When you're a kid, nine times out of 10, everthing is pure depending on how you grow up. Everything is new as a kid, so it's all amazing and wonderful. But as we get older, things start to lose their luster or possibly their relevance. Things don't mean as much as they did then. I know the feeling.
I grew up poor in crappy situations various crappy situations. What kept me sane was reading and music. I had so many different literary tastes growing up, be it fiction like Stephen King or Piers Anthony or non-fiction like reading Hunter S. Thompson essays or reading the Beats. I was a huge fan of the Beat movement.
I didn't have the worst childhood, but I didn't have the best, and when you grow up like that, you have certain limitations invariably stuck inside you. Slipknot was a way to work it out.