Issue 11: Minor Threat – In My Eyes

On the words that drive us

Part I: What matters

For those of us who have an inclination to linger in the darker parts of our minds, it is incredibly easy to convince ourselves that whatever we say, whatever we do, all our infinitesimally small gestures in this just as infinitesimally large universe, in the end will amount to nothing. In fact, that mode of thought has a very sly way of becoming the default, pushing us into types of behaviour that are not only the opposite of constructive, but even damaging – if nothing really matters, why the fuck even try?

Certainly this was my way of existing in my younger years. Unaware I was sabotaging my own efforts to build a better way of being, I went through life with an emotional battle axe, severing connection after connection because… fuck it, that’s why.

It should come as no surprise that I was, in fact, pigheaded and this was stupid and wrong. Not only do all of us and all our actions matter – in ways our tiny little pea brains cannot even comprehend – the universe itself can not exist without us. Without you.

Because without you, it would not be this universe. You are inextricably linked to it all, everything.

To pull a quote from Hardcore Zen Strikes Again by Brad Warner:

In answer to a question from a guy at the talk, [zen teacher Tim McCarthy] said something like, "You couldn't exist without the whole of the Universe being just as it is and the whole of the Universe couldn't exist without you." The guy had been asking about whether Buddhists worship Buddha. Tim said, "So it's not really what you think of as worship. Instead you have a sense of awe and reverence for all things in the Universe. But at the same time you know that the Universe depends upon you. So it's a mutually reciprocal feeling.

It helps to realise this sometimes, though I only learned this recently. But there is something else that has kept me going, headstrong against the tide of self doubt and anxiety about my efforts.

In fact, ‘tide’ is a good way to describe this darkness: it will retreat, but can’t be denied forever. Inevitably, it will creep up on the mental shoreline, especially at times when I feel I’m doing something worthwhile, something good. It’s there in my ear, a demon, whispering: “What you do, does not matter.”

And for the longest time, I would believe that filthy voice and give up. The road to my personal hell is paved with abandoned ideas, left by the wayside in a fit of sudden onset impostor syndrom.

Until one day, I learned a sentence that has burrowed its way into my brain and has since pulled me through this mental swamp time and time again:

At least I’m fucking trying

What the fuck have you done?

Part II: The line

Writing about Minor Threat is fraught with danger. Many an essay or thinkpiece has gotten dragged under in that historic bog – either you get snagged on trying to explain the straight edge movement, or you get pulled under by the monster of Guilty of Being White. Like a punk Beatles, every inch of Minor Threat’s catalogue has been combed through, catalogued and written about ad nauseum.

And yet, here we are. Humbly allow me to add another perspective.

(Before we continue, I do want to acknowledge the fact that writing a thinkpiece as a middle-aged man in 2022 about a record that was written, recorded and put out by a bunch of rowdy teenagers over 40 years ago, is in fact very funny. But I also want to make clear that I am unapologetically sincere in my appraisal. This shit mattered then, and it still does.)

As the beginning is usually a good place to start: what attracted me to Minor Threat in the first was the usual – a punk message that was railing against what was ‘wrong’ with punk: the mindless nihilism, destructiveness and apathy that infested it, even 20 years after the band started, as I first got into punk.

But rage and anger can only sustain one’s interest so much. And despite its angry, angsty wrappings, the songs of Minor Threat are infused with a more positive outlook.

To my mind, nothing encapsulates that better than In My Eyes.

It’s a song that subtly rubs against tracks like Straight Edge and Out of Step in terms of theme, raging against the nihilistic drinking and drug culture of punk, but also against nihilism itself.

While never doing so explicitly, the song, between the lines, advocates for a lifestyle of being a complete, self-sustaining human being. The song recognises the existence of a metaphysical hole in all of us and rages against the superficial ways we try to fill that hole: alcohol, drugs, empty relationships.

So far, so Minor Threat.

The structure of the song could be described as a call and response momentum– with the guitars, bass and drums doing their best to softly guide in the yellow-bellied statement…

You tell me you like the taste

…Only to explode as soon at the answer to it blasts through the speakers.

You just need an excuse!

But where In My Eyes differs from other songs in the discography, is the second verse, where more psychological questions are being handled.

You tell me that nothing matters

You're just fucking scared

Or:

You tell me that I'm better

You just hate yourself

(I said it was psychological in nature, not that it was subtle.)

Despite being written by teenagers, these lyrics acknowledge human relationships and the ways we perceive each other in a way that many an adult I know still do not comprehend. This is pretty smart shit, then and now.

Not to mention that it challenges the listener – in a pretty aggressive way. Nowhere is that challenge better worded as in the final lines of the final verse:

You tell me that I make no difference

At least I'm fuckin' trying

What the fuck have you done?

That last sentence spat out as the chord underlining “trying” softly fades, doubling down and emphasising the point. It’s this musical punctuation that allowed for this sentence, screamed in this very particular way, to have found its way into my brain to nestle.

Part III: The impact

As said, the black tide of selfdoubt never fully recedes. Starting this very publication was an exercise in keeping it at bay. Truly, what do my little words really mean in the grand scheme of things?

But the answer that that question has for years now been “at least I’m fuckin’ trying,” which in turn is the answer to “what the fuck have I done?”

What we forget is that the grand scheme of things is constructed out of every tiny action each of us have ever performed, consciously or not. It’s in the things you remember (or forget) to do, the way we speak to each other and ourselves, the people you decide to see and when.

It’s hard to imagine that a few teenagers from Washington DC in the early ‘80’s imagined someone across the world would cling to some words they screamed into a microphone.

But that’s what the fuck they’ve done.