Because We Can

I just read recently—and believe whole-heartedly—that humans never grow up; we just learn how we’re supposed to act in society. But these last three months—and especially the last two weeks—have taught me what I knew since birth: People generally enjoy other people, and if you’re a genuine person who says what he really feels, people will respect it. This is the only true way to communication. You can’t always be worried if you’re standing too close or your breath smells or people might not agree with what you have to say, you just have to trust that humans are generally the same and generally good.

I know it may sound silly that I just relearned this life maxim, but I think it’s something that people have when they’re young and they lose bit by bit, day by day until they can’t relate to other people. It’s a hell of a lot easier to talk about your asshole boss than it is to breach the subject of hopes and dreams. Most conversation is a boring way to pass the time and mask what we truly feel.

I would feel a lot more comfortable talking to my friend about music than how he truly feels about his dad dying, but the latter is what makes us human. Grief, love, joy, sadness, hate, death; all make us human and all are so often brushed off as cliché or dismissed with subject changes. We are supposed to be adults and we are supposed to work hard and not be bothered by things like emotions and attractions and feelings, but as we were born of these things, so shall we return to them.

There’s no better example than good old Grandpa Marvin. I can’t speak of his childhood, but I will say from experiencing his adulthood that it was simple. When he was being shipped off to Italy at age 18, the primary concern he and his parents had was whether or not to sell his bicycle.

Marvin has always had a certain way of doing things, and that’s the way they will always be. He can’t be bothered with things like automatic dishwashers! there’s no time to think about that! He’s got to wash dishes! It’s just simpler that way.

I can also say that young Marvin was mild-mannered. He has a picture on his wall that says his name and—in some language or other—that it means unerring friend. It couldn’t be more true. There was never a more rock-solid friend than Marvin.

Gramps’ life has always had some constants, but he was not always as nice a man as he is now. When he was building and inspecting roads for Hennepin County in his middle age, he was a somewhat tyrannical man with a closed mind and a short fuse. Mister, if you didn’t like his way of doing things, he was going to take his glasses off and punch you right in the nose. A boxer throughout his tour as a member of the 10th Mountain Division, he didn’t hesitate to use intimidation to get his way.

This picture could not be further from the hunched old man I have known all my life. I have pictures of him reading my brother and I to sleep when we were both small enough to fit in his lap. He would take me downhill skiing with a leash attached to my back so I couldn’t get too far away. He didn’t yell at me when I tried to be like my dad and do some bodywork on his Volvo with a Ball peen hammer. He was patient as a saint when I threw a paint can “grenade” and it happened to land on his car (it was parked in enemy territory).

Grandpa Marvin aged gracefully to the temperament he was born with: mild and caring. I believe that society taught him he had to intimidate and yell to get his way, and while this was, and to a degree still is, a part of his personality, it was forged in the trenches of WWII and the male-dominated, overly masculine, racially-bigoted culture of his mid life.

I think the closer a person can stay to their root feelings and hardwired values, the happier they will be. This means speaking up for what you believe in, and damn the consequences. It means equality (did you care what color the kid in Kindergarten who stole your crayons was? No! You just wanted your Cornflower Blue back so you could finish your damn ocean picture).

You weren’t born with any preconceived notions of what a person would talk about or how boring they’d be based on their khakis. When you were young you didn’t mind when people got excited. In fact, you loved it. You didn’t get nervous and look from side to side to see who might be judging, you just got more excited. You didn’t have to be drunk to relate to people. You would sing loudly along to whatever music sounded good to you, not what topped Clear Channel’s lists or seemed quirky and obscure and might get you attention.

I have friends who define themselves by their music to the point that they are snobs and can’t have an open-minded discussion with other music enthusiasts because they attack.

This is how wars are started. Freedom and liberty and the United States are just words. Sure, words can have rock-solid connotations, but when it comes down to it, the U.S. could be called anything and it would still be just another continent. And freedom. It just so happens that we have a word for our particular brand of liberty that might be homicidally constricting to someone from Copenhagen. Or Istanbul. Or someone from the Austin.

The point is that freedom is not the continent you’re on or the party you vote for, it’s the rules you place on yourself within your society. It’s not a dollar amount or cubic miles.

If a person is defined by their society, then whenever they step outside those boundaries at the whim of their personal beliefs—however rigid they may be—then they are liberating themselves. Say a culture forbids women to show their faces and one woman, simply to feel the warmth of sun on her skin, decides to throw off her veil. That’s freedom. It may be the reason someone dyes his hair blue. It may be the reason someone chooses to work for themselves instead of having a nine to five job with a steady paycheck. It may be the reason someone sails a boat for five years with the simple dream of circumnavigating the globe. It may be the reason someone climbs Mount Everest. It may be the reason someone speaks about feminism. I know it’s the reason people make art for the sake of art. Fully knowing their work will never be sold and their eyes may be the only pair that ever sees it, they still work as passionately as if the fate of the world depended on them.

It can be almost anything.

Any one of us could have been born in any other country under very different circumstances. That’s what makes nationalism so ignorant. You can’t tell a Frenchman from an Englishman from an American until you talk to him and uncover what society has done to shape his personality. You also couldn’t tell a yard of African dirt from Central American dirt from Chinese dirt if you didn’t already know that imaginary lines divided countries and each had it’s own name.

The point of this essay is not to say that there shouldn’t be wars or conflicts, and that everyone should live a certain way, it’s simply one man’s definition of liberty and happiness. It’s to say I’ll be damned if I’ll answer the call of another man’s definition of happiness and security for a purpose I don’t agree with. It’s to say that every person has a choice and anyone who says they are out of options is lying to you. It’s to say that the world is bigger than regions and countries and continents; the world is full of people just like you and I who are finding their own versions of happiness and freedom, and while they may not write them in an essay, you will see their freedom in their work and love and play. It’s to say that societal norms are just societal norms, and they change from society to society. It’s to ask the individuals to stay the course. It’s to share one opinion of what happiness is, but most of all, it’s because I feel like it and it’s my liberty and I can.