About Viewpoints

Post 118:

            Why do people say and do the things they do? A thinking man or woman could spend the rest of their life on that one. Some do. You don’t have to be a grand philosopher or have thirty diplomas on the wall to ponder this puppy. All it takes is a little looking around and a little head out of your butt.

            It’s that question that does a dance in your brain when you hear or see something new or weird from another person: “Where did that come from?”

            Where indeed.

            The older I get, the less I get it. Are we all kind of the same? Are we really freaking unique? There’s terabytes of data supporting either claim, if you ask me.

            Writers and teachers tell us that we’re tribal beings. It’s one of those facts that gets swatted around, kind of a go-to answer. Hey, we tend to get behind sports teams, the city we live in, the political party we like. Herd mentality. Sure. It doesn’t take a guy with a doctorate to tell me I like the Texas Rangers because I’m from Texas.

            I’m more convinced that we’re all wildly different, the more I think about it. Immeasurably. That’s why we tend to hang in flocks for the big game or get together to cheer on our guy that’s running for the thing. This has probably been said a billion times by people smarter than me, but we’re tribal because we’re not.

            Doing a lot of writing and reading has led me to this thought. Every time I read a story it’s like discovering a whole new species. How did they think of that? Why didn’t I think of that? It’s freaking cool. It’s why characters in stories and movies are so dear to us: they’re so not us. Their creators are so not us.

            I’m lost in thought as usual, but I don’t want this to get muddled. All I mean to say is that it’s good that we’re all such freaks; if not, life would be really boring.

            Okay. That’s it. I’m just going to add an addendum to this. I’m obviously a big fan of diversity, but when a group of people start chanting about it in unison, there’s obviously nobody around with an irony ruler. Yeah. It’s complicated. That’s what makes it fun.

            See you after.