Do you think the patriots were living on English handouts when they started the revolutionary war? Hell no. You can’t call yourself a rebel, an anarchist, or a revolutionary if your paycheck comes from the government. Working class people bust their asses just to have a chunk stolen by the tax-man, which you lap out of his open palm like a dog. If you depend on free money from a higher power, they own you. More importantly, free money kills your drive.
Sure, you can make a bunch of excuses to get out of work. You’ve got disabilities, social anxiety, whatever you need to say to get that government check. But nobody in history ever got the life they wanted by waiting for someone else to give it to them. If you don’t have the drive to solve a problem as simple as buying groceries on your own, then there is no way you’re going to make it in the most competitive industry in the world.
It’s very helpful to have a beautiful vision of a future of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. That gives you something to run towards. It’s even more helpful to get a taste of a nasty future of schedules, bosses, and fake friends. That gives you something to run away from. With the goal pulling you and the alternative pushing you, you gain a lot more momentum. Living on free money is hardly something to run away from, so moochers are missing half of their motivation.
Rock n’ roll has always been the music of the working class. It was derived from the blues, music of working class blacks, then brought to white people by a working class kid named Elvis. It was made into a global phenomenon by a group of Liverpudlian working class guys called The Beatles, then reclaimed from the uptight prog-rock movement by working class bands like The Ramones and Sex Pistols. That’s why rock n’ roll has always been associated with hard partying; the yin to hard work’s yang.
Think of rock n’ roll as a party. Nobody parties harder than hard working people who earned it. A rager on the weekend is the satisfying conclusion to a busy week, just like a cold beer after a rough shift. When you put in the time working your bullshit day-job and making music on the side, and you finally break through, your life becomes the party. Spending life doing what you love is the satisfying end to a long and brutal shift as the serving, slaving crap of the world.
Don’t think of having a job as “working for The Man.” Don’t delude yourself that you’re “sticking it to The Man” when you mooch off of welfare instead of working. You are The Man. Take what you need from your employment and move on when the time is right. Collecting unemployment while you spin your wheels doesn’t benefit anyone, least of all you.
Cover photo credit: Angus McBangus
SPUD UNDERGROUND IS BETTER IN PRINT.
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