Continuing the Last Blog's Theme
Hey.
So I've established that I've come from a time when gender roles had been in flux and social mores weren't keeping pace with realities in society. And what am I left with? I'm left with the view that there is a gulf between my own personal reality and the pattern of roles expected to be taken by somebody of the mainstream.
Another example: Disney's EPCOT Center theme park, specifically the theater that once showed a film starring a celebrity who is even now making news. When his star fell the first time, Disney replaced him with the Muppets.
But this isn't about him...it's about the slide show that preceded his show and may still be preceding the shows there today. It was made by Kodak, and it was supposed to celebrate the life cycle of the typical American. When I saw it, it only underscored to me that in their terms, I wasn't typical.
I didn't go out for sports as a youth. (I did most of a season in PeeWee League, but my parents let me give it up after I took a hit from a line-drive while playing third base. I knew I wasn't star material.)
I never went to summer camp.
I never went to the circus or the zoo as a child. I went to county fairs a few times, but don't have any photos of those occasions.
I never went to a prom or fancy dance.
I never had a graduation ceremony (I flunked high school and got my college diploma from a two-year school that didn't require that level of formality).
As said previously, I never dated. Anything after that point in the life cycle provided by Kodak is irrelevant.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, tho'. Was I subconsciously breeding myself to be unhappy, or was my unhappiness something more fundamental--about both myself and my world's expectations for the kind to which I was supposed to belong? Either way, how could I fail to make myself unhappy when what I thought I wanted to be, and what I thought the world wanted me to be, were meant to be different things?
Those of you who are surfing the LiveJournal multitude looking for the hottest, coolest, most minkable links on the planet and found yourself watching me whine--all of you--I apologize. But those of you who have piles of Kodak Moments in your past and know it--you deserve this treatment from me. Because along with me, there are billions around the world who lack what you've got, and might think me a prince of the age for my consolation prize of a life.
Unfortunately for everybody concerned, there is more to come.
FP
So I've established that I've come from a time when gender roles had been in flux and social mores weren't keeping pace with realities in society. And what am I left with? I'm left with the view that there is a gulf between my own personal reality and the pattern of roles expected to be taken by somebody of the mainstream.
Another example: Disney's EPCOT Center theme park, specifically the theater that once showed a film starring a celebrity who is even now making news. When his star fell the first time, Disney replaced him with the Muppets.
But this isn't about him...it's about the slide show that preceded his show and may still be preceding the shows there today. It was made by Kodak, and it was supposed to celebrate the life cycle of the typical American. When I saw it, it only underscored to me that in their terms, I wasn't typical.
I didn't go out for sports as a youth. (I did most of a season in PeeWee League, but my parents let me give it up after I took a hit from a line-drive while playing third base. I knew I wasn't star material.)
I never went to summer camp.
I never went to the circus or the zoo as a child. I went to county fairs a few times, but don't have any photos of those occasions.
I never went to a prom or fancy dance.
I never had a graduation ceremony (I flunked high school and got my college diploma from a two-year school that didn't require that level of formality).
As said previously, I never dated. Anything after that point in the life cycle provided by Kodak is irrelevant.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, tho'. Was I subconsciously breeding myself to be unhappy, or was my unhappiness something more fundamental--about both myself and my world's expectations for the kind to which I was supposed to belong? Either way, how could I fail to make myself unhappy when what I thought I wanted to be, and what I thought the world wanted me to be, were meant to be different things?
Those of you who are surfing the LiveJournal multitude looking for the hottest, coolest, most minkable links on the planet and found yourself watching me whine--all of you--I apologize. But those of you who have piles of Kodak Moments in your past and know it--you deserve this treatment from me. Because along with me, there are billions around the world who lack what you've got, and might think me a prince of the age for my consolation prize of a life.
Unfortunately for everybody concerned, there is more to come.
FP