A thought: Labels.

I remembered the other day something that came up at work a few years ago. Innocent conversation, really, but hey, clearly I'm still thinking about it.

One of my cow-orkers, noticing that I have a predisposition to wearing dark clothing remarked "Hey, are you a goth?"

Now, this is sort of a loaded question for me, as I recall some idealized version of the "goth" crowd of the 80s, and then the hot-topic-dwelling-marilyn-manson-idiot version of the 90s (my formative high school years), and the somewhat analogue that I hear about these days (though they seem to be on the wane) that is the "emo" school of thought. Same dreck.

My answer back then was "No, goths pine for some past that has been lost or forgotten and become depressed. I'm pissed off that the future isn't here yet."

It is left as an exercise for the reader to consider what thoughts were going through my head when I was exposed to a Renaissance Faire a few months back. (At least it was my second year so I didn't have all the bullshit tittering over "Oh, you're a faire virgin!" this time, but all the same, the gears were turning.)

I guess what it is for me is a realization about how I view life. I'm a technology enthusiast. I tend to dress like the dystopian future is just around the corner.

And upon further retrospect, I just don't give a shit about steampunk or the victorian era or some bygone past which should be attempted to be recreated. There's not enough room for creation, the new, the innovative, the expanding on things that have come before.

It's 2009. Give me my goddamn flying car already.