iLiza's eyes

Someone reminded me today of who I used to be. I was reminded of middle school and high school-- the drama that surrounded the lunch table each day, the constant gossip that threaded us all together.

I thought about it while recalling confrontation, when thinking about how little I have it now compared to back then. I wonder what happened to make me calm down? When did I get so even-keeled?

I decided that it's all a sign of maturity, it's a sign that I've grown up. I can laugh about people who watch porn and go to strip clubs because it's just not worth my time to get mad. I'll put out the extra work to right people's wrongs because I'll fix it all before a fight would even be over. I'll take a deep breath and choose to turn my back before I unleash my language.

So great. Self-control comes with maturity as we learn to grapple with the everyday challenges we face: the more confrontation we've seen, the easier it is to prioritize it. The scary thing is, though, that it also means we're more socialized. I can control myself because I'm more and more a part of the norm. I succeed because I'm more and more like everyone else. Perhaps that's a good thing: this is what generations of Americans have found to work the best so I ought to stick to that model. And yet, it's also breeding a level of creativity out of the system. The more we become the norm, the less we're able to break free.

So today I'm priding mysef on my ability to control confrontation, to mask my anger, to get shit done. And yet it also scares me in very subtle, backward ways. I'm scared because my ability to control myself is also the ability to control myself out of existence, a way of molding myself to the standard of the society in which I'm fitting. So it's a catch-22: to succeed we must be socialized, and the thing about socializing, it makes us all the same.

posted by iliza @ 12:55 AM