"I wanna be sedated..." The Ramones blare from my speakers, each riff pushing the outside world further away. Sedated—what a concept. Imagine just switching off all the noise in your head, letting it all melt away into nothingness. Sedate me until my anxieties fade, every last worry dissolving like sugar in water. And if they don't fade? Well, guess I'll just stay sedated forever. No big deal, right? Could be worse, honestly. Seems like a solid life plan—better than facing the day-to-day grind that never changes, that constant pressure to care about things that don't really matter. Maybe The Ramones were onto something, maybe not. But honestly, who cares? It's The Ramones—it doesn't need to mean anything to mean everything. It's enough to just feel the music wash over me, to let it be an escape.
To be real, though, I'd much rather be sedated than deal with the crap life throws at you. Like, who really wants to fight the law and have the law win? That's gotta be the worst. Or, even worse, being stuck crushing on some girl just for her to ditch me for another guy. I can already picture it, standing there like an idiot while she walks off with someone else. If that happened, I'd probably be begging her to stay. "Please, please don't go," I'd say, knowing full well she wouldn't even look back. Then again, would I really care? Probably not. In fact, I'd convince myself it's better this way—just another reason to not give a damn about anything.
With apathy, comes great responsibility, I always say. Sounds funny, but it's true. Apathy is an art form, one that not many people get right. You can't just decide to stop caring one day—it takes practice. It takes work. You have to earn that perfect state of not giving a single thought about what anyone thinks. The first step? Find your dad's old punk records buried somewhere in the basement, probably while you're avoiding some lame family gathering upstairs. Put them on, listen to them over and over until the lyrics and noise become your new mantra. Then, stop. Stop caring about everything. Complete silence. Do that for at least three months. You'll emerge with a new look—ripped black clothes, chunky boots, and safety pins everywhere. More safety pins than necessary, enough to make Sid Vicious nod in approval from beyond the grave. You're not just wearing clothes now, you're wearing rebellion. Safety pins are key, though. The more, the better. The Clash practically demanded it in some unspoken rule of punk.
Now comes the hard part—building the attitude. Dressing the part is easy, but you need to embody it. This look, as cool as it is, attracts plenty of attention, most of it unwanted. But don't worry, you won't care. Not yet. Let people stare. Let their judgment simmer in the background until they're no longer even real people to you. They're just background noise in the epic punk movie that's now your life. Their ignorance is the gasoline you need to burn brighter.
At this point, you'll start feeling that creeping sense of cynicism—towards them, towards everything. Nothing's safe from your disdain, nothing makes sense anymore. Start questioning everything they do, because nothing they say or believe will ever align with your punk ethos. They're sheep, mindlessly following rules that don't make sense. That's when you turn your focus to authority. Teachers, parents, the government—anyone who tells you how to live. Question them all. Ask yourself, "Would Joey Ramone do this?" "How would The Clash rage against this?" "Would Morrissey raise an eyebrow?" "How would Billie Joe Armstrong shout about this in a song?" Every situation becomes an opportunity to defy, to rebel, to question.
Once you've questioned everything long enough, you've won. You've learned the secret. You've fought the law—and you didn't just win, you shattered the system. You won't need to be sedated anymore because now, the world is the one that's sedated, stuck in a daze, while you walk through it with your middle finger raised, living the punk life on your own terms. You've become the noise. And that, my friend, is the ultimate victory.
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