Being Goth or [insert label here] ...
Mingle
Veteran
Hey y'all how ya doing. Just been having a ponder lately about Goths. I dunno if its cause I've finally decided to give ol Manson a go or not, because I have never really suited black or being obsessed with death but at least now I get it....(I think).
I'm much to old to start dying my hair and wearing skulls but I actually find there is comfort in embracing the darkness in my life. It seems to be a by-product of accepting some hard truths about myself.
Music today seems so annoyingly shallow and pumped up, only relatable if your life is about nothing more then going out to clubs and getting shitfaced. It's nice to wack on some Nirvana, Garbage or whatever and remember that there is pain in your life and that you have wounds.
Of course spending weeks wallowing in self-pity is a bit pathetic but every now and then it feels kind of healthy.
Perhaps I'm speaking the obvious here. Just some thoughts. What does NB think?
Comments
I went through a Goth stage at high school. Nirvana and/or Garbage weren't "Goth music". In fact there was no set music then. It was more about dressing all in black, wearing palest skin with heavy eye make up and being "different". I grew out of it after about 8 months.
If it helps you grow or discover things in your life, great. Not much more I can say really.
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Lol shows how much I know about Goths.
Jesting aside, I'm going to ask you a question, sincerely, because it's something I have struggled with recently. Are you searching for a "label" to recognise your feelings to help you process where you are at the moment? I ask because I went through a similar process and eventually when I let go needing to DEFINE my feelings and thought processes, I was able to focus on those feelings and move forward.
Of course I may be way off base and if so, my apologies
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@dhammachick Yeah I can see how it looks like that and I do indeed find comfort in labels. Goth is a label I'd rather not have though.
I wonder why we like labels? What does it give us?
@Mingle said
Something to cling to, perhaps, a straw in the water. In time, I think, one must let go and start learning to swim.
I wonder if nowadays Goths are a bit what used to be called New Romantics in my teens?
I don't go for labels, because I find we begin by embracing a label that we think fits our personality, only to end up trying to make our personality fit the label.
I am not into skulls and darkness, but I don a lot of black clothes, love dark lipsticks -I wore black in my New Romantic days- to the point that some people have started to cast me into the goth denomination.
Some days the only thing missing from my outfit is a raven on my shoulder cawing "Nevermore."
Edgar Alan Poe would be so proud.... ! When I was young, we had a neighbour who had a pet raven. God that thing was huge... anyway, an immensely intelligent bird, it went everywhere with him, until people began to seriously consider he was a warlock or something. And he played up to it enormously, until perhaps, he almost came to believe it himself.
Funny how even labels given by others come to fit us, if we let them....
labels allow us to assign our place in the world and announce it to others. But no matter how many of them we assign, they never come close to who we are. It is just a way of taking small segments of our shallowest human parts and giving them a name. I say shallow not because the people are necessary shallow, but because labels almost always are very limiting and have only to do with what we externally present to the world. We realize things about ourselves and then we label it and it gives us a sense of comfort. But I think some of that comfort comes in giving ourselves permission to give into particular aspects of our personality rather than seeking to balance them. When someone challenges us, it's easier to say "yeah, but, I'm introverted. I'm Buddhist. I'm shy." or whatever as a way to counter what they are challenging us with. Sometimes it's better to accept the challenge. Sometimes, they are simply a way to explain ourselves to others and that can enhance understanding. But for myself at least, i tend to find my labels are a crutch more so than they are necessary for understanding and discussion.
Maybe - and I'm just thinking out loud here - it becomes our "default" mode because we learn to assign labels as a way of belonging at a very young age. I remember in kindergarten being assigned to one of three "house groups". Each was labeled a color for sport's carnivals etc but identity with each group was something we 5 year olds clung fiercely to, even or friendship groups were determined according to which house we were a member of.
YMMV
Slytherin was a nightmare for me. Glad I got moved to Griffindor...
We are assigned a label the virtual instant we're born. "What are you going to call him/her?" And there it is. Label number two. The first one being your gender....
Russell Brand says he's going to bring up his new daughter to be non-gender specific. Good luck with that one....He and his GF have named her Mabel, which I think is Gender-specific.... rolleyes
Labels are a convenience that we've become dependent on. They allow us to share information verbally but if we don't see how they are just tools we can be fooled into thinking what they represent is independent.
The labels I use for myself define my role in our interconnectedness. I am a father, a husband (basically), a friend, a brother and so on.
Even when I use the label "Buddhist" I am simply Buddhist and not "a" Buddhist.
It's ironic in a way because we sometimes cling to labels for the want to belong but if we take them away no thing is left out.
@federica there was a story about a couple in Canada that did this several years ago, there was a 5 year update just this summer.
Edit: forgot the link
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/07/11/baby-storm-five-years-later-preschooler-on-top-of-the-world.html
I don't think it's necessary to completely leave gender out. I think that alone can cause some problems. I do think it's important to allow a child to express themselves in whatever way they need to. But I think it's a case of we're starting to realize it's not so simply as 2 labels and fulfilling the roles of them, and I think that's a good thing. Some will swing to the extreme of either side, but we'll arrive at a more middle place eventually. Now we have labels for dozens of genders and that certainly doesn't clear anything up.
It would be nice if we could simply accept and value people for who they are no matter what. In some ways, that seems to be improving. But that might just be my corner of the world because that's what I surround myself with. It's ok to be yourself, whatever that means for you. It's an important concept for me raising my kids, because when I was young I was always corrected. I was constantly told I couldn't do this or that or wear this or that because I was a girl. It is something I had to work through for a lot of years, and it caused a lot of problems for me. I'm still figuring it out. But I think the key is to not place our expectations on others for how they should appropriately express who they are so long as they are not harming others. I most certainly don't always get it right. It's a difficult conflict when you want to value someone for all of who they are at that moment but you know society will not. With my kids, we talk about it and then they make the choice.
Perhaps we feel better knowing we are part of a clan
I actually don't think there is anything wrong with gender labels BUT I think we should change the labels/stereotype associated witb them. Why can't boy/girl simply just be a way to describe what parts you have and that's It? After that act and dress however you want.
Can we change the name of this tread to labels? That seems to be where its headed.
@Mingle that is what the term "sex" is for-to identify biological bits. "Gender" is the associated societal expectations placed on your sex.
Didn't know that. Huh, everyday is a school day.
A much better title