Lucas Zimmerman, drummer of Paradise Fears, has announced that he will be leaving the band to pursue a new path in life. Read a statement from Lucas below.
"The past almost 4 years have been an incredible gift of experiences and opportunities. I have been able to travel across the entire country and see the world with my best friends. I learned more in that amount of time than I ever could have imagined, from everything I’ve gotten to see and the people that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know. From the leap of faith we all took four years ago, across all of the experiences we shared together, I wouldn’t trade the life we lived for anything.
However, it also opened my eyes to the reality of the state of the planet. Seeing the world showed me many, if not most, people do not have the opportunities that I was given. A brief trip to China showed me enough to get me researching the nature of poverty on our planet. It baffled me. As a human race, we forget to care that much of the world population doesn’t have what it needs, because we’re too wrapped up in the things that we find important in our own lives or the lives of a few people that we choose to care about. The thought of the starving children in Africa or the overpopulated people of eastern Asia seldom crosses our minds, or we choose to overlook it. I don’t feel that luxury anymore. After learning what I’ve learned and seeing what I’ve seen, I can’t get these things out of my head. My complaints seem completely meaningless compared to those people’s problems. I have clean water. I have access to medical attention if needed. My country isn’t being torn apart by useless wars.
I’ve also decided that these problems are not out of our ability to solve; it’s just that we’ve chosen to put our own agendas in front of working toward solutions. From where I’m looking, I see governments of the world spending time and money waging wars on each other, and the wealthy spending time and money hoarding personal wealth. At first, I was angry at these people. I would curse them, deciding that they were the ones making the world a less than desirable place that it is. But then I took a look at myself and realized that just because I want it better doesn’t make me a better person, because I’m not taking steps toward that greater good I so wish to manifest. I realize that you can’t just want things to get better, or even just sign a check and hope it helps. People must actually make strides and move to find and execute solutions. I was pointing both of my fingers at these so called “powers that be,” who I believed were making the world a sad place for so many people while not taking the time to check if my fingers were clean. (Bob Marley.)
So it is with sadness, excitement, angst, and cause that I have decided to change my life path. I want to be spending my time and efforts in third world, developing nations aiding the efforts to get them clean water, feasible infrastructure, medical help, and ultimately create sustainable living conditions. For anyone interested, I will be attending a technical school this Fall to learn the necessary Civil Engineering skills to work for a program specializing in water sanitation in the third world. It’s my first step in what I hope to be a long, humanitarian, life-giving existence.
I can’t express enough how much the time that I’ve spent in this band and the people I’ve met have meant to me. I am grateful for every person that has been a part of any step of the way. I could not be more excited for my friends and what they have in store. To call them friends is an understatement—come to think of it Family might even be an understatement. I am honored that I was able to be a part of all of the art they have created, and I am more excited than anyone for the art that they will continue to create. Every single person who was a part of Paradise Fears was a part of my story, and will continue to be a part of my story, it will just be a different kind of story now.
I realize this is a sudden change, and will be hard for some people to understand, but for me, it is the right one. I urge anyone else who doesn’t know what they want to do with their future to at the very least look into short term volunteer programs, because those are they types of people that the world needs right now. I believe that if we solve these problems, the human race can progress to a true golden age, but in order for us as people of this planet to evolve spiritually or consciously, we must all do it together. No one can be left behind.
I don’t know what else to say but I love everything that has happened to me and the person that it has made me. I’m excited to go really be that person now. The universe sends us on interesting paths. I hope that you have the courage to follow them.
-Lucas"
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