Of course, it would be easy for me to just blame not opening up much on the fact that this was a band blog, that represents all of the members (which it is now not. From this point on, this is the Dion Vox blog!!). But what is probably more truthful in the equation is that I think of myself as a nice person, and I don't want to "hurt" anyones feelings.
But FUCK THAT.
I have a lot of thoughts in my head that I never get to ponder aloud because of that fear. But the more that I look around, I find that the biggest roadblock to growth, or anything interesting for that matter, is this horrible concept that everyone seems so damn attached to:
COMFORT
As an artist, I am constantly looking to explode my current belief system. This is just my rad way of saying that I am constantly looking to learn new things that change how I think. Straight up: THERE IS NOTHING COMFORTABLE ABOUT THIS as an objective in life. And that's the way I like it. I'm all for a nice bed to sleep in, good food, a roof over my head and all those lovely comforts. But they're not the end all be all, and furthermore, beyond those comforts I see very little of importance. In short, comfort is nice and all, but it seems to me that to base one's life around comfort is to base one's life around stagnation and stupidity. And hey, it makes me uncomfortable to say such things. But like I said, comfort for comfort-sake just ain't my thang.
What really prompted me to think on this whole concept of comfort is that between reading Studs Turkel's book Hard Times which was an oral history of the American "great" depression, and listening to the conversations that go on around me, I concluded that ever since the end of our last economic collapse the American folks have become obsessed with safety and comfort. This is completely understandable to me on a human level. If you spend so much of your life just trying to survive with nothing, it seems natural that you would never want to go back to that. Even on a personal note: I have spent time trying to survive on next to nothing, and there is indeed a great deal that I would sacrifice just to never have to return to that level. BUT FURTHERMORE, survivors of the last depression never ever wanted their children to even know that such depravity exists. Well, just look where the baby-boomers bathed in comfort have gotten us. And look even further down the line to the yuppie scum that has been created in their wake. Somewhere along the line, someone must have said, "Hey, you guys can keep your trinkets, but you have to turn your brains off. Or better yet, why don't you just think what I tell you to think. Don't worry, you won't even have to read anything if you don't want to. You'll get my messages from everywhere you look and listen. So it's all good now, you've got your accessories, and I'll just keep your minds."
This is where I think the comfort generations have landed us. And I'm no special case or exception. I feel like I bear the same responsibility as everyone else in this mess. The only difference between myself, and a lot of the people that I see around me is that I'm not attached to this comfort. I'm not even attracted to it. Memorized facts, paper money, paper degrees, or any of the other "feel-superior" bullshit trappings left to us seem like a sad waste of time to me. What I'm interested in, and attached to is the truth, what ever it may be. I don't even think I have a clue what it is yet. But until I figure it out, I'll let everyone else squabble over what a politicians favorite food or color is, or what kind of car you drive, or how many people you've slept with, or with just about everything put out by the media in general.
So, I guess that that was my little rant. I thought about apologizing for it, but that would make it seem like I don't believe what I just wrote. And truth be told, I do, with no apologies or disclaimers attached. Even if a month from now I decide that I was wrong about it all, I'm not sorry, and I take back nothing. I'm down to claim responsibility for myself, so where's everyone else at on that level?
