Original Post

One of my favorite lyrics that made an impression on me when I first connected with Face to Face:

“If you make it up and start to use your mind, it isn’t difficult you don’t know what’s there if you don’t try”

Updated thoughts prompted by original post

– some quick context –

Punk Rock lyrics have often been a way to express thoughts I cannot myself directly! Those lyrics often drive me to many personal lessons learned! Punk Rock lyrics and music often showcase the disenfranchisement of establishments! If I was to distill it into a quick bullet point list.

Punk Rock lyrics are:

• Rarely just about noise
• Often assert a frustration with roadblocks or apathy driven dead-ends
• Often triggered by privilege, execution preference, and/or ego has curated specific designs that only enable specific classes of individuals when more open availability is possible
• Yes inequitable access is a common example!

All of that to illustrate and say – action comes from work within! In the same song above after the lyrics I noted, the opening lyric FYI – a refrain of “Look in the mirror” echoes throughout the song! That’s the locus of control that most humans can control. This is regardless of external factors that may prevent complete and absolute autonomy! Often Punk Rock music lovers are perceived as the derelicts – but let’s be frank! Punk Rockers are often fatigued with status quo models that are just exerted due to privilege and nothing more! That’s often LAZY! It’s a carousel. off comfort! It’s a camaraderie of our past that is comfortable – so folks let go of effort and fall back to it!

Ironically, many Punk Rock types were fed by the ‘MAN’ that we MUST be an active actor in our destiny. Sadly, we just get disrupted by so-called efficiencies, protocols and barriers of access. So why try! When the “MAN” doesn’t even have their own houses in order? It is my observation and lived experience that most Punk Rock derelicts

• Some Punk Rock types have created a persona
  • They are often quite authentic
  • They do this to protect their peace
  • They are often quite kind and actionable humans in assisting and lifting others

Punk Rock types just hate the way the “Man aka the establishment” prefers it to be executed due to their perceived privilege – to protect their glass houses!

In this case – making up your mind to work on your inner self (looking in the mirror), creating strengths of courage, wisdom, temperance and justice so that the person looking in the mirror can find opportunities to improve and move forward instead of broken roadblocks preventing movement due to privilege or other things like ego and execution preference.

Punk Rock music, lifestyle and persona is much more intellectual than many often give it! It is so much more than the oft shallow and mis asserted assumption(s) without any context or understanding. Hard stop!

A Fun movie focused on the Punk Rock scene