Aren't You A Little Old For This?

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Sometimes people don't quite know how to take the lifestyle of the practicing goth. The funny clothes, the makeup, dancing to silly music, reading admittedly indulgant prose and poem, all of these things seem to draw the sanity if not moral character of the individual into question. This question becomes the more poignant when juxtaposed with the expectations of age and adulthood. Are the trappings of gothhood and associated lifestyle simply refusing to grow up?


I don't think thats sufficient. While there are certainly people who grow out of things, or who lose interest, dismissing anything as "too childish" reeks of the worst sort of self-important indulgance. The act of growth which places significance on items of hitherto insignificance while applying the converse inevitably alters one's behaviour; lack of change is death. But excepting the catyclismic (a sudden surge of Scientologist faith, etc) a constancy underlies all change; one continues to eat and to rise and to sleep. Therefore the scope of change is constrained, and any future builds upon the past by the present. Does a favorite color lose its lustre because another entices? The things which once satisfied convey always some degree of satisfaction. The dismissal as "too childish" is the action of a child thrusting away some beloved toy in order to fit a preconceived role in which toys have no place. Some would argue that such radically constained growth is not growth at all.

A scene's dwindling may be easily explained. Humans are social, if not gregarious, animals. They innately seek similarity and reject disparity. A slow migration of older people, coupled with an decrease of pure leisure time, lends to a quick extinction. Such is the case with the Berkeley punk scene, overwhelmingly young and the likes of jello biafra, increasingly old. This is not the case with the gothic scene, however.

This may be because gothism allows a larger range of expression. Allows one to grow within it, while one grows without. The hermitic lifestyle of this avant-garde is not so absolute that those faceted gothic find themselves unable to function outside its realm. True gothic hermitage is mostly the domain of angst-ridden highschool students.

For whatever reasons, SF possesses a large number of older goths who forge their paths in life while retaining the appreciation or desire of, or fulfilment from things gothic. In so doing, a role model is built in which gothism transcends the 18 year old bauhaus chanting scalawags, and becomes an accepted face of a multi-faceted adult.



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