Friday, February 10, 2012

Band of Others

Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm living in a completely different world from the people around me. I suppose this is to be expected when you make a conscious decision to shun the materialistic trappings that so consume our society. Still, it often seems that I'm caught in some sort of a parallel universe.


And the further removed I get from the work a day world, the bigger the feeling gets.



I go to the grocery store and half of the people are walking around talking on their cell phones. It really disturbs me. And whenever I get together with friends, most of them spend at least half of the time checking their smart phones for the "latest" whatever.


I sort of feel like I'm surrounded by a bunch of zombies who have one foot in the land of the living, and the other in some virtual cybernetic netherworld.


It's not that I think all the new technology is bad. I do have a cell phone... a pre-paid one that I only use it a few times per year for emergencies. It's the sense that nobody seems to be interacting with the real world anymore that really gets to me.


And then I turn on the news, and I'm always shocked by the things that are deemed to be newsworthy. Half of the stories seem to be about airline travel, or some stupid thing some celebrity said to draw attention to themselves, or various product announcements. I mean, these days it's sort of hard for me to tell where the news leaves off and the advertising begins!


No wonder people feel dogged by a sense of inferiority and needing to keep up, when they're constantly bombarded with the message that jet setting across the planet and owning the "next big thing" are normal and expected.


And then there's the life-as-competition "reality" TV shows. Seriously, do people really watch this stuff? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against competitive sports, as anyone who has ever witnessed me watching a Broncos game can clearly attest.


But it's like EVERYTHING is a competition these days. We're all out competing to find the "best" voice, or the "best" mate... I don't even know what any of that means. And even things like traveling and losing weight have been turned into competitions! Talk about taking the societal stamp of approval to ridiculous extremes!


I suppose I've always felt like a bit of a misfit. In some ways it seems like my life is one long string of "other" check boxes.


But I can't escape the sensation that "normal" is getting crazier by the day, leaving me further and further out on the edge.


It's not like I have any desire to move toward the center of the curve, but sometimes I do need a bit of reassurance that I'm not just totally crazy. It always makes me so happy when I can discover another kindred spirit happily living several standard deviations away from the norm.


Anyhow, I know I'm a bit of a blog slut... I write WAY too many comments on people's blogs, and waste WAY too much time cruising the interwebs.


Guess I'm just always hoping to find a "band of others" out there who think the world is as crazy as I do.

51 comments :

  1. Like your new word -- "fucktards."

    I sort of have this same reaction every time I turn on the TV, which is more so in winter, but overall really not that much. It is not a "necessary" device by any means. More often than not I walk away thinking, "And that story needed to be told because?..."

    People have ranted on about reality TV for a long time, but I'm convinced there's eventually going to be a show for everything. I mean, right now you can watch: hoarders, celebrities in rehab, people who buy shit out of storage units, people losing weight, drug interventions, childbirth, people with 20 kids, wife swaps, hillbillies/rednecks who move to the big city, teen moms, dumpster divers... there's a show for every oddity under the sun.

    It's idiotic. These are circus side shows. It's sad to say, but a series of documentaries on "REAL" issues we should be concerned about -- human trafficking, for instance -- would only be a blip on the radar. Sad. Shit sells. And yes, it reminds me that collectively, we are very dumb.

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    1. Ha! Teen mom wife swaps are "mainstream" but human rights travesties are "fringe stories" sigh.

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  2. Well here I am, and I'm just going to go right ahead & be that girl commenting on your blog- lol! I filled out some consumer brand loyalty survey that came in the mail last week... it was mostly "other" or "we don't use this item". You're not alone.

    We ditched our microwave, don't have cable, eat "weird food" and are painfully awkward in social situations. While you and I are certainly not at the top of the bell curve (but know what that means!) in most categories, that's okay!

    I feel a support group coming on lol!

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    1. OTHERS UNITE!!! So glad to count you as one of my "band of others."

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    2. I'm in for joining this "other" support group! :)

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  3. Hi Cat... Just wanted to thank you for checking out my little corner of the blog world, saw that we are birds of a feather and decided to follow your blog. You are too much fun.

    Helen G.

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    1. Hi Helen!

      Thanks so much for stopping by. Can't wait to read more of your posts!

      :)
      Cat

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  4. I stopped watching TV years ago, and am so much better for it! And now, I can't stand when it's on, which people think is completely odd :) I know what you mean about feeling like an "other." The more I travel down the farming/self-sustaining/simplifying path, the more weird I become to the people around me. Although, I have noticed that people who spend a good amount of time in my little world at home begin to see value in living this way. Kids, especially, latch onto it quickly, which gives me great hope. I'm thankful there are people writing about how they push the boundaries! There's most certainly camaraderie in this.

    -Jaime

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    1. Hi Jaime! Thanks so much for visiting! Pretty much the only TV I watch these days is the "news" and football... ok... and figure skating - something about sports that begin with an "f". But I'm seriously considering a complete moratorium, especially with election season approaching. I think it would probably be healthiest for all concerned if I didn't subject my psyche to that particular meat grinder.

      I must say, you are pretty much living out my fantasy... at least the fantasy where I suddenly stop being a lazy slob and find a miraculous way to overcome my ambivalence about raising farm animals. :~)

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    2. Some of the smartest people I know are also the "laziest" in the traditionally defined sense of that word ;)

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  5. Y U nt lk reality TV? LOL BRB TTFN Kthnxbai.

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    1. Wait! Your're speaking lolcat! Had to resort to Google to translate most of the last sentence though... I don't speak text message. :)

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  6. I am in love with this sentence:
    "I suppose I've always felt like a bit of a misfit. In some ways it seems like my life is one long string of "other" check boxes."
    And I want that T shirt. I wonder if it comes in triple extra large?

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    1. Well... this is not a commercial endorsement, as I am WAY too cheap to spend $18 on a T-shirt, but here's the page where I stole the photo: http://www.damnfunnytshirts.com/product_info.php/products_id/60

      :~)

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  7. Another one that always gets to me are the bloggers who turn off comments to avoid interaction. I blog for the interaction, it would be useless to me otherwise.

    Support group #2 - blog sluts unite! ;)

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    1. Exactly! If you're not gonna make friends, what's the point? The other one that gets me are the bloggers who approach it like, Me: all knowing, almighty blogger. You: Lowly peon sent here to absorb my advice and wonderfulness. Of course, this doesn't stop my from commenting on those blogs, and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised to find a real person lurking in there. Plus, I often make friends in the comment section. Guess we sluts are just like that! :~)

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    2. I HATE it when bloggers become "popular" and turn off comments. I also hate it when their main purpose seems to be to sell their e-book. "Stop talking to me you little people and go buy my e-book for $14.95 which will tell you how to stop buying stuff." Um, what?

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    3. Oh Candi, I TOTALLY share that sentiment! It's like the evolution seems to go... blog starts off, blog is somewhat interesting, blogger builds following, blogger writes book, blog morphs into glorified advertisement for book, blogger develops massive attitude, comments stop being discussion and start being a place to collect accolades. UG.

      And it seems that these "financial freedom" how-to books often turn out to be something like "Wanna learn how to make money without a job? Write a book telling people how to make money without a job!"

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    4. Yes, yes, yes! The dreaded blog-eBook cycle. While I enjoy the ecological appeal of eBooks and think self publishing is truly amazing, the market is quickly becoming a giant pyramid scheme and flooding with bad quality books (which makes other self-publishing authors look bad). Funny how some bloggers proudly proclaim to have "ad-free" blogs, while all they do is advertise their eBooks/courses/webinars. Oh, the hypocrisy...

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    5. CatMan refers to this as "the mass movement to mediocrity." I mean, back in the olden days before computers, if you wanted to have a nice poster or flyer printed you had to hire a graphic designer and/or typesetter and pay a printer to actually run it on a printing press. The same held true for producing music, or books or what have you. Not just anybody could get published.

      In a certain sense this was bad, because all of those "gate keepers" ended up controlling what sorts of messages got out there, but they also did provide at least some amount of quality control. Ahhhhh progress...

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  8. Can I join both those groups, please?

    Our electricity company gave me a survey to fill in so I could compare our usage to others 'like us' (they gave me a free gadget - OK, I'll give them data, it's a fair deal). They don't have any other customers 'like us'. Either that, or other households like ours genuinely use zero electricity, which I find hard to believe. I think it was the lack of a TV that did it.

    As far as possible, I try to ignore mainstream and hang out with the other misfits, who are easier to find online. :-)

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    1. Join?!? Who are you kidding... I consider you to be a charter member!

      I wish I was in the "hardly using any electricity" category, but I fear installing the air source heat pump pretty much blew that one out of the water. It was supposed to be zillions of times more efficient that the 95% efficient gas furnace (which kicks in when the temperature falls below freezing) but the utility bills do not support this. I suppose it could be because I pay "guilt prices" to get all of my electricity from wind power. Still fantasizing over your new heating system, and the thought of getting to play with fire on a daily basis - although I wonder if a system like that could keep up when it gets 20 below zero Fahrenheit.

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  9. I do have a smart phone, but I don't check it when I'm with friends, but please count me in your circle.

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    1. Well... nobody's perfect. Just joking, of course you're part of the circle!

      xoxoxo,
      Cat

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  10. Ah yes. I can see you feel the zombie vibe too!

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    1. Zombies are EVERYWHERE!!!!! But it's not too late to save them! We must detach them from the hive mind!!! Resistance is NOT futile!!!

      OK, um... perhaps I've watched a few too many science fiction movies. :~)

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    2. Zombie lovers unite? Sorry, couldn't resist! ;P

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    3. Martha, you are totally crackin' me up with this stuff!

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  11. I think I'm somewhere between mainstream and other (I watch Tv! Don't hate me! Ha.), but I so agree with this post.

    Have you seen the movie Idiocracy? I think our society is becoming more like the one in the movie every day. Like last Monday, after the Super Bowl, all anyone was talking about was the damn commercials. On the "news," on the radio, in the lunchroom. I wanted to scream. They are just commercials people!!! And when I finally happened to see the ones people were raving about, I didn't get it. They're not even that funny. Argh.

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    1. I know, right? I missed most of the game because my little quick stir-fry somehow morphed into a 3 hour cooking/cleaning session. But I did tune in just in time to see the Giants pull out the victory. Hooray for Eli! I always have to root for the underdog, especially when they have spent their entire life living in the shadow of a "perfect" older brother (who me? childhood issues? not me!)

      Anyhow, so there was all this talk about the commercials that I had "missed" so I actually went and watched them online. What? I mean, they weren't even funny! And it totally killed me that here was this football game with all these amazing sub-plots and an incredible come from behind finish, and all people are talking about are the stupid commercials!!! Grrrrr..

      I'll have to see if I can find Idiocracy on Netflix. I seem to remember wanting to see it when it came out but never getting around to it.

      BTW - I actually like to watch TV now and then... I'm just having a harder and harder time finding anything worth the time! Seriously, how many versions of CSI do we really need? All hail Netflix!!!

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    2. p.s. I think you're an "other in training." :~)

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  12. Well, I for one totally appreciate the time you take to leave comments on my blog. (Makes me feel like someone's actually reading!) Kevin remarked the other day that we were on the same wavelength, and I would love to one day make my great escape from the rat race.

    And count me in as another hater of blogs that don't allow comments or have the almighty blogger vibe going on. :-)

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    1. I'm so glad I'm not just totally annoying. "Oh god, that crazy cat lady is leaving comments again..."

      And personally, I consider it a complete travesty that someone with your artistic talent should be stuck in the rat race. I see an escape route forged by a potter's wheel... :~)

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  13. Oh. My. Gosh. "I see dumb people" I could cry, I'm laughing so hard. I love it.

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    1. I know what you mean, that one totally killed me. What scares me is how true it is!

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    2. Really so true that I have stopped laughing about it, it's really scary, they are almost like zombies - no really, I'm totally serious!!

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  14. Wow. I thought I was the only one who felt this way; I think I just found a kindred spirit :)I've spent the past few days reading through your blog and thoroughly agreeing with much of it.

    I would bore you and your readers if I listed everything I agree with so I will just say - thank you. It is so refreshing to read someone with a similar viewpoint, rather than feeling like the sole renegade on the planet!

    I'm curious how you feel about Facebook. I swore off it earlier this year as I felt like a total misfit on it (what IS the deal w/FB???); you don't want me to get started on that one, trust me ;-)

    My husband and I laughed and laughed at the "I see dumb people" picture; PRICELESS!

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    1. Hi Desiderata, Thanks so much for stopping by! Love your name BTW - don't know if it's your real name, or just a screen name, but Desiderata is one of my favorite poems (if you can call it a poem.)

      Anyhow, I swore off FaceBook over a year ago. It took some doing to actually delete my account too. I could write a novel about all the reasons I hate FB (ButtBook as CatMan calls it) but I seriously started to feel like it was getting to be an Orwellian sort of experience.

      The end came when I was leaving a comment on a story on Huffington Post and stuff started popping up on the screen about people I "knew" through FaceBook. To be clear, I hadn't signed in using my FB account, and the only connection I could figure was that I was using the same email address for both accounts. It really bothered me.

      Plus, do I really need to be interacting with people who I couldn't even stand back when I knew them in high school? A friend of mine wrote a song about FB... and there was one line that went something like this: FaceBook puts you in touch with people you've been trying to avoid your entire life! Ain't it the truth!

      Anyhow, so glad to "meet" you and I'm glad you're enjoying my off beat ranting. :~)

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    2. Thank you so much for answering my question :) I had a very similar experience with Facebook. I don't appreciate all the elaborate tracking (OK, in truth this goes well beyond "don't appreciate" and well into maniacal ranting on my part, LOL). I keep telling people I'm in good real life contact with anyone I truly care about keeping in touch with (including my bff from hs 25 (yikes) years ago! LOL). They are in disbelief that I am "off the grid" (really?!?! From not having a FB acct?!?!)I did supposedly totally delete my account. Call me cynical, but I doubt it's totally wiped. I think FB is, at it's core, a huge info database. Anyhoo, glad to see I'm in good company on being a FB renegade, LOL.

      Desiderata is my favorite poem/truth - it speaks profoundly to me and has ever since I read it for the first time. I have it framed and mounted in my living room area as a reminder of what is important. I think it holds the secret to life ;-)

      Misty

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    3. Hey Misty,

      I am right there with you in terms of the cynical FB stuff - I'm relatively sure they didn't just let go of whatever info I gave them. Still pisses me off.

      You know, the other day I saw a quirky little documentary on Netflix called "We Live in Public." It was about this sort of crazy guy who set up an almost physical version of FaceBook way back in the late 1990's - it was a crazy deal where he got people to agree to move into this warehouse where they had no privacy and everybody could monitor everybody else.

      Anyhow, it was really rather disturbing, because he pretty much created a real life version of what goes on in FB - only bigger, weirder and stranger. Still not sure what to make of it, but I think there's a lesson in there about what happens when people live their lives in a fishbowl.

      p.s. I've got my copy of Desiderata right here by my computer... I've had it with me every place I've gone since high school... I think it's one of the things that keeps me sane!

      xoxoxo,
      Cat

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    4. Wow, I am totally going to have to find that documentary!

      I am totally impressed/amazed that you are so familiar with Desiderata; so few know anything about it.

      Thanks again -

      Misty

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    5. And if I could edit my comments I would "totally" change that second "totally" :-P Egads.

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    6. Totally know what you mean... it's so totally easy to totally go overboard with that word. Totally! :~)

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  15. Off topic, but I'm curious. Why read LOTR in Spanish? Cervantes, I could see reading him in Spanish. Or Borges or Neruda. But Tolkien???

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    1. Well, we've tried reading some Spanish literature, but it turns out that while it may be interesting in a sort of academic sense, it's less than helpful when your goal is to actually be able to communicate with Spanish speaking humans. Picture yourself trying to have a conversation with someone who had learned English by reading Shakespeare and you'll get the picture. Anyhow, after several years of reading boring stuff just because it was in Spanish, we finally decided to read things we actually liked. Makes it sooo much more fun.

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  16. Lots of head nodding over here. We're trying our darnedest to raise kids who question reality and the mainstream, and so far they seem to be free thinkers who find a lot of modern behaviours as bizarre and obnoxious as we do. Fingers crossed they can make it to adulthood unscathed and with their intelligence and free will intact.

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    1. You know, while my mom was fairly mainstream, my dad is certainly an "other." I spent much of my early life going back and forth between their two world views (literally and figuratively, since they were divorced.) I went through phases of wanting to be "just like everybody else" but that only lasted until I got to college and really saw how "normal" people lived and thought!

      Anyhow, I wouldn't worry about your kids, from everything I've read on your blog it sounds like you've given them a strong foundation

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  17. You are too funny. And I love the way you broke things up with the images. That one with the guy with the phone booth reminds me of people at work and in grocery stores. Just blabbering away on their phones like no one's around.

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    1. Thanks so much for your kind words and for stopping by. It's so true about the cell phones isn't it? The other day I was riding my bike through the park and this guy was walking along texting. I KNEW he wasn't paying attention, and sure enough, he stepped right out in front of me. Thankfully I was prepared with the brakes! I just don't get it... why bother going to the park if all you're gonna do is obsess over your cell phone!

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