life as understood

It's not because I want to look smarter, though many have said that I do. In fact, I think it does just the opposite. It's called giant papillary conjunctivitis, which is a fancy way of saying that for the past five years, I haven't changed out my contacts frequently enough. The "giant" refers to the papillary, by the way. Not the conjunctivitis. Anyway, I wear some glasses for two weeks and take some drops and then I'm fine, especially fine considering I've saved hundreds of dollars by not changing my contacts very frequently. A small price to pay.

I bring this up simply because I've always been concerned about how I look--more concerned than I care to admit, in fact. It's not so much as how I look physically, though, as how I'm perceived by others. I constantly wonder what categories I fall into in other peoples' perceptions. We all profile others to some degree, which practice has its uses, but sometimes I fear the effects.

Just tonight, I ran into Marla, an old friend, at the grocery store, and this subject was called into my mind once more. She and I used to share long discussions on the topic of personal stereotyping and how people consciously choose to categorize themselves and others. She mentioned tonight about how tired she is of people liking "indie" bands, movies, etc. just for appearances--a sentiment I've always shared. The thing is, Marla, like me, is a great appreciator of a fair amount of indie-type things. She just loathes being pigeonholed, stereotyped, and confused with those, well, posers.

My own personal history with stereotype paranoia is rich, much of it having been inherited from my dad. For as long as I can remember, he's been on a crusade to make people around him think. His role as persistent devil's advocate is one that frustrated me at times growing up, but in hindsight has taught me a great deal. There are no stock characters in life, and there's always a minority report, so to speak. If I spoke up in fervent support of a cause, he'd attack. If I attacked, he'd defend. It was never malevolent, and it was never to make me change my mind--only to ensure that I was, in fact, using it.

It's a lesson that has sunk deep. Easy-on labels for people (granola, victim, hero, Republican) undermine the complexity that individuals inherently possess, and what's worse, they cause us to shop around for labels to affix on ourselves. Then we start making decisions such as "I can't like Rocky IV because I'm supposed to be indie," or "I have to believe in the death penalty because I'm conservative." Worse yet is the further consolidation of labels into ready-made packages such as "indie/liberal/rebellious" and "Christian/mainstream/conservative/sheep". Choice in music somehow leads to choice in politics (as if there were only two), and soon you're so adamant about your adopted views, you can hardly see.

The thing is, even while I spurn these labels, I still find myself thinking about them, and I often fall into the terrible trap of doing just the opposite of the behavior I hate. That is to say, I make conscious decisions about myself and go out of my way in order to AVOID labels. This is just as despicable. I'm still allowing people's perceptions to guide my own decisions, rather than simply doing what I want.

In Mere Christianity, the brilliant C.S. Lewis was speaking of totalitarianism vs. individualism when he said the following, though it seems that the same could be applied to indie vs. mainstream and liberal vs. conservative, among other dichotomies:

"I feel a strong desire to tell you--and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me--which of these two errors is the worse. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs--pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one."

I like this. And whether or not you ascribe this to the devil, you have to admit it makes sense. It's why extremists are rarely right. And so this: I like Van Halen AND Radiohead. I'm opposed to abortion in most cases and the death penalty in all. And I'm wearing glasses because my giant papillaries are conjuncted, and for no other reason.

Does that answer your question?