This post isn't about the Wild West but that's the best I could do for a pictorial theme to match my subject. What I'm really writing about is my re-action to a heartfelt video that a girl put up on YouTube. She won't allow her video to be embedded, so all I can do is put up the YouTube link and request that you come back here after you've seen it. Go ahead, take a look at it, and I'll see you back here in a few minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbDiE-Urg34&feature=related
Have you seen it? Then you know that this is a film where a girl spills her guts out about not fitting in. You can see why. She's minimally educated, probably had trouble in school because she refused to submit to authority, has few friends, and no marketable skills. She tells us that she's also kind to animals and has memorized most of the dialogue from The Lord of the Rings films. Oh, and she's overweight, but not really fat.
She and I don't have much in common but I have to say that I was moved by what she said on the video. She's the kind of person who would have thrived on the frontier 150 years ago. Independent types weren't uncommon then, when character was valued more than education. She'd have had skills aplenty as most frontier people did, and with all that work to do she probably wouldn't have had a weight problem. She'd have had a decent husband and family, land of her own, and the respect of her peers. Her love of stories and her ability to memorize them and act them out might have made her a local celebrity. That's IF she had lived on the frontier in 1858.
Unfortunately for her she lives in modern times, probably in a big city. Her, and an enormous number of people like her, have been labeled misfits and tossed out into the street. There's just no place for independents like her in modern society. Our beehive society values team players and people who don't mind knuckling under to authority and even bureaucracy. It seems like every era favors one kind of person and penalizes another.
Me, I'm probably best suited to modern urban living...I'm interested in animation where co-operation with other people is a necessity, and besides, I like the stimulation provided by modern life... but it really bothers me that my society alienates so many of its own citizens just for being themselves, for being the kind of gritty, feisty people who made civilization possible in the first place. My guess is that at least 25% of all able-bodied, mentally healthy Americans just aren't cut out for college, ticket-punching, bureaucracy and all that. They want adventure and romance in their lives, meaningful work, dignity and independence. That seems reasonable to me. My question is, why don't we give it to them?
Well, we were bound to run out of frontier land, but there's other things we can do. We should make it easier to start and maintain a business...if you want to paint "Taxi" on the side of your car and ferry people around, no one should stop you. Maybe education needs to be adjusted for some people so misfit types can do it later in life when youthful rebellion is out of their systems. Let's try to think of ways that would make society more congenial for its worthy misfits.
You are a brilliant man, Mr. Fitzgerald. You take into consideration things that most people would just go off and forget. I think this is one of the best posts you've done.
ReplyDeleteNice post!
ReplyDeleteMaybe we do have a frontier to go to but it's under the sea? Or maybe, once we hop off the Earth, all those frontier seekers can blaze a trail on a completely different planet!
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ReplyDeleteHer case reminds me of a story in a book titled The Way They Learn by education consultant Cynthia Ulrich Tobias. In it, Tobias describes how a group of lackluster nursing students were turned around when they were reminded the purpose of their education: people. Instructors were instructed to constantly remind the class their purpose. Doing so made the sacrifice of LONG hours more bearable and the students did well.
ReplyDeletePerhaps if her teachers did something similar to her and her class things would be different. maybe.
This modern day and age is turning into George Orwell's 1984! Who'd have thought that a book written in 1949 could be so close to the way things have moved. It's a case of Conform or get out. What happened to live and let live. You can't even chance walking across a busy street these days without chancing a law suit.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is, I'm only 40 years young from the UK and the world is turning into a a conrol zone.
I love reading your blog and your thoughts and opinions. Keep up the good work
Cool post, Eddie! I've been thinking about this subject but mainly regarding our own redundancy as males. That is, apart from piano-moving, there isn't a social role for which men are specifically needed except for competition with other males. This very argument has been used to justify the existence of lawyers, so you see my problem.
ReplyDeleteThere's no "outside" to civilisation.
Civilisation has no frontiers any more. Once we were enclosed & threatened by wilderness. Now we have made little preserves of wilderness so it doesn't die off completely; little pockets enclosed & threatened by human habitation.
We still have frontiers in the original military sense of the term. We still struggle for access to natural resources & control of territory but we do so as soldiers of the armed forces. It's still an adventure, but it's in the service sector. The indispensible values are not wildness or individuality, but trainability & obedience to the chain of command. The pioneers are members of a tax-funded corporation & go home to the old country when their contract is up.
I saw this about nine o' clock this morning and had to think about my response all day.
ReplyDelete1.)How did you find or come upon this video posting? I looked at her other postings, discovered she's from slums of Oahu, Hawaii and has a private MySpace page.
2.)Ideally, under your definition, Eddie, our YouTube blogger would probably be comfortable in a setting similar to Renee Zellweger's character in the the film Cold Mountain.
3.)Misfits - especially frustrated creative misfits - very few are actually cast aside or hidden from society, especially in this media saturated culture. There are more outlets than ever before for such misfits to express, demonstrate, assert their individuality. Yet, there is this myth, this romance of the outsider, the person at loggerheads with authority, that's celebrated, memorialized, then packaged and sold as consumer goods by this culture, and it's confusing as heck to those people who aren't misfits but want to identify themselves as misfits, outcasts, pioneers, when in reality, they are individuals who need some serious help - I'd call them lost souls. Fortunately, there are tools and facilities for helping these people, as long as they actually help these people heal, while retaining their sense of unique self and individuality and are not institutionalized bastions of soul crushing cookie cutter conformity.
There is no way in heck I am attempting to label our YouTube blogger as a lost soul, rebel, misfit, or someone who needs help,etcetera, because there is nothing like personal interaction when and where you meet a person, get to know them, get a feeling about them, often in a matter of seconds nor have I invested an amount of satisfactory personal time, so I don't feel comfortable making what would amount to a snap decision about a stranger.
All the same, I'll check out the rest of her videos and possibly friend her through MySpace.
The internet, it can be a wondrous and beautiful tool for uniting us all together.
I love her eyes.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, the internet has given everybody a voice if not yet power. I hope the people can keep control of it.
1.)Otherworldly captivating orbs that do speak centuries, yes, Aaron, they are something to behold.
ReplyDelete2.)On a different note, Eddie, I thought you would be interested in this travelogue to Mongolia by a couple of independent young globe trekkers. There's a new chapter posted everyday with slideshow pictures.
I don't see her as a misfit, per say, rather somebody who says they don't want any attention, but wants it at the same time.... with kind of a crappy attitude.
ReplyDeleteespecially after looking at a few more of her videos.
Would she have been a good pioneer? I don't know. What if, back then, she had "a problem" with people depending on her to pull her share of the work?
But I do like your thoughts on the pioneer-spirit people and modern society... I think they are out there, I just don't this girl would have lived very long under those harsh conditions.
This is a subject that's very near and dear to my heart, as I always felt like a misfit as a boy, and also because I work on a grocery night crew.
ReplyDeleteI'll let my thoughts ferment on this awhile before I write them out.
I finally got the YouTube girl to load.
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered where I would move if I didn't live in SoCal. The only First-World locale that would be an improvement is Hawaii. If you already live there, any place else must seem like a hardship. Being a tropical paradise real estate gets scarcer & scarcer. There's also a thousand-year tradition of easy living that makes the locals all but unemployable. As long as you have enough beach access, what else is there to aspire to?
I think a lot of creative misfits become tattoo artists, because it pays well, and has a broad market.
ReplyDeleteNot enough animation production to keep them fed.
Khaki: Thanks for the tip! I'll look out for it!
ReplyDeletePappy: Interesting comment. There's a new book called "Save the Males" which I'm dying to take a look at.
Last, Oppo, Anon: There's some validity in what you say, but I'll usually give people the benefit of the doubt when they describe their own state of mind.
Last: Wow! It's amazing that writing of that quality is given away free.
Interesting post, Eddie. These posts make you think.
ReplyDeleteIn particular that of this Russian painter below.
I had this question, though: isi there an anomaly centralized in your town that makes it seem like the edge of the universe (i.e. a Starbucks across from another Starbucks)? Mine's right here:
http://paroxykavenger.blogspot.com/2008/09/heh-chestnuts.html
The anomaly of two children who ride their bikes to a school a block away from them only to have them picked up by their mom at said school, a true waste of time.
There's also the fact that many places in my town have gas stations across from each other, and the fact that people who walk into a Dairy Queen never seem to come out for hours.
Eddie replies:Last: Wow! It's amazing that writing of that quality is given away free.
ReplyDeleteOH NO! You don't click on the ad banners?
You make me think again!,you said:"It seems like every era favors one kind of person and penalizes another".An era reflects a certain social environment so I can deduce this same unjust situation happens also between different countries,regions etc.
ReplyDeleteThanks por your post
Hey Eddie! I finally posted all of Milt Gross Funnies #1 on my blog! Lookit!
ReplyDeleteIf you ever do a Gross-related post, feel free to use some scans.