I'm not gonna do that.
In fact, should you stay, I'm going to do what maybe no one else in your life is bothering to do -- not at this very moment, anyway. I'm going to square with you. Without patronizing or condemning. I'll even spare you the metaphors.
I can't presume to know you as an individual. My teenage years are now further behind me than all the years that came before. (Isn't that a scary thought?) I'm a middle-aged, middle-class mom who's often too caught up in her own sincerity to bother writing anything worth reading. And you? Well, no one can answer that question just yet. Not even you, am I right? I remember that part, at least. It was the question that kept me up at night and bled through into every action. If I didn't know who I was, society was going to have a hell of a time figuring it out. What would happen to my place in the world then? Would I even have one? With the high value our culture places on individualism, it's kinda the most important first hurdle to be conquered on the road to becoming YOU.
I broke the metaphor rule, didn't I? My apologies.
Everyone has their own means of sussing out these answers for themselves. Luckily, I was never prone to the social displays of dominance that kids so often grow to regret, when they become men and women with full identities and realize that life is about owning oneself, not controlling others. At the time, I didn't recognize any proclivity for using cultural norms as a template to be mimicked, a script to be followed, though that is certainly what was taking place, however unconsciously. Sure, I could adapt and become whomever I wished to be, but only within the confines of those social boundaries, the ones that had been laid out for me by an older, wiser, more prudish and labor-obsessed generation. I also remember how, when someone dared to defy those invisible lines, it spotlighted my already-precarious position in the world. They threatened my stability simply be being themselves. How dare they?
Ready for a really lousy comparison? The same patterns of behavior can be seen in packs of wild dogs. When one pup strays from the norm, the others will attack it, viciously, until it falls back in line. Quite often, the violence never ends. Once the instinct has been triggered, and the target marked, the mutts become relentless with tooth and claw and persecution. The Omega dog is still a part of the pack, but only barely. It is an oddity. And oddities of any sort are a threat to their very survival. In order for the pack to flourish, they rely on the hierarchy, the consistency of interaction and engagement, set and stable rules -- so they whip out the savage traits and toe the company line for the very same reason that kids bully one another today: instinctual security.
I was "picked on" a great deal as a kid. We didn't call it bullying then. As the quiet, weird girl in hand-me-downs, one of the poorest members of an already poor community, I made for a pretty easy target, if I do say so myself. But none of that matters now. In fact, it's rather difficult to recall. The incident that most stands out in my memory is of a stint on the other side of that social dynamic. It was middle school and my small circle of friends were discussing some ridiculous version of ass-kickery. The conversation somehow morphed into the idea that I was to kick another girl, a longtime friend, in the ass. They were kidding, of course. But I did it anyway. I kicked her square in the ass. Hard. It was a joke taken too far, but when she called me out on it, I wasn't big enough to admit it. I was in that transition from quiet little girl to standoffish teenager, where people were still more than willing to pick on me, but only when my back was turned. I felt like an idiot. Like Mr. Magoo falling on his face and taking the nearest person down with him. So I did what social-preserving instinct told me to do: I turned it around on her. She was asking for it. She deserved it. I wasn't so much being a bully as I was... being a bitch, on accident. She certainly wasn't sent packing as a result. Truth be told, the witnesses were all on her side, they just never admitted as much. No, she retreated, of her own accord, and I was viewed as the dominant one. Bully for me. (Different kind of bully. I still haven't gotten over the fact that I'm not British.)
This is where instinct, like that of a skunk which stops in the center of the road to spray an oncoming vehicle, totally backfires. You see, animalistic tendencies don't take all those pesky human emotions into account. Not even those of the insidious, haunting sort. And there are none more insidious than regret. Here I am, decades later, still haunted, still held hostage by one fluke moment, one stupid decision, one asinine act. It's the car. I'm the skunk. Do the math.
There I go with the metaphors again...
If I were looking for a scapegoat, it would be easy enough to blame a younger version of today's media for my knee-jerk reaction. Just as the golden generation was influenced by images of maids in black-face, my television shows were riddled with women desperate to make the on-screen transition from subservient housewife to respected individual, and they did so by being... well... bitchy. The cultural template offered for me confused strength with callousness, trading a kitchen apron for a cold shoulder and a bitter word. Still, it seems a piss poor excuse. And I had it easier than you, I think. Your media is electronic, immediate, and all-encompassing. You're getting it from every side, at every hour. Worse still, online interactions are often brief and cruel, and don't offer a proper template for social reality. Media of every kind is teeming with questions regarding the morality of homosexuality, marking it as a threat to society, a thing to be despised... the Omega dog on the outskirts of the pack. If you were to listen to even a handful of these voices, it would seem a pretty concrete "bad idea" as aberrations go, wouldn't it?
Are you listening to them?
If so, I'm going to overstep my bounds both as a blogger and as a parent to let you in on a secret about the pundits, parents, and peers who decry homosexuality as a cultural evil.
They're wrong.
Point blank. Period. They're wrong... and we're not animals. We've thrived as a species because we alone have the ability to sort through our instincts and realize that many of them are quite simply awful. Terrible flaws in logic that hold us back or, worse, lead us to sabotaging not only our lives, but the lives of those around us. When we see a car on the blacktop, we get the hell out of the way. When one wanderer beaches himself, we know better than to follow. And when a pup dares to step across what we see as the social norm, we alter our views regarding the social norm. We do it because we can. We alone. It is what makes us human.
According to the Dalai Lama, "People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road, doesn't mean they've gotten lost." Whether you realize it or not, you're on your own path right now -- or will be, sooner than you know. As is the kid in the hall, the one you don't understand, the one whose immoral actions threaten the very fabric of society. (Sarcasm, just to clarify. The sheer weight of data countering the idea that homosexuality is in any way harmful would crush an airliner.) But this was never about that, was it? Deep down, you probably don't have a moral objection to them, to their thoughts or feelings, to whom they love or whom they don't. It's about maintaining a social order wherein you can see yourself as relevant. And when the social dynamic swings the way of persecution, it may not occur to you that the strongest thing you can possibly do is to stop it, to change your mind -- or, stronger still, to change the minds of those around you. Nothing could make you more relevant, in a more lasting way, than that.
You want to know the biggest secret of them all?
You don't need a hierarchy to have a place in this world. It's here, and whole, and waiting for you as you are. Whatever mistakes you make, whatever wounds you sustain or dole out on your road to meet it, it will still be here, waiting, watching, hoping. There will be many things about it that you cannot change. And many things that you can. Sometimes, you may not know the difference. All I can say is that you owe it to yourself to try, because the kid following his or her own path deserves no less than you. And regret's a bitch.
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