I really like Billy Joel's song 'The Stranger', because it seems to me to be about the hidden part of people that they refuse to acknowledge. That socially unacceptable part of yourself that you never show. For example, I really enjoy being taught African songs and dances. I know it's not socially acceptable to like something that hasn't been sold back to you, but it's lots of fun since it's very energetic and I have a craving for things that come from some place else than from the marketing guy's demographic sheet.

I'm rambling today, but that seems to me a problem with some people. Some people think that they are revolutionizing the world by downloading music, but the truth is that music companies won't lower prices, they won't suddenly decide to give it all away for free and they'll probably not take risks on good music. The problem here is that they are trying to change the world, but they are still holding on to that old 'the stuff you buy is your identity' worldview, in which buying a certain CD buys you entrance (even if it's just as a loser on the bottom) into affecting yourself as belonging to a subculture.


I'm not totally free of that, but I am pretty aware that we need to gain some values, and not the values that mean depriving others of rights and trying to strive towards a golden past that never existed. We should probably work to develop ourselves, instead of just blandly consuming what is out there to consume, all pre packaged and neat, but we won't, so why I am writing this long rambling thing is unclear.