You know: the rocker-boy arms-in-the-air head-banging symbol. Index and pinky to the sky? Fuck the establishment? That one.
I could not for the life of me tell you why that image pops into my mind when I see future-me. I have little interest in metal music, certainly not anything much heavier. The aesthetic has never been all that appealing to me.
It’s almost certainly the freedom it represents. If past trends are any indication, my analytical frameworks will continue to degrade until there is nothing left but the lived experience of a thing. Someday, I will no longer choose a flower for the effects of its scent, but for the image it represents. Vacation not for the novelty, but for the feeling of stepping on cracked city concrete. Music not for the sound, but for the way it washes over the senses.
Maybe future me is a metalhead.