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My son graduated from high school today!!

I feel like there were always two main views on goth, the traditionalist/gatekeeper view and the more relaxed view, I am not against either. I'm not obsessed with being a "goth gatekeeper"; although I'm open to kindly educate people on dark post-punk and gothic rock if we cross paths and the topic comes up. I wanted to be part of the scene the most when I was younger and didn't have the money or transportation to be a part of it. I cared less and less as I got older, for example the times I went to Necto on a Factory night, back in my 20's, there was a feeling where I kind of wondered how superficial the whole alternative thing was to the vast majority of these people, and how much it even all meant to them. In my 30's now I kind of wonder, what the whole point is of even dressing up and going out. I love Victorian gothic literature because the gothic aesthetic serves some kind of intellectual function, it's not there just for the sake of itself, it's part of an identity that is somehow rooted in significant or severe mystery, but also not necessarily unsolvable mystery. If you take a Victorian gothic character and put them in blue jeans and a t-shirt, like everyday me, the substance is still there, the inner gothic-ness still lives in them, it's like their mind is dressed to the nines because of what they've learned and the strange experiences it has given them. I want more of the "mysteriousness" part of goth than just the clothing, the idea of people who are mysterious because they are actively struggling and suffering-- sometimes horribly, to improve themselves or find understanding, that's what I like; and when you dress dark and alternative with that mindset, there is more substance behind the style. I want to explore mysteries and become more mysterious and more intellectual in the process, and I want that in my dark music too. But I don't consider this the one right way to approach "goth" or being "gothic", however I personally see it as a version of goth with more substance, and it is simply the idea of goth that I have aspired to out of a general love for the culture.