The road less cycled

Some clever wag once commented that we’re all unique, just like everybody else, or something to that effect. Together with planning to be spontaneous tomorrow, it’s one of my favorite oxymorons, because it captures the internal dilemma that so many of us grapple with. Nobody, but nobody, wants to “fit in with the crowd,” or to “be mainstream.” Nobody will happily admit that they’re pretty mainstream, that they just go with the flow and do what most other people do, and like what most other people like. The phrase “I just don’t do mainstream” is almost ubiquitous.

In ‘05 I worked a blueberry field in Matsqui, where I had this conversation with a woman who was just pickin’ for kicks, saving some pocket money and spending time with her daughters. I posited that I’d sort of come to the conclusion that if most people seemed to be doing something, it probably wasn’t the right thing to be doing. She agreed, saying it was the exact conclusion she’d come to. The next step in that line of thought however, has to be, what if most people are studiously avoiding what what most people are doing?  Is it then time to avoid mass avoidance and fall back into line with the masses? Now we’re well into the realm of circular thinking, of self-destructive logic.

The reason being, that the scale of acceptance of a school of thought or phenomena shouldn’t by itself be the litmus test of its worthiness. We all have to make our own judgement calls on every particular issue; sometimes this might put us squarely in line with the majority, other times it might put us on a collision course with a juggernaut. This is when things get interesting, and you check the displacement value of whatever you’re driving. (for the uninitiated, this is what passes as dry 2:35 a.m. humor.)

Of course, the line between being “mainstream” and being “unique” is extremely broad. You only have to read the book, “Stuff White People Like” to understand this. In fact, the range of lifestyles, hobbies, and careers that are available to us in today’s day and age is mind-boggling, and so broad as to make us all unique almost simply as a product of living in the society that we do. We are all drawn to particular aspects of our culture for various reasons; some people have an affinity for puttering around with clubs trying to stick little white dimpled balls into holes in the ground, some get together in groups and try to simplistically emulate popular numbers with simplified guitars, which is basically an admittance that we’re too lame to actually learn to play a guitar and instead are content with knowing this is as close as we will ever get. Some people like to take up a cause and try to arrest the momentum of something they are certain is Bad so that something Good can take its place. Point being, we all have the little things upon which we balance our Individuality. In keeping with the ubiquitous quest to be “random” and “spontaneous,” people especially prize being able to claim as a hobby something that apparently has no basis in the realm of practicality and is by all appearances completely unproductive, and of course, random. If there’s one thing that can be said about the segment of society with which I am familiar, it’s that above almost all else, we prize anything and everything “random.”

Well, there are other things that unite us of course, things that run as common threads through many of us, and, yes, make us “mainstream.” One of these, nearly to a man (and woman, geez, the expression was written before feminism ok?), we’re extravagant consumers. When we shop at Tim Horton’s, Starbucks, Staples, Ikea, Walmart, buy Apple computers or use Windows operating systems, buy a daily coffee because we “need” that to kickstart our day, uber-obsess over appearances, look for a “good” “job” (which I’ve heard defined two ways – “just over broke, and jackass of boss), these things make us mainstream because we all do them. This doesn’t necessarily make them bad, it just makes that highly likely. I mean seriously, try to defend any of those lifestyle practices to me from a social consciousness perspective. I ain’t all holier than thou either. I do all that too, fairly regularly actually. And so, I forego my claim to the realm of “uniqueness.”

Where all this is going, is to pave the way for me to say that, “there are a million things I could do with this life; just none of them have appealed to me so far.” There. I just quoted myself, on something I just put into writing now for the first time. Somehow that seems appropriate, I think because I’ve been turning that phrase over in my head for so long that I feel like it’s not even original anymore.

I could study geography and go on to revolutionize the community planning process with my brilliant ideological reforms to the way we plan stuff right now; right, that would go over well. I could take out a mortgage, as most of my visioning episodes for the future do seem to involve a peaceful domestic life, but they do call it a “mort-gage” for a reason. I could take up the bottle and drink and party myself into oblivion, interspersed of course with unpleasant episodes of reality. I could study the political process and try my damnedest to effect the change I want to see through political avenues. I could barnacle onto one of my dad’s businesses and maybe eventually run the show. I could study the heck out of investing, smart tax strategy, and financial policy to try and play it smart by raking in enough cash to live on without actually hardly working. I could learn a trade or two and be a hard workin’ Joe earning my living through hand-labor. I could be a transient farmer, helping out on organic farms round the world. I could devote myself to music/arts and see if I don’t have some untapped potential in that area. I could “be a writer, laddie buck” and try to turn words into dollars, work from home, and hopefully do some travelling along the way. I could be a career student as well….

For the time being, I’ll not be doing too much of that, particularly not the exotic stuff. I can’t, you see, for reasons that I can’t go into except to say they’re not financial – not primarily, at any rate.

No, I’ll be sitting tight here in the Valley for a bit, biding my time and…..being unconventional.

As usual.

Unlike everyone.

This little Doug. Fir sprang up in some disturbed soil in the field next to my house. It’s likely that it was seeded by the larger Douglas Fir next to our driveway, that a Red-breasted Sapsucker drilled full of holes this winter. It’s also likely that this area will be developed, so when I move, this little guy comes with me.