Rock and Roll self

Way back, Matt Groening published a Life in Hell cartoon that had a way to calculate your life expectancy. Sort of a parody of the Insurance Company actuarial health questionnaires, I guess. I came out losing quite a few years for "wearing sun glasses at night". (My sister, btw, I remember, did not lose points for "have worn leather pants" but did for "have slept with someone who wears leather pants".)

A few years later I was suffering the break-up of my first "significant" relationship - why, it had lasted ten whole months rather than one month as usual (that was the one before the 10-year one that I'm always whinging about here). I remember going and hanging out on my own in the Brisbane CBD, and I remember going to see the movie Reality Bites, and I remember wearing my sunglasses into the movie. I had been hanging out with uniformly geeky Cognitive Science staff members (half Computer Science department, half Psychology), all young academics, all just post-Ph.D., all looking for love. I remember when Kurt Cobain died, they said "Who?" So an important part of my post-breakup new independence was reclaiming my Rock and Roll self. And one manifestation of that was wearing sunglasses in inappropriate places. It made me feel great - tough, independent, rock and roll, confronting, cool.

But, but. Asserting my rock and roll self was borne out of pain and fragility.

And last week, I noticed myself feeling exactly that same way - I was wearing black to work, my long black coat, I had a sort of defiant strut when walking in and out of the building, I left my sunglasses on in the lobby when I came in. It made me feel great - defiant, independent, like I wasn't the same as any bland average corporate worker slugs (not that anyone I work with is like that, but there might be some in the rest of building). I'm sure it was, though, similarly, borne of pain and fragility.

I wonder if all Rock and Rollers are the same?