I have long noted inwardly the clash of two very different forces in my approach to life. On one hand, there is the outward compulsion to conform, to be 'normal.' It doesn't sound like much to ask.
On the other, there is the inner impulse to be myself. In movies, in school and in conversation, there is always the noble and near-holy moral of a story to "just be yourself." "To thine own self be true." To put it diplomatically, I have always been
an individual. I learned French in a state that is flooded with Spanish-speakers. I taught myself to juggle for no reason at all. I not only made balloon animals at my kid's preschool last week, but I taught two of his teachers to do the same. Why? I don't know, other than it is irresistible. To say that I am possesed by the imp is like declaring that water is wet; it is accurate without being sufficiently comprehensive to the subject at hand. I just
must be different.
But opportunities to blow my own cover constantly abound, and it is in my very physical nature to take said opportunity and do something memorably unusual with it. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily cost me jobs in the past, but I am certain in my inner depths that it has had such a contributory effect.
To say that I struggle with the two conflicting forces is inaccurate because it assumes that I spend a lot of time dealing with awkward situations in advance of their occurrence, which is not true. I do consider, worry over and deeply regret these instances, but only ever in the wake of their occurrence. I never consider consequences "at the moment," but every break from the herd that draws attention to itself leaves a little psychological scar; many positive events in my life are lost to the dustbin of mental history, but for some reason the wincing, second-glance inducing departures from the norm stick with me for years, maybe forever. The time I sang Karaoke so forcefully badly in the shitbag bar that the DJ all but shut down the vocal channel in his equipment, as my wife and her friend looked on, torn between feigning support for the dare they ushered me into and running away in proper shame. The time early in my technical career when I told an ex-Navy friend of my Dad's in front of several colleagues that the automated web design software DreamWeaver was "for queers." Nearly immediately and for years afterwards I wonder to myself: "Christ, what was I thinking?" I am still uncomfortable thus reminiscing even today, and yet I can't help but chuckle to myself in recalling them to write them down here. Something within me is truly off-center (I firmly resist to say "wrong"), and yet
it is within me.
Looking up at the family tree, I see that it is very likely genetic, on my father's side, where there are fruits and nuts hanging clearly from every branch in view. Both my Uncle and Dad buck the system in their own odd (and admirable) way. My Dad, for example, takes great joy in the occasional opportunity to ambitiously fuck with any sort of door-to-door salesperson, be they commercial or spiritual in nature. Woe be unto any vacuum cleaner salesman, Jehovah's Witness or pest control entrepreneur who commits the tragic sin of darkening his doorstep. The man is fairly known for it; maybe it's his years in law enforcement that helped him to craft the proper balance of malevolence vs.liability, to loosen the bowel of a weary ware-hawker with wordless threat of impending harm without being actionably illegal, I don't know. All I know is that anyone within earshot of the exchange is immediately filled with sympathy for the pathetic zombie that trudges defeatedly away from the mean old jutting-jawed man in the doorway. Kids in Africa should get this kind of soul-eyed compassion.
Why does he do it? Why am I the way I am? Even writing this blog; who puts down this viscerally private shit, too personal for friends to read but just fine for people I don't know? These are philosophical questions, asked of a natural event, akin to asking why tornados favor trailer parks. There are no scientific answers, only conjecture, which at best might soothe a trouble soul, yearning for reason in an unreasonable world.
I'm told the Chinese have a proverb, roughly stated thus: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered back in." I sense the harm that "being myself" does in my everyday life. I am certain that I would be higher in the vocational food chain if I were more like the slick-talking, fast-walking schmoozers I've run up against over and over in the world.
But an indignant part of me rails against that course of thinking as soon as I've thunk it, stomping and griping and rebelling against the thought of living someone else's preferred view of my conduct, no matter how convenient and streamlined my life might be (which must be a powerful innate force, as otherwise lazy as I know myself to be).
I do struggle with such questions, even if only after the fact. It is a troubling question to me, whether to toe the line and live everyone's expectation, or to follow my gut, and throw curveballs when presented with the chance. Both sides of the argument have their temptations, but I know one thing:
As my son grows older, I will teach him juggling, and some French.
