I’d like to start out by saying I’m about 1,000 miles and two wrong turns from perfect. But I cannot seem to wrap my brain around the popularity of trends.
First off, I have mixed feelings on the popularity of “going green.” On one hand, I watch with excitement the mass education of ways to conserve that benefits others, not just our own being.
Nalgene bottles, cloth grocery bags and simply unplugging your appliances when not in use seem like easy changes to one’s life-taught habitual behaviors. However, when I see Wal-Mart commercials hopping on board the “green train,” I think my whole body sighs with what can only be described as a feeling of loss.
I’m disheartened that this is trendy because that means in a short amount of time the masses, with their fleeting interest, will forget and stop caring. Perhaps some will be left with some sort of impression, but I fear the majority will passively keep riding the conveyor belt.
Next, I find it very curious that our generation has to come up with vernacular to make old ideas relevant. Being agnostic is nothing new, so I suppose I’m confused by the popularity, within a particular scene I come in contact with on occasion, of calling yourself “god free.”
I am not offended by this because I am a generalized “Super Christian” who cannot fathom that someone would not see an absolute truth with God (I believe this to be an unfair assumption of Christians, kind of like all Muslims are terrorists and that all people of Middle-Eastern descent are Muslims, so anyone with an olive- colored skin tone and particular features are plotting against Americans etc. etc).
Like a lot of other things I’ve witnessed with this group, this particular issue only proves the theory that these types of social groups are a microcosm of a greater whole. I’m not judging, just merely amused and slightly annoyed I suppose.
Most of these people are around my age, but I feel like we are on a playground and they are trying to differentiate themselves from the kids on the swing sets.
Maybe they feel oppressed because we are in the “Bible Belt,” butI cannot see that being the entire reason.
You want to fight against the tide, why don’t you fight this need to belong because you feel empty on the inside?
You cannot believe in any sort of higher power all day, but don’t do it because it’s cool with the people you see at local shows, or in your class, what do they know?
Believe in some idea because you’ve weighed your options and one thing or another has been proven to you unfailingly. Be informed.
Maybe I’m a little left of center, but I thought associating yourself with things like trends was due to the fact that you didn’t know yourself.
Sure, I wore those awful stirrup pants in elementary school because I didn’t know who I was. I just wore what my friends wore, who only sported them because department stores convinced their parents that their children would be “trendy” and normal.
I don’t feel superior to this; I am just as susceptible as anyone else. I’ve just realized that all those nights I spent feeling out of place and unsure of myself, and wondering why I wasn’t accepted, I was, in all actuality, really ignoring the fact that I really do know myself. I didn’t need to discover what I was all about, it’s been right here all along and most people don’t understand that because one’s own interior appears to be so convoluted at times. I believe the majority our peers struggle with this.
I don’t accept these trends as something I will subscribe too. I pick my own ideas to promote, however unsubstantiated they seem to someone else.
Ralph Ellison wrote this in his novel Invisible Man. “All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization that everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.

Author