What the fuck does "being different," mean anyway?
On one my first days at my current job, a guy came up to me and said, "I can tell by what your wearing that your different" (I had on a burgundy velvet shirt and a black pair of dress pants). Different from what? I was baffled. What exactly could he infer from my style of dress? Could he tell if I would be promoted or fired? Could he provide a detailed explanation of my philosophical and religious beliefs? Could he infer that I like Bach, Leather Strip and Patsy Cline? Could he tell what my favorite football team was? If I even liked football? NO !!!
Humans love to classify. All of us apply this everyday - in fact this ability is considered to be a hallmark of our intellect. So, we classify everyone we meet into little groups. He's a jock; therefore he must be an asshole. She dresses in black; therefore she must be evil. LIGHTEN UP !!! Black is a color, football is a sport, and you really can't tell that much about a person from either one. If you want to really know a person you have to interact with them, and see what their attitudes and their actions really are. THEN, I suppose you have the right to judge them as asshole if you want - that is, if you aren't doing the same crap.
If you truly embrace individuality (which nonconformists supposedly do) then you have to judge people as individuals, not as "jocks", "preps", or whatever. You also can't assume that just because someone wears the same clothes you do that they are cool. I've met some fellow freaks in my lifetime that were evil, power hungry, manipulative bitches. Humans are not like manufactured food (not until the aliens come, anyway) - the box gives no clue as to what's inside.
On the flip side, just because someone is a Goth it shouldn't mean they have to "pay the price of being a rebel". Mainstream culture in this country has been scared of all kinds of things - African Americans, Catholics, homosexuals, anyone who is not a Christian, etc. Just because the "silent majority" is scared of something new or foreign doesn't give them carte blanche to terrorize those who are different. Anyone who knows anything about Goth knows that it's mostly about aesthetics. Why the hell should anyone be persecuted for his or her personal aesthetic tastes? This type of persecution reeks of fascism, not democracy. The viciousness of the harassment going on in our public schools should be a deep source of shame for America, a country which portrays itself on the world stage a being a haven of diversity, tolerance and freedom. We as a country love to brag about our freedoms, but rarely talk about any responsibilities that might come hand in hand with them. We have a responsibility as a nation to not torment individuals who are "different" - individuals who blatantly exercise their freedoms. You may not like orange hair, writing code, or listening to Marilyn Manson. That's fine. Don't do them. Someone else who does these things is not your problem to solve, and if you make any loud obnoxious pronouncements to assert their inferiority it ultimately says much more about you than them.
Life is about whatever you want it to be about. If you define it as being "only competition, survival, and money" then that's what you'll experience it as. I think that life is also about agape, compassion, challenging yourself, educating yourself, empathy, rationality, searching for the good and the true, enjoying the company of friends and family, and finding peace within yourself (which in turn will help bring peace to the world around you). I work for major corporation, and I spend almost all of my workday cooperating with my coworkers, not plotting how I'm going to rip them to shreds. I've known someone who felt that life is purely about competition and interestingly enough he was a very "egopathic" individual. When everything in world didn't go his way, at best he would sulk and carry on like a child, and at worst he would be plotting revenge. So, I fail to see how telling people that life is only about survival and competition will encourage them to be any less "egopathic" than they are.
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What the fuck does "being different," mean anyway?
On one my first days at my current job, a guy came up to me and said, "I can tell by what your wearing that your different" (I had on a burgundy velvet shirt and a black pair of dress pants). Different from what? I was baffled. What exactly could he infer from my style of dress? Could he tell if I would be promoted or fired? Could he provide a detailed explanation of my philosophical and religious beliefs? Could he infer that I like Bach, Leather Strip and Patsy Cline? Could he tell what my favorite football team was? If I even liked football? NO !!!
Humans love to classify. All of us apply this everyday - in fact this ability is considered to be a hallmark of our intellect. So, we classify everyone we meet into little groups. He's a jock; therefore he must be an asshole. She dresses in black; therefore she must be evil. LIGHTEN UP !!! Black is a color, football is a sport, and you really can't tell that much about a person from either one. If you want to really know a person you have to interact with them, and see what their attitudes and their actions really are. THEN, I suppose you have the right to judge them as asshole if you want - that is, if you aren't doing the same crap.
If you truly embrace individuality (which nonconformists supposedly do) then you have to judge people as individuals, not as "jocks", "preps", or whatever. You also can't assume that just because someone wears the same clothes you do that they are cool. I've met some fellow freaks in my lifetime that were evil, power hungry, manipulative bitches. Humans are not like manufactured food (not until the aliens come, anyway) - the box gives no clue as to what's inside.
On the flip side, just because someone is a Goth it shouldn't mean they have to "pay the price of being a rebel". Mainstream culture in this country has been scared of all kinds of things - African Americans, Catholics, homosexuals, anyone who is not a Christian, etc. Just because the "silent majority" is scared of something new or foreign doesn't give them carte blanche to terrorize those who are different. Anyone who knows anything about Goth knows that it's mostly about aesthetics. Why the hell should anyone be persecuted for his or her personal aesthetic tastes? This type of persecution reeks of fascism, not democracy. The viciousness of the harassment going on in our public schools should be a deep source of shame for America, a country which portrays itself on the world stage a being a haven of diversity, tolerance and freedom. We as a country love to brag about our freedoms, but rarely talk about any responsibilities that might come hand in hand with them. We have a responsibility as a nation to not torment individuals who are "different" - individuals who blatantly exercise their freedoms. You may not like orange hair, writing code, or listening to Marilyn Manson. That's fine. Don't do them. Someone else who does these things is not your problem to solve, and if you make any loud obnoxious pronouncements to assert their inferiority it ultimately says much more about you than them.
Life is about whatever you want it to be about. If you define it as being "only competition, survival, and money" then that's what you'll experience it as. I think that life is also about agape, compassion, challenging yourself, educating yourself, empathy, rationality, searching for the good and the true, enjoying the company of friends and family, and finding peace within yourself (which in turn will help bring peace to the world around you). I work for major corporation, and I spend almost all of my workday cooperating with my coworkers, not plotting how I'm going to rip them to shreds. I've known someone who felt that life is purely about competition and interestingly enough he was a very "egopathic" individual. When everything in world didn't go his way, at best he would sulk and carry on like a child, and at worst he would be plotting revenge. So, I fail to see how telling people that life is only about survival and competition will encourage them to be any less "egopathic" than they are.