scyllacat | In which I turn into an American.

November 2024

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I get to stare at the dull beige walls of my apartment, and the ceiling is the same color. I've given up thinking I'm going to turn it into my cozy little nook, and so I stare out the window into the wide world of the lovely computer. I have watched too much network programming. Robert Sean Leonard, Tim Roth, and Emily Deschanel interest me more than I do. And someone picks out their clothes for them. I'm wearing too much black again.

It reminds me of other, worse slumps (I still have my dear

heofmanynames, and friends too numerous to name), when I marveled at the "brave new world." I've continued to demand that my life be nicer, richer, more entertaining, sexier than most people do. No wonder we sell so much beer and television, if this is what the proles have to do. What are all you people DOING out there? Why don't you off yourselves in droves? OMFG.

My own voyeurism nauseates me. I should have a much cooler life. I can't afford that. If I am turned off by voyeurism, I'll drive off my audience.

Or maybe it's just middle age. Or lack of sleep.

Really. Why aren't you a sheep? There's like 200 of you just on my flists. I know none of you think you are a lobotomized, sedated sheep. Why not? Indulge me.

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There is something ironic about asking a group of your friends to define why they are more exciting than other people, really.

If you say so, bb. Sometimes we forget.

i don't know that i'm not. every path that i've travelled has been travelled before. i'm actually okay with that-- it's an old, old universe.

This.

Also, it's all new to me, and that's sort of the window I view things from. So it's all good.

Likewise, you are my most darling uniqueness. I know you're not sheep. Today, I forgot why. I forgot where they put normal.

I think that's a very interesting take on it. I certainly think that you're pretty different.

I am not a sheep because I am unafraid of the sound of rustling plaid.

knowing how well you sew, I'm sure you CAN hear plaid, but I'm afraid I'm underqualified.

There is no duality, so I manage to be sheeplike and nonsheeplike at the same time. I am a genius, an artist, a martial artist, an informal student of history, archaeology and anthropology and folklore, an underemployed DoD brat desperate for work, a traveller, a mystic/bullshit artist, and a roleplaying gamer. I have opinions on everything from my own depression to ecology. That said, sometimes being sheeple and living vicariously is the only thing that's emotionally or fiscally feasible. Less and less is fiscally feasible these days after all. And sometimes, let's face it, I've survived years and years of being trained to be a sheep, so it's got this atmosphere of the comfortingly familiar.

Yeah, like that. I see you get me, there. Thanks for answering.

Should I be a sheep? ^_^

Not so much whether you should as how you define the difference.

*Shrug*
I'm weird enough that fitting in takes work.
So how well I fit in is dependent on how much I'm interested in doing so?
I'd likely not be a wolf in sheep's clothing...
But a coyote? Maybe. ;)

I strike my own path, if not a unique one, enough to be considered weird by most people. Not dangerously so, but weird. I entertain myself and those around me. That seems good enough to me. Better to bring a laugh than a tear.

Laughter is a terrific reason. +3.

I am not a sheep, but mostly because while I can see the "right" path, and the standard way, and I'd be more than capable of doing it, the "ah, fuck it" instinct always kicks in. Sheeple tend to make my skin crawly and I start checking for tell-tale Cylon giveaways.

So, for you, the path of least resistance isn't? I kinda get that.

i don't off myself because my financee needs me. should that ever cease being the case, i will cease as well.

That's rather bleak, but I suppose it was a bleak question.

I'm not sure I fully understand the question.

I do know that constantly measuring the distance between Where You Are Now and Where You Expected To Be By Now is a sure recipe for utter misery. So I've stopped doing it. Instead I just pay attention to what I have in front of me and I discover that it's pretty damn cool on its own.

If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. --Rainer Maria Rilke

You have always been one of my 'thinking friends' who Ponders Things, and I like that. I'm usually thinking things myself (things very much like what you said here), but this day, thinking would not cut through it. Also usually what is in front of me IS cool enough, but this apartment has been sucking out all of my desire to look at what is in front of me. I will be very glad when it is over, because I don't have much energy left when I'm done fighting it. :(

Edited Date: 2009-05-02 05:47 pm (UTC)

I was brought up a sheep.

Went to four day long indoctrination conventions entitled with such sheep mindset inducing names as: Guard Against Independent Thinking

I was never very good at that guarding thing.

I remember deliberately trying to make myself that. It was incredibly bad for me.

I'm glad you're out here being sassy. :)

I'm not a sheep because that means trusting others to know what's best for me. When I see the complete fucked-up messes those others make of their own lives, I just can't shake the feeling that I can do better and that if I fuck things up, at least it will be my own fuck-up.

Yes, the feeling that what's best for me (live within my means, be on my own, take care of myself, accept what's available) is somehow unfair and wrong is pissing me off, because I hate to think of most of us living lives of this kind of quiet desperation.

On the other hand, are we reinventing the wheel and traveling no further and no faster if we kick against it?

I prefer to think that we develop a sense of discernment that allows us to learn from other people's successes and failures, and choose to incorporate what is useful while remaining ourselves.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. There, happy?

I'm working on it, bb. Was my rant not amusing for you today?

I am not a sheep because sheep beat me up for being just a little too grey. And so I said "the hell with this" and became a goat, or a llama, or something. Either way, stubborn and prone to trouble.

Interesting story: In kindergarten the leader for the day would get to pick how we would move from one room to another. One day the leader decided we would be Smurfs. I didn't watch Smurfs, and so I had no idea how to be one. I threw a fit, and refused to do it. So my teacher let me and one other girl pick who we would be. I picked "sheep". Ironic no?

Around puberty, I tried to dye myself a bland color and be one of the sheep. I tried to be the good daughter/granddaughter/classmate, and not question the world around me. It didn't work. My brain just couldn't accept it all without question. It nearly killed me to try to so hard when my brain and spirit knew there was more to life.

I remember going through this. It was very freeing. This post was inspired (if you can call it that) by the feeling that after accelerating away from the sheep, I'd suddenly found myself in a ditch with a turned ankle and all I could do was bleat.

I could dye my hair again. That might help.

don't look at me...I wear a Kilt...as for being a Sheep...I can give you the GPS co-ords for the 19 instances I broke the 6th Commandment...

Wow. Um, not necessary, darlin'.

Not a sheep because my real successes in life have been the result of following ME - not someone/anyone else. Great partner - lousy sidekick.

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