Hailing non-conformists everywhere

I was having dinner with a friend of mine and it struck me how the people I'm close to, get along with and generally find engaging and pleasant to be around have so much in common. They don't conform to things just because it's popular or traditional or 'path of least resistance'. Reality wasn't working in it's present incarnation and they chose to take it on. Flip the table. Fight back.

That's not an easy process and certainly one of the more lonely paths a person can take, I think: you break away from the herd which means you face your problems on your own and arrange a lifestyle that works for you. It's like a vegetarian leopard, for instance. It'd be easy to say 'fuck it' and eat zebra like the rest of the herd (or pack, in this case. Or is it pride?).

I'm hesitant to say I admire it (because that would be heaping praise on myself, as well) but I do appreciate it in others-very much. I can empathise with their struggles, their doubts, the stress they get from their so-called 'own kind' and the daily uncertainty they feel when they contemplate their own destiny. I mean, what is our destiny? Is it to fight, fight, fight for the rest of our lives? It can't be...can it? Is that possible? Is that even healthy? I mean, is this a fight that suits the young but, as one gets older, seems more and more like a masochism? Does this mean that it's only a matter of time before I abandon the things that I fought for and adopt a more measured view of my future (a little zebra with my vegetables, if you will)?

Perhaps. And I'm not ashamed to say that, and I'll explain why. True, I did turn 34 recently and you would be forgiven for thinking I am mellowing out in my old age but you'd also be wrong. My change of tack stems from a position of relative strength, not weakness and I'd bet my spots on it. The reason I'm more open to what I previously fought so hard to repel is actually slightly more subtle.

It's because I'm not forced to do it anymore. Nobody is forcing me to eat zebra. I'm not being mocked for having tofu zebra for Thanksgiving (yep, once Bush invades the African plains, Thanksgiving will be a holiday there too). My questioning of the paradigm is not seen as insolence or disrespect. In a sense, my reality is now closer to the way I wanted to live, than it's ever been.

And I'm more secure about it! I don't feel the overwhelming rage and loneliness and depression that I felt as recently as my twenties. I don't react to the baiters and the taunters and the haters and the mockers in any meaningful way. I mean, it helps that their voices have been drowned out as well, by other more positive sounds, but I like to imagine that even if I was subjected to a clear taunt, it wouldn't dent my views on the world, my outlook, my bonds with people I like. I'm content with who I am and how I view the world. I may not be good at a lot of it (women, remain an enduring mystery) but I'm happy with my view and for the first time in ages, I'm nursing a brand new feeling, warm and comforting.

Optimism. Guarded, true, but it's there.

I'm amazed, by that. If I had known at 16 that all the shit I'd go through was going to be reduced to it's snivelling, ingratiating, pathetic size, I would have believed my own hype a little bit better. Which, in other words, would have meant I'd have believed in myself better, which I never whole-heartedly did. My defiance was always a 'I know I'm going to fail but if I'm going to fail, I'm going to go down swinging). I only regret not believing in myself because that would have helped me,as I got older. I still don't really know how to believe in myself. Not in a natural way.

But maybe there's time for that...