Full Circle

Parents seem to be a funny subject. It almost always seems that it's a love hate relationship. You either love them temporarily or hate them temporarily. We always have that platonic love, but it's really the "love / hate" that is what the surface feeling is. I know some kids who normally always have love for their parents on the surface, and I really wish the best for them and their parents; but I relate more often to those who hate them and I know a lot more of them. I guess that's why my group in Hamilton used to be a bunch of the punk-rock kids. Sure theres the punkers who say they hate their parents while they have their lives set out for them by their parents and basically just say it because they don't understand what amazing parents they have. Those are always the kids who wear shirts of bands they've never heard of... I can name a few. But the kids who were fucked over in the parental situation always felt one of the real brutal meanings of what it is to be punk. You don't need to be dressing in band shirts every day or a "sk8r" or any of that shit. God knows I didn't understand when I thought I was a punk; but being a later kid in life I see what punk really is. I'm not exactly saying I'm a punk now, and I'm not saying I ever will be. But I see what the essence is. It's angst, it's the bettering of yourself not from getting a job, or going to college, but by the people you spend your off hours with, drinking and just wreaking havoc. Life has a funny way of making the people with money the most wretched, unhappy people. While the punks sit in backyards of shitty houses with 40oz's fighting, listening to music, and just making it by with what they have better than anyone can ever do. It's an ideological path of music. Music lets us get hyped up before we set something on fire, or calm us down or teach us what slobs the government can be.


But do you really have to be from a shitty life to enjoy being a punk? Do you have to be unsuccessful and live off 40oz's? Not really. To define being anything as one lifestyle is silly. I would enjoy hearing someone put a category on anyone else. The only people who really categorize are those who think life is about being separated and rigid. That is one lifestyle you can define, the people who don't understand that you can listen to The Virus and then turn on Name Taken the next minute. I'm the kind who changes music genres with the push of a button and I don't care. From Tiesto to Abandoned Interstate to Nile, I don't care who or what it is, as long as I like it. And not enough people do that with their life. Too many people think that because they or they're friends don't listen to it, or some person said that Goths don't listen to Disco; they can't enjoy that music.

So am I saying I'm completely undefinable? I won't flatter myself enough to say that, but that's just it. Fine categorize me as a frat boy, as a punk, as a metalhead, a nerd, a geek, the coolest person ever (I get that too often) Just talk to me like you would anyone else and I don't care. For the sake of the title being "Full Circle" a song by the Virus, I'll link this back to parents. Parents do care though. You may not think it, but there are parents out there who force their kids into being the sporty kids, or the frat boys. Even if they don't force it, they wish their kid was the lead of a soccer team or walked home with a girl every night. No parents I know wants their kid to end up playing WoW 24/7, or being an avid punkrocker who hates the USA. Maybe if this punk-rock nonsense got this kid good with an instrument or rich from being in a band that got popular. But do you actually think there are a lot of parents who care that they're child enjoys punk rocking? Hell no, they want them to be great at school and sports. That's what counts in the life of a parent. What do those add up to? Better colleges. Better colleges = Better jobs.

You see the whole of the typical suburban family system is there. It starts with you. You're born. Your parents raise you with a lot of money to do well in school and sports, you go to college at some prestigious school, get a good degree, you get a great job with lots of money, get married, have a kid, raise him to be good at sports and school, go to college...etc. Anything that breaks from that is what is known as an anomaly. And they're not worth doing anything for. My parents had three of those, we started off doing sports but we all stopped. THen we all became nerds/punks/what not. And now my parents, mainly my father, I don't think really approves of us too much. But it's far enough along in my life that I can get by without that approval.

I don't know where this all came from. This was not at all about my day really, I just started thinking about one event that just passed and this all splurted out. From Parents to Punk Philosophy to Categories.... I dunno either.