High Octane Hell Ride: The spiritual side of moshing

     A mosh pit is a spiritual experience, the name itself implies descent, as if into hell or to Plato’s cave. It’s almost a Karmic endeavor, purging yourself of emotional pain by inflicting physical pain on another, and they do the same to you. Although everyone is pitted against each other, punching, kicking, and slamming indiscriminately, it is mutually consenting. Genuine hostility has no place among fellow metalheads. The reaction in a pit is alchemy, melding and mixing metal to create immortality. When a band member has suffered a loss, whether of his family or a friend, he may request a mosh pit to alleviate the death. This practice is a modernization of ancient Greek funeral games, which simultaneously celebrate the individual while mourning his departure. It is competetive, yet benevolent. In death, the blood congeals, so you want to see it spilled from the audience. Too many people die in their sleep, so wake the fuck up. Your pain is psychological, so it will be dispersed among the brave in its far more bearable physical manifestation. We voluntarily thrash for those who can no longer move. Our hair spins and falls, oscillates between gravity and the rebellion against such, pulses violently as if to fling the negativity out of our skulls. Over the heavy kickbeat and wicked guitar, we raise our heads upright for a nanosecond, lock eyes with a stranger, anyone from a cute punk girl with a lisp, to a muscular gangster whose face is obscured by scars. You make eye contact, smirk mischievously, and nod with grim acknowlegdement of your fate. You both sprint forward, teeth bared and arms crossed, bounce back on impact and crash into a bystander. He pushes you with his fists, out of pure instinct. He will pick you up when you fall just to shove you back in, then you’ll feel the unmistakable strike of an elbow in your sternum, you trip over the stage, sight obscured by hair and blood, the lights are blinking and flashing to further disorient you. The sounds are distorted and echoing, you’re dizzy and confused. This is the kind of high energy disoriented adrenaline rush that most people have to pop pills in order to achieve. You savor the sadomasochistic bliss on the filthy floor, when suddenly you are unceremoniously siezed by the armpits, yanked upright, and crammed back into the cesspool.