For a long time now, I\u2019ve wanted to analyze the degree to which my desire to be different has moulded me as a person.<\/p>\n
Stop!<\/p>\n
Before you click away to somewhere else on the interweb, please be assured that this is intended to be primarily an entertaining piece, although if you get any nuggets from it, then it will be a bonus (and, frankly, a miracle).<\/p>\n
Here are a few situations where retrospectively I realize that I made a decision to be different.<\/p>\n
When Monty Python\u2019s Flying Circus first aired in the late \u201860s, many of my school friends became instant addicts. One friend in particular was obsessed with the name \u201cDinsdale\u201d and spent days going around the school grounds saying it in the way that Spiny Norman said it at the end of the episode<\/a> that featured the Piranha Brothers sketch.\u00a0 I resisted MPFC like mad (if for no other reason than I didn\u2019t want to be caught calling \u201cDinsdale\u201d at five second intervals in the school grounds), but as the total antithesis of being different would say, \u201cResistance is futile<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 and I became assimilated. And how glad I was!<\/p>\n Around the same time, others of my school friends were fans of the band \u201cFree\u201d. (Even if you don\u2019t recall who they were, you\u2019ll likely know their big hit \u201cAll Right Now<\/a>\u201d. ) One friend bore a distinct resemblance to Paul Rodgers, the group\u2019s singer, and four of them got a band together to play Free\u2019s music. I couldn\u2019t see the attraction, preferring the music played on the BBC\u2019s radio stations. But once again, the Borg got me. I heard Paul Kossoff\u2019s frugal, mournful guitar playing<\/a> and was hooked; I\u2019ve been trying ever since to get even half way to making my guitar playing sound like his.<\/p>\n Blackadder (for the uninitiated, a historical comedy starring Rowan \u201cMr. Bean\u201d Atkinson) was another thing I vowed not to like when it first came out. But for some perverse reason I became attached to Baldrick, and grew to love the programme. (Actually, it was the Borg, in the shape of Mrs. H., that converted me.) Now I quote from it regularly, and I own not only the entire collection of shows on both VHS and DVD, but also the scripts for all four seasons.<\/p>\n Likewise, Red Dwarf (a spoof \u201clost in time and space\u201d scenario comedy) was a show that I was determined to hate, if for no other reason than that three of the principal characters exhibited personality traits that, if I spotted them in my own personality, would cause me to garrotte myself with my G string (that\u2019s the third string on my guitar \u2013 I\u2019m not that<\/em> different!). But the show stood the test of time and endeared itself to me, possibly because I identified myself with Kryten, the paranoid and put-upon mechanoid.<\/p>\n When I bought my first halfway decent guitar, I chose a Shaftesbury copy of a Rickenbacker semi-acoustic guitar. This at a time when it was the thing to buy a Les Paul copy or, if money allowed, a genuine Fender Telecaster. It took me a few years to conform, but I did it in spades when I bought a 1976 Gibson Les Paul \u2013 which I still own. (I\u2019ve since conformed even further, when my family bought me a Fender Stratocaster for my 60th.)<\/p>\n When my friends were buying and driving Fords, I bought a Triumph 2000. This was in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, and my car almost certainly used more gas than my friends\u2019 cars \u2013 what was I thinking? (BTW \u2013 I still have the fuel ration book for the car. Packrat!)<\/p>\n In one particularly spectacular bout of \u201cdare to be different\u201d, I bought (and wore!) a pair of white \u201cbrothel creepers\u201d. I have no memory of what my friends were wearing at the time or what the fashions were, but white brothel creepers were so far \u201cout there\u201d that I got rid of them before I wore them out \u2013 almost a crime at that time and place.<\/p>\n As I look back, I wonder if I was cutting my nose off to spite my face \u2013 although in my case, cutting my nose off might have done my face a favour. Certainly I\u2019ve been accused of having my own personal self-destruct button more than once.<\/p>\n These days, I realize that sometimes I deliberately set out to be different. For example, I wear shorts almost year round, despite living in \u201cthe frozen north\u201d (although this might have more to do with how hot most buildings are kept and how intolerant I am to heat). I sleep out in a tent when the Cub Scout pack I volunteer with sleeps in cabins (although that might have more to do with the desire to get a quiet night\u2019s sleep!) I persist in using many hand tools when most would use power tools. Mrs. H. and I both prefer not to have a dishwasher or a tumble dryer.<\/p>\n And unlike many of my peers, I\u2019m planning a new career at a time in my life when perhaps I should be planning retirement. I\u2019m not sure if \u201cplaywright and humourist\u201d is an achievable goal for me, but I\u2019m doing my best to keep my hand off that self-destruct button by trying to believe what my family and friends believe \u2013 that I have the potential to be successful at it.<\/p>\n If ever there was a time in my life where being different was an asset, it\u2019s now. The world doesn\u2019t need \u201cjust another writer\u201d, so I need to practise transferring my \u201cdifferent but the same\u201d persona to the written word.<\/p>\n Time will tell if I succeed.<\/p>\n Do you try to conform? Do you try to be different? How successful are you? How would your life so far have been different if you\u2019d tried the opposite tack? Let me know by leaving a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For a long time now, I\u2019ve wanted to analyze the degree to which my desire to be different has moulded me as a person. Stop! Before you click away to somewhere else on the interweb, please be assured that this is intended to be primarily an entertaining piece, although if you get any nuggets from it, then it will be… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[488],"tags":[178,188,152,186,182,183,184,185,187],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbs","tag-blackadder","tag-brothel-creepers","tag-frozen-north","tag-les-paul","tag-monty-python","tag-paul-kossoff","tag-red-dwarf","tag-rickenbacker-copy","tag-stratocaster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1620,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/1620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Guitars and Cars (not Cadillacs)<\/h3>\n
Fashion (Non)Sense<\/h3>\n
More Recently<\/h3>\n
Your Turn<\/h2>\n