Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: rules

So what?

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In the last post, I was talking about rules and why I don’t give a shit about them. I learned a new word today: contumacious. It means to be stubbornly or willfully disobedient to authority (usually in a legal sense). See also: anarchy.

I don’t believe in anarchy, actually. I think it’s good to have rules that benefit the general good of the community. Like, imagine driving if there were no rules about who had the right of way. And I believe in rules that protect the most fragile members of the community. Minorities often need to be protected or they will be exploited (see, also, service workers during the pandemic).

But, yeah. I will question rules that don’t make any sense to me. I didn’t use to do it willfully–it was just me not understanding how to be normal. I still don’t, to be honest. Things that are self-evident to others make no sense to me. The marriage and kid thing, for instance. I mean, yeah, I get why people want to do it (in a theoretical sense. I don’t get it personally because I have never wanted either, but I can see why people might want it. Barely), but for me, it just wasn’t ever a thing I felt I needed. Or wanted. I assumed I’d get married and have kids because that’s what everyone did back in the day, but I was very gloomy about it. I was like, “Oh, yeah. I gotta get married and have kids one day” and felt as if a collar was tightening around my neck–and not in a good way.

I didn’t want it; I just felt I had to. My mother pushed it relentlessly until I believed I had to do it. Same with college. I had no choice in the matter–except where I wanted to go. I chose places next to my then-boyfriend, and he got accepted at all of them (Ivies) because he was fucking off-the-charts smart. Like a literal rocket scientist. (Well, not quite, but an actual astrophysicist. Literally.) He told me that if we didn’t go to college near each other, we’d need to break up. Which, honestly, was where I was heading, anyway. He was a good guy, but we were young. I was ready to move on. I did not know how to say that, though. There was a cute guy working in a different shop in the mall I was working in, and I wanted to date him. Not because of him (he turned out to be a jerk), but because I was trying to break free. I was eighteen, just started to descend into a severe eating disorder, hated myself and my body, and felt as if I was being forced to do something I had no interest in doing (college).

My mother: You have to go to college, get married, have kids, and have a professional career. Oh, and go to church on Sunday. And be a perfect size 2. And never say no to anything your mother (me) asks from you. Oh, and have I mentioned giving me grandbabies? Because, grandbabies are definitely the most important thing in this list. DID I MENTION GRANDBABIES????


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Breaking the (unspoken) rules

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One thing I have difficulty with is unspoken rules. It’s funny because when I read advice columns, there are always unspoken rules that commenters get/have that I don’t undrestand. Like there was a letter about celebrating a 30th birthday over at Slate, and one of the regular commenter was derisive about the idea of an adult wanting to celebrate their birthday. How very dare they! Did they not know how unbelievably childish that was? This comes up every time the topic of birthdays are discussed at Ask A Manager as well.

Half the people are pro-celebrating your birthday as an adult. Half are agin it. I’m in the latter, but only for me. I’m pro-doing whatever you want for your birthday as long as it’s not me having to celebrate it with you for a month.

I don’t get people who care what other people do that doesn’t affect them, quite frankly. Something like celebrating a birthday…who cares how someone else does it? You don’t want to celebrate your birthday, fine! Don’t celebrate it. You want to celebrate your birthday, fine! Celebrate it. I don’t undrestand why this is such a big deal. I really don’t undrestand the ‘you’re an adult and birthdays are stooooopid’ mindset. At all.

Other people really can’t elaborate why they feel that way, either. It’s the same with Halloween. There are people who loudly scorn adults who want to dress up for Halloween, saying it’s kid stuff. Why? We don’t think acting is a kid thing, but that’s basically playing dress up. Ok, there is more to it than that, but dressing up is a big part of it.

I guess it’s just difficult for me to grasp the outrage of adults having fun in ways that kids have fun. Then again, some people think video games/board games are kid stuff, too, so there’s that. I think if you (general you) enjoy something, then who cares?

I think this is my feelings about life in general. If you are not actively harming other people, then have at it. That’s why I’m a small l libertarian. I don’t care what people do–if it’s not deliberately harming others. That’s my general philosophy, which seems to be an anathema for most people.

Even liberal people.

It’s interesting. I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule as to how most things should  be. Like, the idea that to be an adult, you have to buy a house, get married, have children, have a 9-to-5 job. One thing that came up often when I talked about not wanting children was that I was being selfish. Again, this was only from women. I want to point out that internalized misogyny works hard to uphold the patriarchy.


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Chaotic is a rules-abiding sort of way

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I’m a mass of contradictions. I’m a creative person who is mostly emotional, rather than rational. At least when I first think about things. I’m a right-brain person through and through. However, when I actually think about a situation that needs a solution, I can do that as well. I don’t like to think logically, but I can do it well.

I can do most of things well, honestly. And I shy away form the things I can’t. Badminton, for example. I am really bad at it. I had to play it for the first time when I was in Thailand with my host family. Well, OK, I took a badminton class once, but that was several years before I went to Thailand. They handed me a racket and just expected me to be able to play. Which I could not. I used to play tennis, which is the exact opposite of badminton.

The reason I can do most things well, though, is because I don’t normally do things I suck at. That’s one reason Dark Souls is such an anathema to me. Normally, I would have quit at the Bell Gargs and never looked back again. There was something inside me, though, that made me keep going on. Pride, probably. I hated letting things beat me, so I gritted my teeth and plowed onwards.

It would probably surprise people to know that I’m a rules follower in general. At least in my daily life. Yes, I speed, but who doesn’t? Other that that, though, I don’t break rules just because. I tend to feel that I might as well do what the rules/law says as long as it’s not an impediment to me.

But. There are times when breaking the rules is important. Especially when there are such stupid laws being passed. *Glaring at the Supreme Court*. I believe in the moral law and ethical law rather than simply the legal one. I’m old. I have very little to lose at  this point. Look. I already died twice. Might as well spend the rest of my life doing what I think is the right thing. I have enough privilege not to have to worry too much about the consequences–for now.

It’s absolutely unconscionable to me that my niece and nephews have less repro justice than I did at their age.  I did not come back from the dead for this!

It’s funny because I’m very much not a rules follower when it comes to what I’m supposed to think and do. I don’t give a shit about societal norms when it comes to marriage and children, for example. I don’t care about makeup or clothes–other than they’re covering my body. I was just chatting in the RKG Discord about how freeing it is to embrace one’s own flaws. It can really take the wind out of someone’s sails if you agree with their derisive assessment of you. It’s because their anger/superiority has nowhere to go.


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