As someone who has been in many, many, many "scenes." Goth, Punk, neo-beatnik, hipster, pseudo-intellectual...I can say all of them are exactly what this: bullshit posing for the benefit of sating some childish urge to belong to something or stand for something that doesn't take too much effort or thinking.

There's a difference between the raver ideals and the "rave scene." The "scene" is the same as above--WORSE because the "scenesters" themselves are usually jaded individuals who played at being a raver for a short period of time so they could do their drugs and go home.

The raver ideal is a whoooole other ballgame. It's about freedom from labels. It's about inclusion and self-betterment through music and yes, sometimes drugs. It's about treating people with love and respect and THINKING just a little bit more than you used to before acting.

It's about being savvy and kind--keeping your shit together and helping others do the same so that everyone has a good time and no one gets hurt or in trouble. When everyone looks out for each other, everyone gets to be a child again.

It's about absolute hedonism in an anonymous space and behaving yourself in a way that allows everyone to do the same without fear of judgment or consequence.

It's about the last chance you will ever have on this earth for absolute, almost unfathomable freedom.

People talk all the time about "religious experience" and finding god. I never understood what they meant and I always suspected that they were full of shit.

I found god in a 4/4 beat among thousands of other dancing people on a private ranch in BC, Canada, and this is what he told me:

"We were put on this earth for one reason: to find love and pleasure in each other. Squeeze every fucking drop that you can out of this existence before you're gone."

And that's something that's timeless. It doesn't "get old" or become tarnished with the oxidizing force of maturity. Finding pleasure for yourself and fostering that for others...for everyone you meet...it's the entire fucking point.

Everything else, every other endeavor is a total waste of life.



"Open your eyes...the wool has been pulled over your eyes..."