Life On The Outside

by Victor D Sandiego | Published: Nov 15, 2022

I've been an outsider my whole life and I see no reason why that's going to change now - or why I'd want it to for that matter.

First thing they say is I need a university title, otherwise I'm lazy or a rebel or a goddamn insurgent who fucks rules in the ass with a screwdriver. Yet here I am crabbing away without one. Title, I mean. Got a whole collection of screwdrivers.

Don't get me wrong, friends. I'm a regular nice guy who likes pets, and doesn't beat his wife. But some days I get pretzel bent when I see the inanity and mediocrity that passes as thought these glorious days, crawling across my screen like a parade of insatiable ants.

But I get it. Quantity over quality. Machine must grind. And everybody's cool but me. I'm the guy outside the party on the sidewalk. Well, sometimes I go in. But seriously, when they're playing the same boring trance music as two houses down and three houses over and on the next block and the next town and all across the country like it was something special, I'd rather take my bottle and go home.

Some chick asks some dude on Twitter the other day which words are acceptable to use when describing the color of someone's skin and he comes back with a chart. A fucking chart. I wish I was making this up. A color coded chart with suitably sanitized words to describe skin color, words that don't invoke a past injustice, a past perceived injustice, or even a past crop somebody's ancestors might have picked. For Christ's sake. Why bother? Somebody's going to offended somewhere, no matter what. Hurt seekers are walking the streets with worn-out bedroom slippers. They're looking for broken glass. They stand on curbstones and wait for their feelings to be ruffled by the next bit of inconsequential paper gossip to blow by in the bus breeze.

World's got some problems, some big ones. Must I enumerate? Yet, instead of dealing with them, we spend an inordinate amount of time gnashing our collective teeth about somebody wearing an – oh my god! –  culturally appropriated Mariachi costume for Halloween. Or debating whether some celebrity's fake tits are silicon or plastic.

I take that back, partially. There are people working to solve large problems, and I salute them, even with a latte in my hand. But think how much more the world could accomplish if we weren't tangled up in the trivial webs the justice warriors spin.

I said much of this same shit a few days ago. Well, actually, I've been saying this sort of thing for a long time, but one thing I've learned by living on the outside is that people like to run with the crowd, but they don't like to be reminded of it. Crowd says cool, people say:

Yeah. If someone with more likes than me tells me what to like, then by god they must know what they're talking about because they're cool and I'm just following.

Listen up. Red lights are optional. Stop signs are optional. Political correctness is crap. Celebrity worship is bullshit. I like the works of certain actors and writers and artists, but I don't give a flying elephant shit about what they had for breakfast. Matter of fact, if you're a regular someone I know at a distance (as in, via the internet), I don't care what you had for breakfast, either. I can still love you (in a quasi-connected, non-sexual way), but let's talk about real shit that matters. Please. The world is up to its eyebrows (that would be Mt. Everest I suppose as long as I'm anthropomorphizing) in inanity and mediocrity. It's like a plastic polluted ocean for the mind.

But point it out and people go into a defensive tailspin - or ignore you completely, and retreat to the comfort of their clique. Oh my god, did you, like, hear that boomer talking, like, shit about, you know, Justin Beiber?

Yeah. That's right. Talent doesn't mean shit these days. Marketing is king, distribution is queen (borrowed that from someone), and talent is the page that walks behind sweeping up the horseshit into a basket. I don't mean that as a universal rule, because there is some excellent talent in the world, but I would like to know when people willingly turned over their own ears and ears, their own common sense, their own discernment to the high-priest guardians and arbiters of taste and talent.

Blame in on Reagan. That's always good, I suppose. Or Obama, depending how you roll. But I won't. If blame must be allocated, let it go straight to the individuals that let others tell them what to think, what to like, what to be mad about. None so blind and all of that. From the bible maybe, or Johnny Cash. Not going to look it up.

By now, you're probably wondering what's my point. And maybe the point is that there doesn't have to be one, or not only one. When you're an outsider, the one who doesn't go the party, or the one who doesn't get invited back if you do go, you see the view from a wide distance. That view reveals less detail, but more scope. I know others like me are out there, but by our nature we find it harder to connect. If you're one and you see this, know I'm with you brother. Know I'm with you sister. We may not share a cup of coffee, but we share a large flagon of the same common sense.

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Fun fact. When I was four years old, I made a consciousness decision that I didn't want to be like other kids. Something about them didn't agree with me. I started programming my mind with affirmations before I even knew what programming and affirmations were. Of course, I didn’t have the mental capacity at the time to understand the long term ramifications of my decision. At the time, I couldn't hear the sound of doors closing.