I would quit my job, sell my house and set out for Ithaka because I think I belong to that sea
If I were guaranteed not to fail… I think I’d attempt to be honest with myself. To understand why certain songs make me cry, what wound keeps resurfacing in different masks, what version of myself I’m most afraid to become.
Maybe the fear isn’t really about failing, but about what succeeding would mean. About choosing the untethered life over the anchored one.
As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean
The possible answers: the present, listening to people and hearing what they mean, breathing, the pause, the silence, the impulses, the consequences, the tunnel I was getting in, not realizing I was that long dark corridor, the time, the good advice, the false one, that attention to details make no sense if you are not living in them.
Do not want, Lídia, to build in the ‘space What future figures, or promise you Tomorrow. Fulfill yourself today, not ‘waiting. You yourself are your life. Do not be destined, you are not future. Who knows if, between the cup you empty, And she’s filled up again, no luck Interposes the abyss?
———————————
Não queiras, Lídia, edificar no espaço Que figuras futuro, ou prometer-te Amanhã. Cumpre-te hoje, não esperando. Tu mesma és tua vida. Não te destines, que não és futura. Quem sabe se, entre a taça que esvazias, E ela de novo enchida, não te a sorte Interpõe o abismo?
“In any case, there was only one tunnel, dark and lonely, mine, the tunnel in which I had spent my childhood, my youth, my whole life. And in one of those transparent lengths of the stone wall I had seen this girl and had gullibly believed that she was traveling another tunnel parallel to mine, when in reality she belonged to the broad world, to the world without confines of those who do not live in tunnels (…)”
I can whistle almost the whole of the Fifth Symphony, all four movements, and with it I have solaced many a whining hour to sleep. It answers all my questions, the noble, mighty thing, it is “green pastures and still waters” to my soul. Indeed, without music I should wish to die.
Edna St. Vincent Millay letter to Allan Ross MacDougall
To imagine existence without music might be biologically possible but it would be emotionally smaller. Music operates on a frequency that bypasses the intellect and speaks directly to something primal within us. Unlike spoken language, which divides us into linguistic communities, music creates a universal grammar of emotion. A minor key can evoke melancholy in a child who has never learned the word “sadness.” A triumphant major chord can lift spirits across cultures, generations, and personal circumstances. This universality suggests that music doesn’t merely accompany human experience—it is woven into the fabric of consciousness itself.
Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation. One does not have to know anything about Dido and Aeneas to be moved by her lament for him; anyone who has ever lost someone knows what Dido is expressing. And there is, finally, a deep and mysterious paradox here, for while such music makes one experience pain and grief more intensely, it brings solace and consolation at the same time. (Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain )
When we consider a world stripped of this universal language, we imagine not just silence, but a profound disconnection from our own emotional landscape.
First dances, lullabies, funeral hymns, graduation marches—these melodies become the soundtrack to our most significant moments. They don’t merely accompany these experiences; they preserve them in a form more vivid than photographs, more immediate than written words. A few notes can transport us instantly across decades, reconstructing not just the memory but the emotion of a moment with startling clarity.
Without music, our memories would lose this dimensional quality, the emotional peaks and valleys of our lives would lack their soundtrack, making the landscape of personal history less navigable, less meaningful.
Even beyond its role in significant moments, music provides the rhythm that makes daily existence bearable, even beautiful. Work songs have existed in every culture because they transform labor from mere drudgery into something approaching art. The person who whistles Beethoven during difficult hours understands that music doesn’t change circumstances—it changes our relationship to circumstances. It provides the cadence that makes the unbearable bearable, the monotonous meaningful.
Consider the silence that would replace this constant, subtle soundtrack.
That life without music would not be worth living might initially seem hyperbolic. However, it points to a deeper truth about being human, we don’t merely survive on bread alone—we require beauty, meaning, connection, and transcendence. Music provides all of these simultaneously. It is the art form that most directly addresses our need for both individual expression and communal belonging, for both intellectual stimulation and emotional release.
Life may be technically possible without music, but it would be missing a profound transformation: the ability to turn time into beauty. Music does not change the fact that hours pass, that we suffer, or that we long for what is lost. But it alters how we inhabit those hours, how we carry that suffering, and how we hold on to memory. In this way, music does not merely decorate time — it redeems it. And in that redemption lies its deepest necessity.
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
P.S. I read this today:
As a graduate student, I cared for my grandmother, who was a big fan of Ozzy’s band Black Sabbath herself. Any time we went anywhere, we put on our playlist and sang along. When, during the Covid-19 pandemic, I cut off part of my fingertip and lost access to my campus library, I had Ozzy in my ear for much-needed heavy metal pep talks as I took my PhD qualifying exams.
And when I lost both my grandmother and my California home the following year, I still had Ozzy. His music was the score as I finished my dissertation from my parents’ basement and landed my dream job at Iowa Wesleyan University. Through the submission of my dissertation and driving nearly 1,200 miles across the country to start my new job, I listened to the Blizzard of Ozz album.
I was ten when my mum gave me that glossy brown journal—Marie Antoinette’s young face gazing from the cover, complete with a tiny lock and key to guard my secrets. I wrote constantly in those early days. Daily events, conversations, how words made me feel, news that somehow seemed to matter to my small world. But mostly, I wrote to figure out who I was.
Childhood comparisons had done their damage early. I’d grown used to being measured against other kids, which sent me down a particular path: constantly crafting personas that might be more palatable, more admirable, simply *better* than whoever I actually was. Looking back at those early diaries now, they read like character studies—as if I was unconsciously preparing for a writing career that never materialized, disappointing what seemed to be my father’s brightest hopes for me.
Decades later, I still turn to writing for the same reason: to make sense of myself. Getting older, it turns out, didn’t automatically make me more adjusted to the world. If anything, the questions have gotten more complex, the contradictions more pronounced. The temptation to reinvent myself—to create yet another, better version—remains surprisingly strong.
I know what you’re thinking. *Have you tried therapy?* Yes, I’m in therapy. Not with a particularly strong sense of purpose or dramatic results, but I’m there, showing up, trying to untangle the same threads I’ve been pulling at since I was ten years old with a locked diary.
There’s something both comforting and unsettling about this consistency—that the fundamental questions haven’t changed, only deepened. Who am I when I’m not performing? What parts of myself am I still hiding, even from me? And perhaps most importantly: Is the search itself the point, or am I still waiting to arrive at some final, polished version of myself?
The journal pages don’t keep filling up anymore. I mostly struggle to find the time and the energy. What still keeps me connected to writing is the mechanics and tools. I still enjoy handwriting and pens.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
It wouldn’t matter if I got to a hundred picnics in after years; they wouldn’t make up for missing this one. They’re going to have boats on the Lake of Shining Waters—and ice cream, as I told you. I have never tasted ice cream. Diana tried to explain what it was like, but I guess ice cream is one of those things that are beyond imagination.
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (Chapter XIII)
Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb. Let the lamp affix its beam. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
’T is you that are the music, not your song. The song is but a door which, opening wide, Lets forth the pent-up melody inside, Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide This perfect beauty; waves within a tide, Or single notes amid a glorious throng. The song of earth has many different chords; Ocean has many moods and many tones Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones Autumn alone can ripen. So is this One music with a thousand cadences.
I can’t find a definitive answer. There are some genres—just a few—that don’t speak to me, but almost all music transforms the often banal rhythms of everyday life into something cinematic and wonderful.
I like to think that I’ve got this incredible range that spans from the raw power of punk to the grandiose drama of opera, the passionate intensity of flamenco to the groove mastery of Prince’s funk.
I am drawn to music that has intensity and emotional authenticity. This could be delivered through a screaming guitar, a soaring aria, or Prince’s unmistakable groove. I suppose these seemingly different genres all share that transformative cinematic quality. Each one paints everyday life with bold, dramatic strokes – just in very different colors.
Probably jeans and t-shirt but i would be very worried because this would mean the world had turned into a very dark place.
The relationship between fashion and totalitarianism reveals itself in how authoritarian regimes consistently target personal expression through dress. Consider how the Nazis required Jewish people to wear identifying badges, or how Mao’s China pushed everyone toward identical blue and gray uniforms. These weren’t just practical policies – they were deliberate erasures of individuality that made dissent and difference immediately visible.
Totalitarian systems understand that clothing is one of our most intimate forms of daily self-expression. When you control what people wear, you’re not just regulating fabric and color – you’re regulating identity itself. The uniform becomes a constant reminder of the state’s power over the most basic aspects of personal choice. It eliminates the small daily acts of creativity and self-determination that keep individual spirit alive.
Fashion, even in its most mundane forms, represents a kind of micro-democracy. When you choose your morning outfit, you’re making decisions about how you want to present yourself to the world, what mood you’re in, what activities you’re planning, even what weather you’re expecting. These tiny choices accumulate into a larger sense of agency and personal autonomy.
Authoritarian regimes also weaponize dress codes to create and enforce social hierarchies. The Khmer Rouge’s black pajama uniforms weren’t just about conformity – they were about breaking down previous social distinctions and creating a new order where only party loyalty mattered. Similarly, school uniform policies in their most extreme forms can prefigure more serious restrictions on personal freedom.
Perhaps most insidiously, fashion control works because it feels so trivial that resistance seems petty. Who wants to die on the hill of wearing colorful socks? Yet history shows us repeatedly that these “small” freedoms often serve as canaries in the coal mine. When societies begin restricting personal expression in dress, it’s frequently a precursor to much more serious erosions of liberty.
The psychological impact runs deep too. Getting dressed each morning is an act of self-creation, a daily ritual where we compose ourselves for the world. Remove that choice, and you’ve damaged something fundamental about human dignity and self-worth. The enforced sameness creates a kind of learned helplessness that extends far beyond clothing.
The relationship between fashion and totalitarianism becomes even more chilling when we examine its manifestations across history, literature, and film. These examples reveal how clothing control operates as both symbol and instrument of oppression.
Historical Examples
The interwar period saw a proliferation of “shirt movements” across Europe Shirt Movements in Interwar Europe: a Totalitarian Fashion – fascist groups that expressed their ideology through colored uniforms. Hitler’s Brown Shirts, Mussolini’s Black Shirts, and Franco’s Blue Shirts weren’t just practical clothing but visual manifestos of authoritarian identity. These uniforms served multiple purposes: they created instant group identification, intimidated opponents, and transformed political rallies into military-style displays of power.
Nazi Germany provides perhaps the most systematic example of fashion as totalitarian control. The regime didn’t just require Jews to wear yellow stars – it regulated clothing across society. The Hitler Youth had specific uniforms that emphasized conformity and militaristic values. Women were encouraged to abandon cosmetics and “foreign” fashions in favor of traditional German dress that supported Nazi ideals of motherhood and racial purity.
In Mao’s China, the blue and gray “Mao suits” became virtually mandatory, erasing centuries of Chinese sartorial tradition. During the Cultural Revolution, wearing anything remotely Western or colorful could mark you as a counter-revolutionary. The uniformity wasn’t accidental – it was designed to eliminate visual markers of class, regional identity, and individual taste.
Literary Explorations
George Orwell’s “1984” remains the most powerful literary examination of totalitarian clothing control. In Big Brother’s regime, Winston Smith lives “a sordid dehumanized life devoid of all the traditional sources of happiness” Slavery in Modern Clothing in Orwell’s 1984 – Crisis Magazine, and clothing plays a crucial role in this dehumanization. The Party members wear identical blue overalls, while the telescreen constantly monitors even the most private moments of dressing. Julia’s small act of rebellion – wearing makeup and fixing her hair – becomes a revolutionary gesture precisely because it asserts individual identity against the state’s demand for uniformity.
Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” uses clothing as a central metaphor for totalitarian control. The red robes and white bonnets of the handmaids aren’t just uniforms but symbols of reduced humanity – they transform women into walking wombs while stripping away personal identity. The color coding extends throughout Gilead society: blue for wives, green for marthas, creating a visual hierarchy that makes resistance immediately visible.
Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” explores how even subtle conformity in dress reflects deeper intellectual conformity. The firefighters’ uniforms with their salamander symbols and the identical leisure wear of the general population mirror the mental uniformity the state seeks to impose.
Cinematic Representations
Film has powerfully visualized fashion’s role in totalitarian control. Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) presciently showed how clothing could divide society into rigid castes – the identical work clothes of the underground laborers versus the elegant fashions of the surface elite.
More recent films like “The Hunger Games” series use fashion as a central element of totalitarian critique. The Capitol’s obsession with extreme, ever-changing fashion contrasts sharply with the drab, practical clothing of the districts, illustrating how fashion can become both a tool of oppression and a symbol of decadent excess.
“V for Vendetta” demonstrates how uniform iconography can be reclaimed as resistance – the Guy Fawkes masks transforming anonymous conformity into anonymous rebellion.
Subtler Controls
The most insidious examples often involve seemingly voluntary conformity. Corporate dress codes, school uniforms, and social pressure to dress “appropriately” can prefigure more serious restrictions. Even democratic societies wrestle with how much clothing choice to allow – from debates over religious dress to workplace appearance standards.
The psychological impact appears consistently across these examples. When totalitarian systems control clothing, they’re not just regulating fabric – they’re conditioning minds to accept that the most intimate daily choices aren’t really choices at all. The person who accepts that the state can dictate their morning wardrobe has already surrendered a crucial piece of mental autonomy.
What makes these historical, literary, and cinematic examples so disturbing is how they reveal the progression from small restrictions to total control. It starts with “reasonable” regulations – safety, unity, tradition – and gradually expands until the very concept of personal choice in appearance becomes foreign. The uniform becomes not just what you wear, but who you are.
If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail, but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider— lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
They turn the water off, so I live without water, they build walls higher, so I live without treetops, they paint the windows black, so I live without sunshine, they lock my cage, so I live without going anywhere, they take each last tear I have, I live without tears, they take my heart and rip it open, I live without heart, they take my life and crush it, so I live without a future, they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends, they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out of hell, they give me pain, so I live with pain, they give me hate, so I live with my hate, they have changed me, and I am not the same man, they give me no shower, so I live with my smell, they separate me from my brothers, so I live without brothers, who understands me when I say this is beautiful? who understands me when I say I have found other freedoms?
I cannot fly or make something appear in my hand, I cannot make the heavens open or the earth tremble, I can live with myself, and I am amazed at myself, my love, my beauty, I am taken by my failures, astounded by my fears, I am stubborn and childish, in the midst of this wreckage of life they incurred, I practice being myself, and I have found parts of myself never dreamed of by me, they were goaded out from under rocks in my heart when the walls were built higher, when the water was turned off and the windows painted black. I followed these signs like an old tracker and followed the tracks deep into myself, followed the blood-spotted path, deeper into dangerous regions, and found so many parts of myself, who taught me water is not everything, and gave me new eyes to see through walls, and when they spoke, sunlight came out of their mouths, and I was laughing at me with them, we laughed like children and made pacts to always be loyal, who understands me when I say this is beautiful?
Most people, and I am, obviously, most people as well, don’t fully understand how much their perception of reality is shaped by their own emotions, biases, and past experiences. The line between “knowing” and “feeling” is far blurrier than we often acknowledge. Much of what we consider “knowledge” is deeply entangled with emotion, intuition, and social conditioning. This is why debates over facts can feel so personal. They can even seem existential.
Accepting that much of what we “know” is provisional, socially shaped, or emotionally charged is the first step toward clearer thinking. But, at times, taking this first step just feels too much of an effort.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
I haven’t written letters in so long that I’m not quite sure how to do this.
If you have made it as far into the future, I suppose you have managed to survive the anxiety and anger you were feeling when everything around you defied a logical explanation. Maybe you have learned that things are not as extreme as you perceive them. Although, being a Leo, I’m intrigued how you have managed to curb your tendency to overreact.
If you have made it as far into the future, I hope you have outgrown therapy or, at least, have found a therapist that does not seem to need help more than you do and, managed to open up and allowed yourself to be helped.
If you have made it as far into the future, I hope you danced as much and often as you could and that you have managed to read all the books you wanted to read and kept your to read pile always high.
If you made it as far into the future, I hope you have understood how to deal with the pain of losing loved ones and that you have kept your friends close by. I hope that living alone has not been too much of a burden and that you have enjoyed your freedom.
If you made it this far into the future, I guess you have mastered your horrible tendency to procrastinate. Maybe you followed through with all your plans and are now living in some Greek island surrounded by blue.
I hope you have always carried with you all the songs that have helped life make sense and that your inner soundtrack keeps growing.
I hope you have not gotten lost inside yourself. I hope you still remember.
I hope you have kept the passion and that you have not become indifferent to people, to beauty. I hope you still believe that elegance is a form of resistance.
I hope you have never stayed quiet in the face of injustice, that you have helped others and, that your world is much better than the one right now. I hope you haven’t given in.
I hope you have owned your choices and that you have always insisted on being the Sun and never a black hole.
Even if you do not look like the AI projected version of yourself, I hope your eyes keep showing that your name is Hope instead of impossible.
I hope you still like poetry even if you have never managed to write a single line of verse.
Dear future self By JP Howard
If I should ever forget you, this is my love note to you
You were loved You were somebody’s lover You were loving You held parts of all the women you loved, somewhere deep in your generous heart
You were heartbroken You were a heartbreaker too, girl Sometimes you were heartache Your heart never grew heavy though, I remember that about you
You were silly You were giggles You were somebody’s Mama You always wanted to be a Mama Mama was the greatest title you ever had
You were jealous as fuck You were selfish You were sad You held other folks’ sadness, especially Mama’s sadness You buried that deep in our heart
You were swag girl Leo charm and confidence Couldn’t nobody crack you up as much as yourself
You were cute and you were vain You wore lipstick under your mask during a pandemic because you were cute and you were vain
You loved your family Your lover loved you for decades Sometimes you would ask yourself, How I get so lucky, girl?
You loved people You were at home on a stage in front of a mic, sitting with community in a circle, or talking one on one with a friend for hours on end in a coffee shop
You were a poet You are a poet This is your love poem to yourself, Juliet
As most people, I own too many things. I could, obviously, live without most of the things I have. And I have tried, once when I was moving to a new flat, I gave away most of my possessions. This was, in some way, liberating although I’m not quite sure if I was trying to set myself free or was just to lazy to take everything with me.
He eventually realized that he was clinging to things that reminded him of people, places and experiences from his past.
“I wanted to make room for my future,”
From house move to house move I always kept steam trunks, books, photos, my grandmother’s wedding blouse and her dresses, the cake figurine of her wedding (1949) cake my great aunt wedding dress, my grandfather”s camera and photometer, birthday cards, note written by friends, sketches made by friends who have, unfortunately, died, theatre and concert tickets, my journals, my first pair of shoes bronzed in South Africa, teddy bears, notebooks and pens and pencils.
Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open
I suppose this answers the question, What are three objects you couldn’t live without? I just can’t bring them down to three.
I know “our memories live inside us, not in our things” but I still feel there’s a beautiful thread connecting everything I’ve kept to my personal history, relationships, and creative life. They are tangible links to my ancestry.
I’ve kept things that embody memory, relationship, and meaning rather than items of mere convenience or fleeting value. For some, they’re probably just clutter anyway. For me, these objects help tell the story of who I am and of the life of those who came before me. I have a hard time imagining a future without room for the past.
In the late 90s, when Skunk Anansie emerged with their fierce blend of alternative rock and political awareness, frontwoman Skin confronted society’s hypocrisy with unflinching honesty. Their music, to which I confess, I wasn’t paying much attention at the time, but can hear it loud and clear from the first time I saw them live, offered profound commentary on disillusionment, authenticity, and betrayal that remains startlingly relevant today.
In today’s social media landscape, we curate selective versions of ourselves, seeking validation in an ecosystem that promises universal acceptance while quietly enforcing rigid conformity. The anger in Skin’s voice when challenging religious and social hypocrisy reminds us that genuine acceptance remains conditional—algorithms, trends, and social capital determining who is seen and who remains invisible.
The message behind “God Loves Only You” resonates powerfully in an era where people preach inclusivity while practicing exclusion. We’ve traded explicit prejudice for implicit bias, creating environments where belonging still comes with unspoken qualifications. How many of us perform the correct political positions online while failing to embody those principles in our daily lives?
Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025
“It Takes Blood & Guts To Be This Cool But I’m Still Just A Cliché” highlights our contemporary paradox. We demand authenticity yet punish genuine vulnerability. Today’s world expects us to be fearlessly original yet utterly digestible, to stand out while fitting in. The song’s provocative title captures this contradiction perfectly.
Those who dare to exist outside accepted parameters face consequences ranging from algorithmic invisibility to outright harassment. Meanwhile, true boldness gets commodified, packaged, and resold as aesthetic without substance. We’ve developed sophisticated language for social justice while failing to achieve its fundamental aims—much like the performative rebellions Skin critiqued decades ago.
Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025
“Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)” offers another layer to our modern dilemma. In an era of instant gratification and endless distraction, the song’s exploration of pleasure without purpose speaks directly to our attention economy. Social media platforms are designed like casinos—engineered to maximize engagement through dopamine hits while creating little lasting satisfaction.
The chorus question, “Just because you feel good, does it mean that you’re right?” perfectly encapsulates our collective susceptibility to emotional reasoning. From consumer choices to political positions, we increasingly mistake feeling good for being right, comfort for truth. The hollow promise of digital hedonism—endless scrolling, outrage cycles, validation seeking—leaves us, as Skin powerfully articulates, “Empty like the hole you left behind.”
Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025
Skunk Anansie’s “Yes, It’s Fucking Political” delivers a raw, uncompromising message that challenges our ability to remain neutral in times of conflict. In today’s world, wars rage on physical battlefields and across digital information spaces. The song’s central assertion—that everything is political—cuts through comfortable illusions of neutrality.
As Skin defiantly proclaims in the song, political realities can’t be escaped or ignored; they shape our lives whether we acknowledge them or not. This truth resonates powerfully in our current moment, where algorithms curate our worldviews while creating the illusion of objective reality. The conflicts we witness—from armed struggles to culture wars—aren’t distant abstractions but forces that directly impact human lives.
The song’s visceral intensity highlights the frustration of those whose suffering is reduced to debate topics. Their existence is framed as “political.” Meanwhile, others enjoy the privilege of claiming neutrality. At a time when we can customize our information environments to screen out uncomfortable realities, Skunk Anansie’s confrontational approach reminds us that turning away from conflict doesn’t make it disappear—it merely privileges those who benefit from the status quo.
Skunk Anansie, Porto 03.18.2022
“This Means War” offers a perfect companion to these political themes by bringing conflict to the personal level. The song’s explosive energy captures the moment when diplomacy ends and confrontation becomes necessary—not just in global politics but in our individual lives and relationships.
In today’s world, we’re encouraged to compromise, to seek middle ground, to maintain peace at all costs—even when fundamental values and boundaries are at stake. “This Means War” reminds us that sometimes, drawing a line is not just appropriate but necessary. The song’s defiant stance resonates with anyone who has reached their breaking point after repeated betrayals or violations.
The lyrics speak to personal liberation through confrontation. This theme is particularly relevant today. We increasingly recognize how power imbalances shape even our most intimate relationships. When Skin sings about declaring war, she’s articulating the moment of reclaiming power after prolonged subjugation, of refusing further compromise after continual exploitation.
From setting boundaries with manipulative institutions to refusing engagement with bad-faith arguments, from breaking cycles of abuse to confronting systemic injustice. The song’s message isn’t about glorifying conflict but recognizing its necessity in certain contexts—a message that cuts against our culture’s emphasis on toxic positivity and endless accommodation.
Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025
I believed in you, well, I was wrong. How many institutions have failed us? How many movements have been corrupted from within? How many public figures have revealed themselves to be contrary to their cultivated image? We’re continually investing faith in platforms, personalities, and communities that promise connection but deliver surveillance, promise empowerment but deliver exploitation. We believed in the democratizing power of technology only to watch it amplify inequality. We believed in the possibility of genuine community only to experience unprecedented isolation.
Skunk Anansie, Porto 02.28.2025
Like the powerful vocals and words that define Skunk Anansie’s sound, perhaps mine (our ) response to today’s challenges should be neither whispered conformity nor performative outrage, but something more raw, more honest, and ultimately more revolutionary—the sound of our authentic voices, raised together. Hope, at this time, might be just naive optimism against all evidence but, it might as well be a deliberate choice made with full awareness of reality’s harshness.
In a world where climate anxiety, political polarization, economic uncertainty, and technological disruption create a perfect storm of existential dread, envisioning alternative futures becomes crucial. It is both a psychological necessity and a political act. My biggest challenge, I don’t think it’s particular to me, is how to simultaneously process difficult truths while maintaining the creative capacity to imagine beyond them.
It does take music to survive. Music like Skunk Anansie’s doesn’t just entertain—it validates our experiences, expresses our frustrations, and offers both catharsis and connection. In a world that can feel increasingly alienating and chaotic, that musical connection is essential. It becomes not just enjoyable but necessary for emotional survival.
Live performances add another dimension entirely. There’s something about being physically present in a space with other fans who understand the importance of these songs that creates a genuine community, even if just for a few hours. It’s a reminder that we’re not alone in our experiences or our reactions to the world.
In a collection that’s grown to nearly 200 pairs (I couldn’t write on budgeting even if I was paid to do it), choosing a favorite seems almost unfair although not difficult.
When I look across what I wished was a carefully curated kingdom of footwear but it’s probably just a sign of some kind of derangement , my eyes always land on the same pair: my custom Converse All Stars emblazoned with Walt Whitman’s timeless words, “resist much, obey little.”
The customization process was simple enough—Converse’s website, a font choice, a color scheme that wouldn’t overshadow the message. But the impact was anything but simple.
Whitman’s phrase—tucked into his poem “Caution”—spoke to something essential in me. A reminder that blind conformity is the enemy of growth. That questioning authority isn’t rebellion for rebellion’s sake, but a necessary component of being and feeling alive.
“Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.”
I received them in April 2024. In May I took them to New Orleans—my soul city. There’s something poetic about first breaking in shoes dedicated to resistance in a place that has itself resisted time, tragedy, and homogenization. Walking as if dancing, feeling the rhythm of this marvellous city, breathing music from morning to night, watching the white canvas collect the character of a city that refuses to surrender its identity—it felt like a perfect baptism for both the shoes and for me. I always feel more alive in New Orleans. I always feel I get to be myself anew.
They carried me through heartbreak in Greece, they were with me in Wembley to celebrate life with a friend that took me to see Bruce Springsteen and 60 thousand people whit hungry hearts, they got to see Ian Astbury who no longer is my teenage crush but can still stir something when singing about paradises in shattered dreams. They take me to work when I’m feeling disappointed and a bit defiant.
They remind me that authentic self-expression isn’t always comfortable, but it’s always worthwhile. That small acts of personal courage accumulate into a life of integrity. That sometimes the loudest statements are made in the quietest ways. That resistance sometimes it’s as simple as a daily choice to live by your own compass.
Stories from A Closet of Errors 