I am a Disturbed follower and a freak, a blend of goth-philosopher and punk. I believe goth is a label which different people have many different definitions for. When I say goth, I’m referring to one who has been infected with the “Sickness,” my term for the rage, the pain which creates the angst of a goth and encompasses the principles generally related to metal. I have an idea about people–people are like machines, in that they are made up of different parts that make them tick. Looking at people this way, they become a sort of psuedo-science. I’ve found it may be possible to change people in a systematic way.
Each person’s parts are unique in some way, great or small. You can, by getting to know people, come to know and understand their parts. Through subtle persuasion, you can even change people over a long period of time. Some people are easily changed, especially if they are young and have been sheltered from the outside world. I’ve done this with one person, shattering their belief in a false god and making them all the stronger for it.
I apologize if this sounds weird or doesn’t make sense, but that’s probably because it is weird, doesn’t make sense, and I’ve gone completely insane. Oh well!
Anyway, allow me to explain this process in detail using an example. Let’s say (unusual, but it happens) that a straight-laced, sheltered person becomes good friends with a goth. The goth seeks to change that person into a goth. One of the typically most prominent boundaries to becoming goth is a blind faith in a given deity. When one becomes goth, they tend to rebel against that which they were raised on or those beliefs which they were clinging to while they were depressed. Thusly, they face a long state of confusion about themselves, not knowing who they are or where they belong. In this example, the goth, over the course of months, subtly persuades the friend to throw away their religion, which their parents ground into them, and become goth by letting their inner beast rise to the surface. So they throw away their religion and start on the road to being gothic. This may take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years, depending on the person. After religion, or whatever belief the freak in them doesn’t like, is discarded, they basically have their soul ripped out several times. This is the most dangerous time for them, for they become suicidal and very, very angry at their parents, past friends, whoever was telling them what to think and leading them in blind faith. Unfortunately, this is nessecary, and no one, not even the goth who began the process, can do much to help or avoid it. This is nessecary simply because the pain of this stage is what makes them gothic afterward. This stage will be completed (or aborted by the person who is going through it) regardless of anything else around them. They walk through hell and back, and when they come back, they have the cynycality, the personal strength, and the principles of the goth. Some, unfortunately, do not survive this stage, commiting suicide, taking heavy drugs, ending up in prison. However, if the goth who started this process did it in just the right way, the person will become a very stalwart freak. If it wasn’t done right, or the person just doesn’t have the basic personality of a goth, and the process is still completed, they will only remain goth for a short time, sometimes reverting to the highest extreme of what they were before it.
Once again, I’m sorry for my odd terminology and lack of better articulation, but this is one of those things that deal with people which is very hard to put into words. I’m still not sure if I got my point across, but basically what I’m trying to say is that, by getting to know someone, you can convince them to discard personal beliefs and replace them with others, and mixing of opposite beliefs or discarding of certain beliefs with nothing to replace them can destroy someone. Now, that’s not to say the only way someone can become gothic is through someone else. I changed on my own, listening to metal and taking its message to heart, that’s what changed me. People can become a science if you look at them that way, and then it’s both easy and sometimes dangerous to mess with that science. My hands hurt from typing. I’m never becoming a secretary…