Thought:

Worse than a conformist is a person who demands and enforces conformity in others.

Memo to Self:

One Big Flaw can hide all Others.

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<morpho>: you really do manage to bring out the _stupid_ in people.

<rebeca>: it's better than killing them.

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Yes YES! BOSSANOVA WAS DOWN.
It's now back up, thanks to the BSD magic of Colby and the patient administration of the beautiful and wise Weevil.
Thanks for your patience.

Here is a story. I know you want one.

In high school I had a friend named Kathy. She was drop-dead gorgeous and incredibly nice. She never had a negative word to say about anyone. She was humble. She was a non-conformist, an eccentric. She had the presence and grace of Audrey Hepburn at her finest. But she didn't even realize it, which made it more the case.

Senior year Kathy was elected Homecoming Queen and she ran up to us (her friends), upset. She thought it was a mean joke that someone was playing on her -- electing her to mock her rather than to give her tribute. She was wrong, of course. I was amazed by her assumptions.

I'm not nearly as pretty, nice or humble as Kathy, but sometimes I think a little like her. I'm wary that someone is playing a trick on me, even though, as far as I am aware, it hasn't really happened yet. Or maybe it has! See, there I go again.

It's a problem. It has caused problems. Please bear with me. OK? Thanks.

Kathy had some unusual and imaginative philosophies about life, most of which I admire and agree with. My favorite was the theory of the Fish in the Stream.

Upon high school graduation, Kathy was moving away -- to California or Hawaii or somewhere -- and she pretty much knew that she would not be back. In saying goodbye, she described her alternative to sadness: The Fish in the Stream.

We are all just Fish in a Stream, she explained. We bump noses as we pass; sometimes we go the same way for a while; but then we move on. We may pass again; we may not. Nonetheless, we were still there, for a little while.

It's very Chuang-Tzu, and I think it true, as far as any theory of passage can be. People come and go; they change paths. They change their minds. Believing something can make it so.

And disbelieving it can erase it.
I hope to do that less often as I swim along.

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