01/12/2008

This is not the Indentity you're looking for

As usual when reading dear Penny's latest stabbing of all that is well and normal (according to people that think they're normal), I want to jump up, run all the way to the nearest McDonald's, light my pants on fire and use them as a slingshot to propel me laptop trough the front window. Preferably after I've filled it with thermite and nitroglycerin. As it burns and crackles like those burning sticks people like to play with around Christmas, I'd casually walk away with my jacket tied around my hips as a makeshift skirt. If I ever did I'd probably freeze my balls off, but it would be worth it. Being done with my usual plunge into imagination, the part that really made me go "Fuck yeah!" was this: "But conformity is safe. No matter how much time and effort you put in to making yourself acceptable and well-behaved, never doubt that it’s the easy option. I never feel more alive, or more free, than days like today when I stamp into work in big boots, a baggy black hoodie covered with slogans, a bobble hat and no make-up. But it takes courage. Courage to step outside the cosy cage of automatic approval and be your own, real person, without rules." Being somewhat of a gypsy myself (on my fathers side), I relate to this. It makes me feel warm and really alive inside to know that there are people that will disregard what others think and go with what they, and only they, feel is right. No wonder people aren't satisfied with their lives, they're trying to get approval from everyone else. I especially remember a girl I went to elementary with. One day she didn't wear any makeup. The funny thing is, we didn't notice. ("We" being a few guys.) I don't know if the girls did. If I remember correctly her voice was trembling a bit when she told us. I suspect she was feeling uncomfortable, and a bit afraid of what our reaction would be. We told her that we didn't really see any difference. Well, maybe a little if we looked closely. I don't really know what happened. But she ended up putting makeup on after a while. If she felt uncomfortable because she didn't wear it, because of something someone said, peer pressure, or anything else I don't know. What I do remember is feeling incredibly impressed by her courage. Not that I know how much perceived psychological strength a woman find in her makeup, but I can imagine that it's quite a lot. Now that I think about it I should probably have told her just how impressed I was with her. But that was 5-6 years ago now. If anything I've found that I grow weirder and weirder the older I get. I've recently become interested in Anarchism, the Riot Grrl movement (especially the music), memetics (which I'm writing 50 pages about for school), drugs (moderately, since it dry-humps my brain into oblivion. I need my brain, dammit). I've almost stopped drinking completely. I'm actually interested in politics, and followed the American Presidential election feverishly. I suspect I knew more about it than quite a few Americans. Hell, an American even told me so. All of it is obviously me to some degree. But how much? We're once again back to that damned question: "Who am I?" Sure, I could throw up some memetic theory here now. About humanity being a construction the ideas we are exposed to, how they react to the ideas that already infect us, and all of that. I suppose we could just say that we are what we think we are, but this isn't necessarily true either. We are not who we think we should be, at least. That much we can probably agree on. Unless you're the kind of person that can disregard what everyone thinks at all times. Good for you. Not really helping us that are stuck with being social human beings though. We're stuck being influenced by society you might say, so the only thing we can do if that pisses us off is to try and influence it back, destroy it, or create a new one.

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