The Shape of Punk to Come
“I have never voted in my life...I have always known and understood that the idiots are in a majority so it's certain they will win.”― Louis-Ferdinand Céline
It’s been an uncomfortable week. The Santa Ana winds blew in and turned my innocent midweek surf into a torture chamber: sand and spray pelted my face as I scratched into waves too small to take advantage of the rare offshore grooming. I always get too psyched when it’s offshore and this was an exceptional swat down. It was pretty to look at but it wasn’t pleasant. The sand coated me in discomfort on the walk back to the car where I arrived a sugar donut of sand. With chapped lips. There were other factors in play as well. You may have noticed.
Without going there I wanted to talk about being uncomfortable. Because in my experience, the more uncomfortable you feel, the better you’re about to feel. When we’re in the throes of extreme discomfort, that’s where life really gets goin’. Once, after surfing Salmon Creek for the first time — an exceptionally sharky bit of Bodega Bay — I remember the taste of the sandwich and beer I had after in great detail. It was one of the most uncomfortable surfs of my life (cold, spooky, big, scary, lonely, etc). That after surf sandwich became one of the finest meals of my life. The thrill of being alive and tasting dry bread and a sparkling lager at a small town cafe was pure euphoria. Our most uncomfortable moments are usually succeeded by exceptional highs. Devastating clarity. And earth-shattering pleasure. There’s something to be said about these miserable cold plunges people are going on about all the time.
Throughout my life I thought I had “punk” sentiments. Someone who took it upon himself to read the materials in detail and formulate a view that was original and often against the grain was a point of pride. I was a man of “the misrepresented.” Not contrarian for the sake of it, but I liked to probe and question and research and am certain I stood up for what was right when appropriate. I veered in and out of polite society with my thoughts. I transitioned from punk sentiment to the harcore scene seamlessly.
As I grew older, I realized that my attraction to friction had picked up so much steam that I was suddenly only surrounded by people who believed in all the same alternatives I did. Social media and our diets of top-line information from unreliable sources created a nice comfortable place to “rebel.” I was always being applauded. A place where saying something “punk” resulted in showers of praise and validation. I was sliding down a slippery slope. We were becoming socially immortal through our virtuous causes. But who were we pushing for? And against? I felt all of this validation and warm fuzzy acceptance too…until I didn’t. Until I kept rebelling. Kept reading. Kept asking. It’s been the story of my life.
I used to read books to feel validated on my alternative thoughts. I too felt how Jack Kerouac did when he wrote about “the mad ones” and I liked to write about being misunderstood next to a bottle of Heineken like Buk. I still love both, and none of you can cancel either for me so they remain mine despite the fact that they were both selfish misogynist drunks who I often agreed with while relating to. Still, I shelved them for something I didn’t understand.
Over the past year or two, I exclusively consumed content that I’ve been told not to for various reasons. Yes, all the enfants terribles. I wanted the canceled, the outcast, the horrors of polite society. I read the ashes of the burn books. Books and authors I was afraid to read on planes and in public due to peer pressure. I read them all because I wanted to be uncomfortable. I wanted to see for myself. I didn’t want to take anyone at the BBQ’s word for anything anymore. I wanted Céline. Dasha and Anna. Lucien Freud. Michel Houllebecq. Robinson Jeffers. Louis CK. Vincent Gallo. Dr. Seuss. So I did the most punk thing I could think to do: I went on a journey to find out what they were saying — even if it was uncomfortable.
I emerged from my two year journey into the dark side of polite society not wanting to go to bat for everything any of these people have done or said. But they did show me that if you remove the censor on your life, the smoke alarm for offending and manage to silence the echo chamber you live within, you will discover two things: They weren’t who you thought they were, and you aren’t who everyone else thinks you are either. And that’s uncomfortable to discover but it’s bliss to live with.
Read and think for yourself, deeply and purely, be punk to the core, not punk to please the current condition. There are not just two ways of thinking. Listen. Respond. Think. Make your Misfits shirt mean what it’s supposed to mean. You need to consider the unpopular and see where you end up. You’ll find yourself extremely uncomfortable often, and you may often disagree with what you find, but in the process of stripping away your armor of virtue you will find that it’s not unlike going for an uncomfortable surf. The sandwiches taste delicious afterwards.—Travis Ferré
[Above art: “The Painter’s Room by Lucien Freud, 1944]
