Early (like, pre-2007) Nine Inch Nails is About Something. Here's what it's about: You're broken, you're irredeemable. There's something deep inside of you, something fundamental which corrupts, something broken in a way that will twist everything that happens and make it bad, make every victory sour, make you crush every opportunity and fumble every friendship. And it's not anything "wrong". It's just who you are, and it can't be fixed. That was what he was trying to say. That spoke to me. But:
There *was* something wrong with Trent Reznor. There was one, specific thing wrong with Trent Reznor, and there was one specific thing with me. This wasn't even The Human Condition or being depressed. It's just that Trent was addicted to heroin. Trent was addicted to heroin, and I had gender identity disorder. That was the One Thing. There was actually, really one corrupting thing preventing each of us from being able to be happy or succeed at anything.
And then, uh.
Those things got better.
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