Independence | Mike Vallely

Independence.

It?s a word that gets thrown around a lot in
the skateboard world ? A word that?s even
ironically been branded.

But experience has proven to me that it is
not a word that is valued in action.

When I started in skating in 1984
I was driven by an independent spirit.
One that pulled me away from team sports ?
Away from peer pressure ? And away from
any kind of commercial identity.

I had just entered my freshman year of high school
and for the first time in my life I felt empowered and free
to simply just be me.

I was way into punk rock too?
And the DIY ethos of both skating and punk
gave me what would prove to be
a springboard to the rest of my life.

(Bomb-Drop off a planter, 1985 Highland Park, NJ.)

But as soon as I started discovering me ?
I discovered that freedom really means
freedom from others.

For as quickly as I?d stepped out of one world
where the necessity of a social justification
was required for all activities ? I found myself
in another that is policed by the umpires of taste
even more microscopically.

I found out that you can be a skater and
a punker and be hated by society ? But also
that if you?re not the right type of skater or
punker ? You will also be hated by other
skaters and punkers.

It always has and always will come down
to ?The System.?

Whether it?s ?The System? of team sports,
skateboarding, punk rock or anything else ?

?The System? will always hold impersonal claims
upon the individual.

And so you only have two choices:

Live Free or Die.

I didn?t start skating nor do I continue skating
for any kind of posterity ? I started skating
and I continue to skate out of necessity.

The laws and rules that come with skateboarding?
? I don?t subscribe to them and so I don?t have to
live by them.

The ?Insiders Only? club is a gray, small
limited ghetto?
No surprises and no horizons.

Maybe that?s where the admiration is ?
The money ? The fame ?

But most importantly ?
It?s in following the standards and in
living by the rules that these ?tastemakers?
set where there is security ?
Security in mass-imitation.

But I want ? And have always wanted
Something more?

Independence.

Freedom.

My loyalty is to myself.

Not to brands?
Not to an industry?
Not to a ?culture?

I did not start skating to join
some fraternity?
I didn?t want nor did I
ask for acceptance ?
Just freedom?

But I was to learn that such a thing
can not be granted by others ?
It simply has to be exercised by
one?s self.

And so I don?t ask?

I do.

Source: http://mikevallely.com/2011/09/24/independence/

sarah shourd cheryl cole x factor forgetting sarah marshall freetown freetown nicole scherzinger modern family