punk is dead

so anyway, i've been watching Punk's not dead, a documentary about the punk scene. it resonates with me because i was a punk then and i'm still one now.

do you ever feel you're the only one who gets it? that's punk. it's not about rebellion, because rebellion says that there can be better. you know, here's a fucking weird thing. if you read the communist manifesto that Marx presented in 1848, you will be surprised to find that nearly all the radical things he was demanding have become part of our societies.

which is a good thing, whatever the greedheads think about Marx. who wasn't much wrong, but then he wasn't providing a blueprint for totalitarianism, whatever people made of it.

i try to convince myself that you all get it, but are just pretending that you don't because it makes life so unbearable. but i give you too much credit because fundamentally i love you and cannot stop.

do you ever feel like you can't belong? well, that's step one.

step two is you don't fucking want to. yeah, and sometimes i do, because there seem to be rewards, and being an outsider can be frustrating, empty, lonely. you are running and wanting everyone to catch up. running, always running.

***

and i was thinking, i fucking hate id cards, fingerprints when you enter the country, censuses. i avoid all that shit because i want the government to leave me alone.

once it stops serving us, it stops being for us. and if it's not for us, it's against us.

***

it looks a lot like hatred, but i think it's always been frustration. hatred doesn't make me angry. it's a cold, hard thing. a dangerous, soulless thing.

i never feel that. i feel frustrated when i feel engaged. i feel like i should fight it, overturn it, undermine it.

i feel that is an expression of love.

***

there are people, i know, who will read this, who think they are better than me. you know who you are. but we are all just apes with big ideas. that's all it is. that's all punk has ever been, knowing that you are never better than the next ape, and if we stopped, got that, we would know happiness that would never end.

posted by Dr Zen @ 8:13 pm