: friday@cybercom.net (Irreverend Friday Jones) wrote:
: >DAVID LYNCH IS AN OPTIMIST
:
: >He portrays in his films a small-town America in which under the surface
: >of normality brews perversity, corruption, malice and destruction.
: >The real truth is for more hideous - under the surface of normality is
: >more normality. And more. And more. Normal people don't have secret
: >dreams because they DON'T DREAM. Their minds really ARE as empty as their
: >lives! They would literally rather die than step outside their tiny
: >shells - and if they are forced out, they will scurry right back in, like
: >a fox raised in captivity, crawling back into its hutch after it is freed.
: >And the saddest thing? Find the "weirdos", the "far-out" people - and 90
: >percent of them will be completely normal, doing this one "weird" thing on
: >their day off from WORK so that they'll feel like they're with the "in"
: >crowd. Their vague feeling of difference is just that - a feeling. They
: >really are just normals who want a taste of the wild side, but would spit
: >out a heaping mouthful of it if it was offered to them with a golden
: >spoon!
: >Of the people remaining, 90% will give up the weird life if it starts to
: >IMPACT on their "normal" life in any way. If their boss spots them
: >walking into Mistress Lina's House of Leather, they'll never go back there
: >again and cringe under their bosses' sarcastic hints for the rest of their
: >lives. Or something will happen - they'll get a spot of cancer, or lose
: >their house - and they'll immediately revert to normalacy, as if being an
: >average person will somehow protect them from harm.
TARLA STAR replied:
: I absolutely agree with this statement...including the the analysis of
: Lynch (which is correct). I'm coming to discover that almost EVERYONE
: thinks they're different...wants to BE different. In fact, you have
: every damned tv show and Disney film telling you it's OKAY to be
: different. Different is special.
:
: I've sat here reading for well over a year now and have yet to see a
: single idea that I haven't seen or heard before. There's nothing new
: under the sun, and no one is really different. They just claim that
: they want to be.
:
: Is the point of living the weird life, just to be weird? Is the point
: just to make the boss cringe, scare the co-worker, SHOCK people? What
: the fuck's up with that? What good does it do?
:
: It's not that people would rather die than step outside of a shell,
: it's that we get into habits that seem to work for us. Even the guy
: with the ballgag and bag o' rocks hanging from his dick is working out
: of habit.
:
: I'm so sick of the "different" mantra. I'm thinking of moving to
: China, but it's probably too late. Everyone probably wants to break
: the mould, or be different there, too.
:
: Nowadays, the after school specials tell you how important it is to
: follow your own drummer, that it's okay to be the weirdo, the freak,
: the girl/boy that stands out from the crowd. In truth, they're just
: continuing to feed us the same meme they've fed us since just before
: the turn of the century. Workers don't like to be told that they're
: all the same, at least, human workers don't seem to. So we fool them
: into thinking that they're thinking for themselves, but in fact, they
: cannot think of anything that they are not told to think about. They
: have dreams. We all have dreams. It's simply that the dreams are all
: the same and none of us dares to admit it. I feel your pain, I dream
: your dreams, I think the same thoughts as you do. We are all just
: human animals after all, no matter how much we bark and pant and try
: to tell ourselves we're "different."
:
: I'm tired of being different. Everyone's different. I want to find
: one perfect person and act just like them...forever.
:
: Tarla
: to sleep, perchance
: to dream
From: ljduchez@en.com (Lou Duchez)
If I may put yet another spin on this all ...
There is lip service aplenty to differentness, and the little morality
plays the Con gives us always work out with happy endings. Little Johnny
is exactly like every other kid except that he collects Matchbox instead
of Hot Wheels, and by the end of it all the other kids LOOK UP to him for
it and want to be his pal. Of course, these little dramas completely
neglect to point out that being different will likely mean hardship to
some degree, and you have to ask yourself how much you're willing to
compromise yourself. Because being different is NOT the same as being
one's self, nor is being a clone the same as being one's self.
With that said ... I submit that most people give up being different
altogether (just like Friday said) and give up being themselves, and
strive for a simpler goal. Most people go for finding themselves in more
and more exclusive subsets of their own little corner of the Con. Each
subset is denoted by certain behaviors, and to form a nested subset, all
you have to do it put a different twist on one behavior or another. I
always think of a commercial they used to show about how people who
follow their own path buy suchandsuch product, and their example of a
"unique individual" was a girl wearing a prom dress with high tops.
Recombine two Con-particles and BAM! you're different.
Thus "different", you will either be admired or shunned, depending on
which dupe you talk to. If you are admired, you will be "hip" (as per
Tarla's definition of fitting in and then leading) and people will want to
join your new subset. If you are shunned, you will probably go back to
standard bovinity until you get another "new idea". In neither case will
you really get anywhere with this nonsense, but that's why they push this
particular game (as you said, Tarla).
This cycle tends to perpetuate itself until ya realize how stupid it is.
Most folks start out needing to belong to some tribe or other (why do you
think people will wear garments with professional logos? It's branding
them as part of a tribe), then jockeying for positions within their tribe
and forming more exclusive tribes, and will stop only when they realize
at some level what a wasted effort it is. I submit that most of us are
at this point.
I will also dare to submit that there are more people out there who are
at this point than we typically care to consider. But most of them are
unobtrusive -- why would they care to obtrude, it's not like they're
trying to impress anyone -- and the loudest voices we hear are those that
are trying to draw people into their individual tribe. Of course, you
know what they say about people who have found their own way and don't
care to play the primate game? "He's introverted. He's withdrawn. He's
antisocial. He's not a team player." Shame, SHAME on the person who
finds a path that works and refuses to be different in the approved ways!
Tarla, you may not have encountered a new thought on alt.slack, but I
know there's one I did: that primate hierarchies describe nearly every
aspect of the Con. (Thanks for the tips, Dyna!) The need to be
"different" is no different.
Me, I'll take my lumps for trying to be the best Lou I know how to be.
It's meant an absence of friends and sex and riches for most of my life,
to say nothing of occasionally being accused of heinous crimes on the
basis of the most passing of resemblances ... well hell's bells, it may
have been a shitty life, but by damn it's MY life!
And somehow, that makes it worthwhile.
Original file name: David_Lynch,_Optimist
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