The Terrible “Toos”

“On his right-hand Billy tattooed the word love and on his left hand the word fear…and in which hand he held his fate was never clear.” Cautious Man - Bruce Springsteen

Conventional wisdom defines human beings as fundamentally social animals that have a primal need for human interaction to maintain balanced mental health. It is such a necessary staple in the maintenance of sanity that prisons have used solitary confinement as a deterrent and punishment for the incarcerated who refuse to abide by the rules of their confinement. It has been expressly documented that being forced to be alone for extended periods of time causes extreme mental and emotional distress. Being alone can also be a positive and healing experience when its borders are personally defined but perilous when the isolation is forced upon an individual and subsequently deteriorates into unwanted isolation. It is fair to construe from these two realities that it is not the being physically alone that twists the mind but mentally imposed isolation that tortures the soul.

I have felt the pressure as we all have to conform to societal norms and traditions. In those moments, my strong feelings and views have emotionally ostracized me from others in my life and the world at large. I have felt a sense of being different and therefore alone in my persona; not better or more evolved just strangely distant from others. It is in these moments that I curse the thoughts that go through my head while in the throes of my mentally imposed isolation. It is then that I wish for the ability to not care as deeply as I do, to take things as they are, to disregard instead of fighting to understand, to let others fight their battles instead of interjecting myself into their struggle; to simply be numb and fit in to the world.

The source of most of my feelings of societal sequestering is the little word “too”. At different points in my life, I have been told in no uncertain terms that I was too emotional, too dramatic, too intense, too rigid in my behaviors and that I spend way too much time thinking. I will freely admit that all of these descriptive adjectives are part of who I am, but I disagree with the adverb of “too”. The aggregate of these characteristics and qualities have revealed themselves in the most positive actions of my life. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, being told that I was too this or too that by people in my life has caused me to feel isolated and at times to literally question my existence. The negative inference of their criticisms was that I was flawed and needed to make adjustments in my thoughts and actions. For this reason, I have often felt a sense of being alone while standing in a crowd.

The other day I was driving a man to the airport. He was a stranger that I knew nothing about and will never see again. Most times I barely speak to the riders in my car but he engaged me in conversation and I went along. It was during this conversation that he described to me where he was going and the meaning of his trip. He told me that he was going to Los Angeles to attend a Dodger game. The game was being dedicated to the Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax and each paying customer was going to receive a bubblehead figure of the Dodger great. The underlying reason for the trip was that Sandy Koufax had been the favorite player of his now deceased father. He was traveling and attending the game alone to experience the day with the memory of his dad. He then planned to return home with the bobblehead and place it on his desk to remind him on a daily basis of his father. As I listened to his story, I felt a kindred calm come over me. I did not think that he was being too emotional or too dramatic. In fact, I felt a connection to him in that his plan was something I admired and it reminded me of some of the emotionally driven actions I have taken in my own life. With the description of and the impetus behind his pilgrimage this stranger had temporarily erased the “too” from my being by showing me that I was not an outlier in how I felt or acted.

Human beings are social animals but we are not like other animals. Other animals are driven and controlled by natural selection and the harshness of survival. The genetics of other species remains very consistent; a lion is a lion and a bear is a bear. Human beings are specifically unique; in that regard, we are all a combination of what others might see as abnormal in relation to the excepted . The “toos” that others may see and question are the things that make each one of us different and at the same time linked; they are the markers of unique that fly in the face of conformity.

Society covertly insists on conformity while secretly admiring the  nonconformist. The pull of these diametric forces makes each of us choose between who we are and what we think the world will accept. As we try to get through life, we begin to cancel our uniqueness under the pressure of conforming acceptance instead of showcasing that which makes us different. The stranger that told me his story on the way to the airport showed me that my different qualities are me and that there are others who take action based on similar thoughts and feelings. In honor of what he gave to me, I write to bolster my courage to be true to myself and hopefully to inspire others to not only secretly acknowledge who they are but openly celebrate it.