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The title is probably why you decided to read this article, or at least make it this
WIELD YOUR KNOWLEDGE
WITH
KINDNESS.
far. But if you’re often referred to as “genuinely nice” or you find that you care about people, their feelings, their opinions, and how they think of you, you can stop reading. I’ll save you 928 words and 5 minutes of your time, you are not what we need to worry about as an industry. On the other hand, if you think there might be a time or two that you dismiss people’s opinions, feelings, and need them to know that you know more than they do, please read on.
T
he moment seems to have come early to the craft distilling
talk to her, and she was the only other person in class I could
industry. That moment when the earth moves a little, usually
talk to about The Clash, the stuff coming out of California on
when the newness has worn off and the potential for profit is
STS, or about the shitty tape-of-a-tape copy of Minor Threat that
shown to be more than a unicorn. It is that moment when the
I got from my friend’s older brother.
money becomes more important than the lifestyle or the creative
Then one day she came in wearing a Sex Pistols t-shirt and
act. It’s when bankers and lawyers see profit and billable hours;
I saw my chance. I wasn’t big fan of the band, but wanted to
when the lawsuits start.
hear what she thought of them, maybe recommend a song that
In 6 grade I was different than most of my peers, and not
could help me get into them. So at class break I walked up to
because I was painfully white in a mostly Latino school in New
her and opened my mouth, not intending to, but inadvertently
th
Mexico (even though I was), and not because I was a nerd with
spouting off every band I was into and why I like them, then
glasses (also painfully true), but mostly because I loved a type of
ending awkwardly with, “I never really got into the Sex Pistols,
music that the other kids in my class didn’t listen to. I was into
but was wondering if you could recommend some stuff.” After
punk music, in a big way. I didn’t have piercings or a rebellious
a pause, which she deserved to take, (after all, I gave her a lot
attitude, I just liked the music, which was not in line with my
to process), she scoffed. An actual, audible scoff. She went on
classmates who listened to country, top 40, or hip-hop.
to tell me why what I liked was “adolescent” and I’d probably
There was one other girl in my class that happened to listen
get into the Sex Pistols in a few years when I was over that “pop
to punk too: Amanda. She lived the music more than I did; she
influenced knock off music.” She wasn’t mean when she told
looked like a punk kid as envisioned by our local mall. Like a
me all this, just arrogant. Everything she said sounded like it
young Valerie Bertinelli with heavy black eyeliner and shredded
was from a thesis paper on early punk rock. She could have been
acid washed jeans. She wrote with red graphite pencils that she
the next James Cameron, the only difference being that she
pushed safety pins through the erasers of. It crushed me how
didn’t draw people in with what she knew about what she loved,
cool I thought she was. So cool that I couldn’t bring myself to
she assaulted them with it.
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