for real?

What does it mean to be authentic? In this time of the real fake and the overwhelming attempt to redefine the real as the constructed how do we have a relationship with the components that when once assembled become an authentic moment or person or interaction? Is the act of commitment the pivot point? Once you care you might have a chance to be involved in something that may resemble an authentic experience.

I am consistently surprised because as a naive and childish man the neo modern desire to appear as if nothing matters seems so obviously played out to me. The militant movement of “I don’t care” has won the day and its army is marching on aloofly crushing all skulls that tend to actually show caring about a thing or an interaction. How passé it is to actually be entwined in commitment and openness of the self to caring about any thing or moment. How risky and silly. How foolish these soft caring people are to open themselves up to disappointment and failure.

What has happened to bravery? Has it been mediated by so many removals of direct connections that what bravery needs as source material is no longer there? I like this as an idea but it is easily proven false by the total bravery of the occupy folks though they are but a small total percentage of the population. One could say the 99% is being represented by the .01% who have risked the most paramount of risks in that they have opened their physical being to damage at the hands of the consistently barbaric police drones. Having myself been beaten up by the cops back in my years of madness I am fully aware of the complete fear of getting wailed on by the guys who can then say it was your own fault they acted barbarically and then gleefully throw your broken ass in jail. It’s a mind fuck to say the least.

So if bravery exists in this shallow time of the real fake then why is it the mass of people I meet are committed to the army of “I don’t care” and the protections that this shift provides? Has the mediated reality that most of us live through the screens of our devices made the empirical visceral interaction a terrifying thing best avoided? Caring has been pummeled into a thing that only the foolish and childish participate in. To be committed is to be set up for pain and loss.

Holy shit that sounds terrible. If the thing that was once sought after was a solid understanding of quality now I think those of us that would have been on the quality project back in the seventies should go now and find the magic dagger which can murder the thing that powers the “I don’t care” army. It is killing interactions and ideas. It is making us pointless and vapid and not in the good way. We need to care. We need to care all the time.

The early punk rock ethos taught me most of what I internalized about how to be in the world both for the benefit and the detriment of my rollercoaster ride so far. If punk rock taught me anything it taught me that caring and caring passionately is the coolest thing that a person can do. Lets all try and be more punk in this real fake time and care and tell everybody that you care and why don’t they. Call out their fear by confronting yours.

Be punk and give a shit.