Orange Socks

Well, I've reached the end of my first day of excercise sore, but with a good conscience. My comps pieces are benefiting from a bit more serious attention too - just hope I can keep it up. Right after the competitions I'm heading off to the North Shore for a five day course in Video Production at Southseas. It'll definitely give me a taste of the place, and hopefully make 'next year' decisions easier. So I'm looking forward to that, but closer to hand I'm anxiously awaiting the programme for the comps. Not to be confused with the programme class, this is the booklet that lists all times and dates for classes, and (more importantly for me) all competitors in each class. It always gives me 'the hurry up' when I see those whom I'll be up against. Fear is second only to love as a motivator. Then comes money. But of course I'm doing it all for pure artistic joy and would never even take into consideration any *coughthousanddollarcough* prize. Shame on you for thinking it.

 

I was watching a period film on Sunday which featured a cantankerous old eccentric. Then I read a book which dealt with a flamboyant young eccentric. And I fell to thinking afterwards that eccentric people are becoming more and more rare. There's no shortage of absolutely off the wall weirdos out there, but I'm not talking about that. By eccentric I suppose I mean those who are so severely individualistic as to defy, to a large extent, society's rules and expectations. Oh, I know they're still out there, even whole communities of them. But the cold fact is that they've declined in number dramaticly, certainly from the Victorian era, but even since the 30's/40's. Why? Well, there's a few things necessary for eccentrics to thrive:

1. They must live in a time of relative peace and affluence. Otherwise they change or die.

2. They must posses a strong sense of self as seperate from the society in which they live.

3. They must be able to think for themselves.

There may be other criteria that I have missed, but lets examine those three. Most of the western world (our world) is peaceful and relatively affluent. There are few catastrophic dangers forcing people to integrate with others. So #1 is irrelevant. Strong sense of self . . . well in the lowest sense I would say that #2 is true for today. I want [whatever it is] and I'm going to have it; to blazes with anyone else. Yes, I don't think we on Earth will ever be free from that. But taken in another sense, #2 can mean Yes, I'm aware everyone else says that orange socks are distasteful, but I like them. So there. This is something we're losing fast. Is it courage we're losing, or willpower to do anything that runs against the stream, or intelligence to be anything more than stupid sheep? Which brings us to #3. Is this the key factor in the demise of the grand individualists? Can people no longer be bothered to work things out on their own? To decline to take anothers word for something, but to come to their own conclusions. To figure out who they are and what they think. To refuse to bow to molds, boxes and prescriptions. Can we not be bothered? If this be the case and a cure not found soon, humanity will march cheerfully into a deep suffocating quagmire, and be swallowed up - by itself.