I still remember the first party I went to when I just didn’t feel it. I spent $40 (20 to get in, and 20 to do what I thought you had to do to have fun), six hours, countless liters of sweat, and ended the night thinking “THIS is what I’ve dedicated my life to? My money would have been better spent buying an eighth and laughing to myself as I took a walk on the beach.” After that first, there were others.

Let’s face the truth: at its worst, the beloved rave scene is nothing more than a bunch of kids on drugs dancing along crooked paths of self discovery/delusion in huge rotting warehouses. Then there’s some guy who thinks he’s a musician because he can spin two records at the same time, playing beats that are not always good, but are always loud. Promoters skulk around the edges of the room counting their money, and I leave feeling like I’ve wasted my time and energy, embarrassed by my own adopted family.

These are the times that I think “Ok, it is just about the drugs.” The more the media talks about raves being drug-filled parties, the more they become just that. The kids who really know what’s up get sick of dealing with the shit and move on, becoming hipsters in clubs, publishers of pretentious electronic music journals that make fun of the very readers who buy their shit, yuppies who laugh at their “wild years,” or burn-outs in the gutter.

These are the times I sit in my bedroom, wide awake at 7am on a Sunday, black grit under my fingernails, wondering about the deeper meanings of raving … and all I can come up with is a hollow acronym that is spouted most frequently by hypocrites: “PLUR! Wait, that person’s pants have cuffs that are less than 40 inches around? They’re not a RAVER — Fuck them!” We fight for PLUR and the noble Right to Dance “Officer, we’re dancing because we should be able to, damn it!” Well, that’s nice, kids — ever thought about protesting something that actually helps the world instead of simply entertaining bored middle-class kids (aka helping yourselves)? Ever heard of altruism?

These are the mornings when the drugs take their toll, and I feel like a plastic recreation of myself, with synthetic lubricants pumping through my fiberglass arteries. My emotions like a website, “Click here for disillusionment. Click here to buy drugs to take the doubt away.”

These are the mornings when I wonder why I’ve spent so much time here, who I’ve helped, what I’ve done, how I’ve made the world a better place. I’ve filled landfills with water bottles, punctured my health with drugs, wasted money on “good times” that weren’t always good (how many nights did I spend shaking in the corner, having frighteningly honest conversations with my own psyche as the bass beat embossed my soul with loud conviction?).

I talk to friends who have joined the peace corps or volunteered to help teach inner city youth, and I half-heartedly justify to myself, I’ve taught inner city youth — I’ve talked to kids who didn’t know about their health or birth control, discussed God with dilated pupils (get it?), I’ve patted the back of vomiting over-indulgers. But who have I really helped? And does a pat on the back of someone who’s directly responsible for their own vomiting really compare to teaching someone to learn to read?

These are the mornings that I take a shower long and hot enough to get the rave grime out of my pores, drink some chamomile tea, and sit in the garden listening to the bass of sap coursing through tree trunks, the treble of morning birds. The steady rhythm of my own heart, the epic build of my breathing.

I’d forgotten.

These are the mornings when I remember to turn down the music and listen to myself, for a change.