Well, I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.
-Bob Dylan
I've gone through most of my life thinking that there's something profoundly strange about me.
As a little kid, I was obsessed with drawing pictures and writing stories about imaginary characters. I could tell that most adults thought that this was a little weird and they wished I'd stop. I didn't. I couldn't.
As I grew up, I felt out of place in all the usual pubescent ways and then some, but I was beginning to think that these other people who emphasized "normality" so strongly in word and deed weren't so hot themselves. They really bored me.
I'm not sure when I gave up and just decided to be myself. This is a deeper and more difficult thing than it appears, because there's a lot to sort through, so much societal programming to examine and then to either discard or keep. It's like constantly preparing for a yard sale -- only the twist is that hardly anyone will recognize you by the end of the day. And you don't earn any money either.
So, my little boat sails further and further out to sea, with less and less baggage aboard. I've got radio contact, but it gets lonely out here. Is it possible to go crazy like this? Probably.
I recently bought some pajama pants at JC Penney. I don't know what they are made of but it is the most comfortable fabric I've ever felt in my life. (I don't get out much.) So then I start to think: why is all clothing not made out of fabric like this? Since it isn't, why don't I just wear these voluminous PJ pants all the time? It would be the most honest thing to do. These are the pants I like best and they are the most comfortable.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), the land where people don't wear pajamas outside the house is still visible on my horizon, getting smaller and smaller as I drift away. I shade the sun from my eyes and look back. Should I? Who will notice? Who will care?
Perhaps some people would see the sense in this PJ thing and join in. And society is going this way anyway -- with the exception of thongs, clothes have been gradually getting more comfortable ever since the days of whalebone corsets. Pajamas are inevitable. Forget tinfoil spacesuits -- PJs are the real wave of the future, kid.
But, see -- you've caught me. I'm weird but I still want company. You see the dilemma? It's tough. So, I'm wearing regular pants today.
Here's the real prob: once you've begun a spiritual life, your decisions are less and less your own. I may be able to sacrifice PJs-in-public in return for a more satisfying business and social life, but a deeper force is pulling me out anyway, stronger than any ocean current, and there's no telling where it will take me. Clothes are really the least of my concerns (which is what led to my whole brilliant PJ idea in the first place).
Real devotion to spirituality is almost guaranteed to make you weird. It has also made me profoundly happy and fulfilled, and improved all my relationships a hundred times over. But I'm a bit afraid to reproduce now. I'm sure the other mothers at my kid's playgroup are not going to want to sit around and discuss the Qabalah with me.
But I have an obligation to those women, and to everyone else I meet. Unlike a dear friend of mine, I'm not a cloistered nun, and even though my little boat often sails into lonely waters, I know that part of my path is to stay connected to the world. That, I suppose, is where it really gets interesting.
