In 1988, I was eight years old. The political events shaping the world were still outside of my reality, my favorite band was Def Leppard, favorite movie was "The Lost Boys" and the love of my life was Dan Cortez from MTV Sports. Things were very, very different back then, as I still had a few shreds of innocence and was still in all technical facets a child. You'd think that I would have changed quite a bit since then, and as much as I now realize that Def Leppard was pop hair metal without substance, you'll catch me listening to them every now and again, and let's just say the season of "What I Like About You" starring Dan Cortez has a permanent place on my DVR. My favorite show? No. Do I look at Lo Mein and recite the lines, "Worms....you're eating worms, Michael" every single time? Yes, yes I do.
I feel like I've been one of the few left out of the smoothing process, left out of our societal coming of age ritual of rubbing off the sharp edges and creating this "well-rounded individual" that is supposed to fit in better with our norms and customs. I feel, therefore, lucky. See, the sharp edges that make us who we are...stubbornness, introverted-ness, super competitiveness, super sensitivity, those are rubbed down to more acceptable levels and society attempts to fill the percentage of change from your rough edges that have been filed down with more socially acceptable things.
Back to 1988, when I was 8. I had this strange epiphany whilst in my friend's room as we played with a rock tumbler that was meant to take plain looking, average rocks from your back yard and turn them into pretty, polished little rocks that you could collect. I realized that as these little pebbles and rocks tumbled around in there, they emerged looking prettier, being more sought after perhaps, but that it didn't change the core of the rock or what the rock actually was. Even at eight, I started seeing some relevance, some comparison between what we do to each other and what that rock tumbler was doing to the stones we had gathered.
My friend was Emmett. I'm not going to string this out or try to go all Politically Correct about Emmett....he was defined as a nerd in strict 1988, third grade terms. He wore super thick glasses and just never really fit in with the other kids, who were all, at that time, already joining the cliques and small subcultures of third grade life. It happens earlier now, I'm sure, people segregating into neatly defined units of class of popularity...
But Emmett was my friend because he was awesome, and as it turned out, most of my friends through the years would be judged on the criteria of whether or not they were awesome people and not to which clique they belonged. It probably explains why my illustrious group of besties includes a whopping 4 or 5 people. Emmett is still counted among my friends, as well as some other fabulous people that stood out from the crowd.
I look back now, and I revisit some of the sort-friends I acquired in high school and college and realize that the relationships didn't last because they bought into the well-rounded individual bullshit and submitted themselves to the societal rock polisher. They allowed school and church and parents to alter them in ways to make them more presentable, more acceptable in society. These highly pliable people learned how to fit in, to blend.
I never quite learned that lesson, maybe because people inherently saw that I would break the tumbler, or that I would come out broken into bits, or whatever. The point is that I missed the tumbler altogether and I am thankful. I am thankful that I still think in pre-polished terms, and that being part of the social clique of those that were polished is outside of my desires.
We go to school, go to church, do group activities and we're told on a consistent pattern what good and bad behavior is, what to think, what to do...and yes, I understand that people need leadership and guidance, but when you really look at what we're telling our kids, teaching our kids, feeding our kids....it's shaking them around together in the polisher, not always teaching them to think for themselves or to be skeptical, critical, of the "wisdom" they receive.
I'm not remotely comparing myself to the high-brow, damned-smart individuals that also missed the reshaping and smoothing out...but there's a long list of them. Many of the people that are really good at one thing and make that one thing their life's work change the world, but what would have happened to the invention of the light bulb, the invention of the battery, the discovery of antibiotics, etc, etc infinity, if the people behind these world-changing items were more interested in fitting in being "well rounded," and spent more time trying to sheer off the rough edges that made them work without fatigue? That made them study, or practice, or read until they mastered that area? We wouldn't have masters of craft like Roddenberry, Hawking, Kaku, Newman, Kubrick...these were people that never quite "fit in" because that very superficial goal didn't matter to them. And those that missed the polisher that aren't necessarily changing the world are at least making their own path-off-the-beaten-path and living with passion.
When I think back to who I was at 8, I see more similarities than differences. I was not easily attached to people, they had to earn my trust. Once they did that, I put them in my heart forever. I was not interested in bullshitting with people, and I didn't give in to laughing at jokes to be polite. I made decisions impetuously. I loved music, and movies, I was quick to judge, stubborn as hell, and I loved animals. I analyzed content carefully, I had a great memory, and above all things, I wanted to be a writer. I am very much still that person, in all of those ways, the good and bad. It's why I have been remotely successful in a very self-made manner. I have matured, learned, grown up...sure...but the nature and content of my character is intact.
The societal rock polisher of instilling a pre-packed mentality yields a lot of the mob-mentality that I defame in a previous post. Group-think culture is one that is bound to rush headlong together into self-destruction.
I will be left behind from that cultural careening into devastation, as I have been left behind from many of the group-decisions in the past. I'm okay with that, because the others left behind are those that I am actually interested in having around.
Skeptically Yours.
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