Oddities of Human Nature (Mostly My own Nature) #1
Diversity may be one of the most important engines which drives God’s evolutionary process, but diversity is not always a short range blessing to other species, or to some members of the same species. Changes, which abound in earth’s evolutionary process can be good or bad. Some like to call the bad evil and the good divine. This seems a bit arbitrary. If diversity is needed for progress to occur in the evolutionary process, then evil vs divine (or good) is kind of a dumb characterization. Some changes are adaptive and progressive, and therefore good, some changes are self destructive and regressive and therefore disadvantageous to survival immediately or down the road for some individuals or some species.
So on a grand scale, the process is controlled by laws which have ensured progress for billions of years. That is a decent amount of time, and in fact, kind of beyond most human appreciation. Of course none of us are living any life that impacts on the grand scale of evolution. In fact any positive changes we as individuals might make to the process—-if we don’t, someone else will down the road. In other words if Lincoln had not freed the slaves, someone else in history eventually would. If we ourselves are not bigger, stronger, or faster than humans before us, someone else will be, and the general progression proceeds. Same with human societies—if our society is not more ethical with time, some other society will be, and thus the ethical nature of human societies changes too, over time. Evolution is not just a process of physical changes, but behavioral also.
Frankly though, as individuals, we are not so much concerned with life after us, as we are with our own lives, while we are alive. And since diversity prevails amongst us at every stage of our lives, we have to deal with this diversity on a daily personal level. All of us are oddities, of one sort or another, and that makes us unique. Our peculiar uniqueness makes us a good or bad fit in differing interactions with others. Marriage is kind of a search for someone with whom our uniqueness and their uniqueness is a good match. What it is in the eyes of someone else, is of course, hardly relevant. We don’t pick our friends or spouses like we might pick out a nice hat to wear. If one person is kind of plain or ugly, someone physically beautiful is not likely to accept the ugly picking them for a spouse. Therein lies the significant crux of the dilemma—we are not going to a catalog and picking out what we want, simply because there can be no marriage unless what we want, wants us. In some sense, how far down the totem pole are we willing to go and still be willing to accept someone as a spouse, is more the question for most of us. Mistakes can be made and we call these divorces. Mistakes of judgement are rarely worth all the bitter commotion characteristic of divorces. Most of the commotion is about money and things anyway.
The other day I started to reminisce about my own oddities, a rather humbling experience, and perhaps a rather idiotic revelation to put in print. Even here it is not going to be one of full disclosure other than to assure there are no hidden bodies buried anywhere by me. Everyone might do well to use their terminational years to kind of finalize their thoughts about life, and themselves, in particular. It is sort of a closure on all that we have been through, a final chapter to a unique life. Let’s be honest—we all do have a final chapter.
One of my oddities is that I kind of am intrigued by diversity and therefore even if I don’t want to be around someone a lot it means little else—he/she still interests me, but from a safe distance. It certainly doesn’t mean that I am good and they are evil, albeit ethics may be involved sometimes. It is better to say I am not compatible with some others. In fact I am am more standoffish than interactive socially. That started early enough when my parents would have company and I would go out my bedroom window and run to the neighbors. As a child, except for neighborhood pick-up activities, I never joined any organized groups for anything, and if forced to, I worked hard to weasel out. At one point my parents decided I should learn to play the clarinet, but when the parents all came in for a little concert I would go out on the stage, bite down on the reed as hard as I could, break it, and of course the result was hardly melodious. It was embarrassing to my parents and my mother knew I was doing it purposely, so to avoid any future embarrassments I was permitted to stop taking lessons. Their little runt had learned a useful trick, one of many for my enlarging trick bag.
My childhood playmates were as about as close as I ever have gotten to most other people. But even then my best ‘soul mates’ were pets—dogs, cats, a goat, a pigeon, a horse, rabbits. I early on raised chickens and sold the eggs to the neighbors but if a chicken got sick and had to be killed it upset me a lot. I just can’t stand watching animals die, especially if I have to do the killing. And so early on my oddities began to grow in number. My father and brother would hunt, but not me. They dragged me out hunting one time and chased a deer my way but then were angered when I just watched it run right by me. My brother was furious, but my dad, as usual, honored my inclinations, and declared if I didn’t want to hunt I didn’t have to. My dad seemed to draw a simple line in the sand: if I was not hurting someone else in any lasting or serious way, I could carry on being me. And me was destined not to be everyone’s cup of tea, a tad too odd too often.
The truth is, I had more than my share of oddities, some of which made life more difficult for me, but then again, oddities sometimes attract key people in situations to be protective, and thereby it often ended up being a good thing. For various reasons, a musing onto itself, I have survived oddities which others have not. One oddity stood out early on. I saw humor in most everything, even though my mother seldom saw the humor in many things that I saw as humorous. Almost all my humor, from the git-go, was short term and never destructive to property or the welfare of others. Perhaps it was a defensive measure on my part because I hated to see others mistreated, humiliated, physically hurt, or become outcasts. Yet reality painted just such a common picture. Humor is a great defense mechanism from the more sordid realities of life. If you can’t see the humor in life, the realities of life can wear you down.
Practical jokes became my specialty and probably my most notable social activity. A good practical joke is one in which the subject or subjects are being attacked on their strengths, not their weaknesses, and the result can be startling, but not something that lasts for any length of time. If someone is lame, creating a situation where they fall down is not funny. Laughing at the personal limitations of others is not funny. After all, that could be us. Bad attitudes though, are great targets for genuine humor and a good way to confront an individual with their bad or unusual attitudes via a practical joke. Unfortunately when young, we err a lot. Making fun of the ugliest girl in class, for example, is something I wish I could retract. I now support any efforts to limit bullying. Bullying doesn’t toughen any one up, it makes their life miserable and stunts their social life. It is always the bullies themselves who claim they are toughening up someone or some group.
I reckon everyone has some oddities, some a lot more than others. In one sense I think I had more oddities than typicalities. Oddities can be harmful to others like in the case of Hitler or the Boston Strangler, or to a lesser extent people like Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin who clearly detest so many others diverse from themselves. It seems people like the latter can’t be fully happy unless whatever they gain is at the expense of others who must lose and feel the pain of that loss. In others words when others are happy too, it means the self-serving lose their sense of superiority over these others. And of course everything good that the self serving have, they earned, and the others without it, failed to earn. Whatever privilege, good circumstance, or thing, the self-serving possess, they claim to have earned; while those without the same whatever simply failed to earn it. That broad generalization is often just a crock of bullshit. What is more pitiful than to listen to someone, who has inherited a lot of money, fume because some of their tax money is going to help fund something or other in a poor area of the state. One nice solution of course is to take all the money they inherited (unearned money) and spread it around to those with the greatest needs. Maybe that ugly girl could use a little cosmetic surgery. Or that kid with no father and the crack-head mother could use a nice ham sandwich.
Now that I look back, my oddities seem to exceed any normalities past the norm.
Early on I began to despise endless nonsensical gift giving. It started with an aunt and uncle who I never met but every Christmas and birthday they would send me a gift, and my mother always made me write a thank you note. I begged my mother to make them stop sending me gifts. My mother would claim they want to send you a gift and you must let them. Oh sure, I bet they just couldn’t wait to buy a gift for a kid they never met or knew anything about who didn’t even need a gift. My grandmother, though she had 7 kids, was kind of lonely after grandpa died, and to feel less lonely she had the habit of taking a family of her kids out to dinner every Sunday, each Sunday a different family. AND, she always paid the bill. One time I asked at such a dinner why grandma always paid the bill? The innocent enough question seemed to startle everyone at the table. “Well Grandma enjoys taking the families of her kids out to dinner” someone lamely replied. But innocent kids sometimes just don’t shut up. “But she paid for your dinners all the time you were growing up, shouldn’t you be paying her back?” “Eat your dinner and stop asking silly questions.” But by the time I was a teenager and had some ability to rebel, I announced one day that heretofore I was not buying family members or relatives any more gifts for any occasions and I was no longer accepting gifts on any occasion. My mother went through the roof claiming all this was necessary to show appreciation. Well, in my mind, my best friends and I never exchanged gifts at all. Just the opposite, if we bought a pizza in a restaurant and there was an odd slice it was World War III over who got the extra slice. That might take 20 minutes to battle that one out, and by the time everyone was through pulling on that extra slice it didn’t look so edible anyway. Exchanging gifts between those who don’t really need a gift, is not really a gift at all. It is more aptly labeled a pain in the ass. A gift to someone IN NEED is a gift and has a noble purpose to it. It took many years until I finally evolved, in my mind, that all my money spent past basic necessities in life should be spent this way: for every dollar for myself it should be another dollar for someone else MOST IN NEED. That way it got ethically simplified for me—others count as much as myself and the others would be those most in need. The first time anyone is at my door with a cupcake, part of a pot roast, or whatever, I firmly explain I don’t accept gifts and I don’t give gifts unless the person is in need. I suppose their feelings are hurt briefly, but I don’t believe I ever lost any friendships over this oddity of mine. There are enough other ways to lose friendships anyway—which is a whole other topic.
The impression may have been left here that I never brought my parents any gifts. Not true, if I spotted something they needed, but didn’t seem to realize it, like maybe a microwave oven when they were new, I would just buy it but it never had any relationship to holidays or occasions. And yes, when I was an adult and they were retired I always picked up the tab when we ate out. Well, not exactly, they drew the limit that sometimes they would pay the tab. At some point even I have to oblige irrationality. The one trap I could never get out of was when someone at work would collect money to buy someone at work a present, for like having an anniversary or whatever, maybe the fourth child. Even I am not going be oblivious enough to embarrassment for someone to say: “Here is a present from all of us except Reid.” You can’t win ‘em all. If all this seems crass I remind all that every dollar I spend on those who don’t need a gift is a dollar less available to those in need. Here is the ultimate: One time when my aged mother was buying dinner for everyone at a restaurant one person ordered two meals and took one home in a doggie bag. Amazing. Perhaps I will let certain people pay for dinner. And I will have 4 entrees and 3 doggie bags.
Not all personal oddities are bad. I grew up in an age when everyone bought a lot of big ticket items on credit. Not me. I only bought one item on credit in my life and that was my first new car. When I looked at how much the interest was costing me I decided then and there that big stuff would have to wait until I had the cash. People who have to have the best of everything instantly pay a price for that. And parents who think they should financially help out their grown kids to have the best and biggest of everything right away are doing a big disservice to their own kids. Hell, when we are young we can practically live out of a suitcase or a rented room in some older couple’s house, or a rented apartment etc. When I was in graduate school I lived out of a rented room in an older couple’s house and it was just fine. Today, many undergraduate colleges have dorm rooms that include kitchens, washers, dryers, and on and on. Then everyone bitches because some colleges cost tens of thousands of dollars per year. It is always a mistake to teach kids that more and more, and more better things and stuff, is a mandatory necessary and instantaneous goal in life. It is never the things we pile up which is important in life but what we do with our lives that is important. Individuals like Gandhi, Christ, Buddha, Mother Teresa, and many more had little more than some raggedy attire, and look how meaningful and rewarding a life they spent. If we don’t buy things on credit then even a modest salary will enable us to have amassed a considerable financial portfolio by retirement, given admittedly some good luck with our investments. All that glitters is not gold and what we think matters so much really doesn’t.
I don’t think we realize how many oddities we may have until we begin to list them. Maybe I take the cake. So be it. At some point in life I decided to put an end to keeping track whose time it was to pay for a meal eaten out in a restaurant. How inane and disingenuous is this practice? If both can afford to eat out then just eat out, each pay for their own meal and quit the nonsense. “Thank you for the meal”. Why are we thanking them for the meal when the next time out we will be paying for theirs? What are we thanking each other for? And why do I want to go into a restaurant, and if I decide I really want the most expensive entree, should I have to scale down my order so as not to look like a smart aleck—buying the most expensive entree on someone else’s money. Or maybe I am not that hungry or on a diet and just want a bowl of soup. If it is my turn to pay that is going to be an expensive bowl of soup. Or Why pay for the meal if we have just a glass of water and our companion downed an expensive bottle of France’s finest wine—and then we complain about it to our friends later. Also, can’t we just eliminate the 10 minutes of uncertainty trying to remember whose turn it is to pay? Look, if the person you want to go out to dinner with probably can’t afford this, then simply suggest you want them to sample the food at such and such a place with the understanding up front that you are paying and will accept no return such favor in the future. Just be honest, explain that you are lucky enough to have some extra money to trivialize on on meal out but you need company to trivialize on. Odds are this is the absolute truth, you have been lucky. Fairness alone dictates that sharing this luck with someone not so lucky is merit-able on it’s face.
I grew up in a home where anyone could stop by most anytime and were welcome. Most people I guess are happy when surprised by someone stopping by. Not me. I tend to plan out my day and interruptions are mostly not appreciated. My oddities can become intensely focused to enforcement. I learned at some point to answer the door to unexpected visitors with my hat and coat on. “How nice it is for you to stop by but I am just leaving. I wish you would have called first. I feel bad you wasted time driving over here.” Ok, I lied, I didn’t feel bad at all. If they can’t come by at a time convenient for both of us, then drive around all day for all I care.
One of the consequences of being odd in so many ways is that we tend to develop empathy with and identify with others who find themselves in situations where they don’t really fit in for one reason or another. In any gathering in which someone seems to appear out of place or being ignored, I almost always befriend them. Why not, at least when I leave I feel I had been useful in a real way to someone other than endless inane chit chat with people I chat with often. Never miss a chance to make someone else feel comfortable in a tough situation for them. There is good reason I feel that way. When one has oddities one is subject to oppression of one sort of another for the oddity or oddities. Often, the person with the oddity is defenseless and gets disciplined, fired, ridiculed, whatever for their oddity. On my first jobs, after college was over, I got fired on one job and an attempted firing on the second job. Not a good start. After that I learned to pick my bosses with more care and I never got fired again. If I had been the person who fired me on my first job I would have fired me too. Square pegs don’t fit in round holes and thus be careful under whose domain you attempt to fit into.
Most people don’t like to go a lot of places alone. Not me, if we can’t have a good time with our own company, what a tenuous situation we have created—depending on others for a good time. I often go to a restaurant alone, almost always to museums alone, to plays, to movies (I rarely go to movies, one can see them on our own TV these days), trips I almost always go alone, and so on. I once asked this gal why she won’t go to a restaurant alone and she replied that she feels everyone is staring at her. Now really, when is the last time we were in a restaurant and kept staring at someone eating alone? Who gives a rat’s ass about who I am and why I am eating alone? Sometimes I have seen people eating alone and feel sorry for them. They really aren’t alone but their eating partner spends the entire meal on their cell phone. Now that would irritate me. If I go out to eat alone it is because at the time I have a taste for a particular kind of food. If I call someone else they may have taste for a different kind of food. So who knows where it will end up or what kind of food I will end up eating? I suspect behind a lot of doing things alone is that if I invite someone and they come along, when they want to go somewhere I am then obligated to go since they went with me before. When I head out on my almost daily wanderings people sometimes volunteer to accompany me, but I always say “No you won’t. I always wander alone.” Maybe there are psychological reasons why I prefer to be alone so much, but let them lie. To get enjoyment out of doing so many things by myself is a blessing and that’s the way I see it. Actually, many things I do alone do get shared, via my musings. Some enjoy them, others pay no attention to them. Fair enough.
I have one cell phone, for emergencies only. And no one else has the number. I see idiots out in nature sometimes walking the trail talking on their cell phone. Now why would you drive someplace to walk and then talk on your cell phone? Just walk around your block or up and down the hallway while you talk on your cell phone. Actually, I really don’t like my train of thought being interrupted by someone sitting idly in an airport boarding area or someone in a store debating what brand of peas to buy, etc. When I go to museums, or on a trip I prefer to go alone. The perfect trip is when I can do things at my own pace, at the time I choose, the way I choose, for as long as I choose, and also have the space to concentrate on what I am viewing or feeling. Most experiences have more meaning to me if I am alone. Of course there are exceptions, I did use the word most.
Another personal oddity is that I seem the most contented out in nature by myself. Most nature enthusiasts are a bit more adventurous than I, they climb rock cliffs, water ski, dive around, sleep in sleeping bags, cook over camp fires, etc. They usually look like outdoors people, all muscled up, physically fit, tanned, and just outdoorsy in a lot of ways. My outdoor adventures are exclusively walking, and just day walks followed by a scrumptious meal and a sleep-number bed for the night. I don’t do power walks, just meander along deep in thought about all I see or think up some topic to work out in my mind. Not all my wanderings are in a nature setting. Many are in varied neighborhoods of a major city. Cities have a lot of interesting things, including a wide variety of people of every ilk. There are considerably more down and out, deformed, or ‘odd’ people in big cities. A lot of people tell me these kind of wanderings are not safe, but any incidents are rare. I sometimes lose my bearings in a big city and if I need directions the most thorough help is most likely to come from the most unlikely people. I once asked some some young gangster-dressed guy for directions and he was so surprised that I approached him, that he ran 3 blocks to catch up with me after he realized he sent me in the wrong direction. At night young people are the best to ask for directions. Often they tell me they are going that way and to stay with them and no one will bother me. Two young gals, one white and one blk, gave me directions to the El station, but after they got in their car they double parked by the street they told me to turn on so they could make sure I made the right turn. Many of the people so despised by right wing conservatives are just decent people dealt a lot of poor cards in life. I spend a considerable amount of time in life well aware that I have been dealt a pretty good hand from birth. Being able to be thankful sure boosts our spirits.
Clearly my oddities are so numerous that they exceed any acceptable length for a musing so I will label this Personal Oddities #1.
