods, not just by my parents and the family I grew up in, but even more so by our culture and the media. I was sold a bill of goods about what supposedly is important in life,what it takes to be happy, to "be somebody," to have the "American Dream." And unfortunately, without even knowing it, I drank the "kool-ade." I gulped it right down, and after that, I wasn't the same person anymore. It didn't happen over night, but little by little, I got further and further from who I was meant to be. I became a stranger to myself and it was this stranger, living inside my body, that ended up working in the cubicle. I know it sounds like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," but that really is how it happened. The funny thing is, I didn't see it happening at all.

Needless to say, in order to endure the cubicle life, I had to repress my natural tendency towards freedom. I gave up the music, the bikes, the dreams… I traded in my life for a pack of lies, and I gave up me. That's when I hid my freak flag. I hid it well, and then as usual, I forgot where I hid it. Maybe I feared that if my flag resurfaced, the "good" life that I was trying to achieve would be in jeopardy. I don't know. All I know is that I became more and more miserable, and I didn't know why. By that time, the person I had once been was nothing more than a distant memory. The truth of who I was… was lost.

I'm sure you've heard the saying "The truth will set you free." Well there's another saying: "The false will turn you into a bitter asshole!" (that quote is from our editor). To be sure, I became quite an asshole during the years that my freedom was repressed. Not to mention, I got crazier and crazier. Eventually, the fear of losing my sanity got worse than the fear of facing the truth, and the pain of staying the same got worse than the pain of changing. It sucked really bad, but it was a turning point. I started to face the reality of what my life had become and I slowly began my journey back to the land of the living, and back to me.

One cannot live a lie forever. Eventually the truth began pushing it's way towards the surface, and that truth finally broke through in the form of a 1996 Harley-Davidson softail with Screaming Eagle pipes. The truth is deafening and it roars for me to be me. This is my freak flag and I let it fly. After years of self-imposed repression, I was out of the cubicle and back on the road. I was free again.

I've met a lot of people on the road while riding my bike. I've seen the full spectrum of American bikers... from speed demons on crotch rockets to hippies on Harleys, organized groups to independents, Christian bikers to 1 percenters, rich and poor, young and old, and everything in between. We're different, yet we're still the same. Our similarities will always outweigh our differences because we all share one common bond: underneath our leathers and sleeveless shirts beat hearts that long for freedom. We are all in various stages of letting our freak flags fly, of expressing our authentic selves. But no matter where we are, we need those machines. We need them because when we are riding, we remember who we are. We remember the truth and it sets us free.

It still baffles me when I think about my time spent in those cubicles. I took a big gulp of that kool-aid we've been warned about, just like I use to take a big gulp of the Boones Farm. The difference is that the effects of the kool- aid can last for years, even a lifetime. I'm glad I was able to break those chains and be free again. I'm glad I found the courage to face my fear and say fuck it! I'm glad I found my freak flag, and you better believe, I'm gonna let it fly. You do owe it to someone. Yourself