We’re seeing too much

How long will it take for the American people to grasp the idea that we might not be that American?

The internet. Right? It’s a crystal ball of visibility into worlds and subcultures that you never knew existed, didn’t want to know existed, and probably could be a little less anxiety prone if you knew they didn’t exist.

How Curious?

Visibility into other worlds is really only for the most curious among us. Curiosity is a powerful tool in getting along with people who aren’t like you. Opposite to curiosity is suspicion. Suspicion has that same irresistible urge to look, but it doesn’t let you explore. Instead, suspicion turns into fear, fear turns into anger, and anger turns into a fight.

In the past two days I peaked into two completely different worlds. The first, through a Wikipedia clickhole vortex that lead me to a nuanced discovery of the thematic differences between crust punk and black metal, with albeit wide gaps in physical appearance and higiene of the listeners. The second, via a trip through rural Indiana. Specifically, at a Hardee’s/Love’s combo rest stop.

Not surprisingly, the hot convo song, “Try That In A Small Town” came on the radio at the Hardee’s where is was a lot easier to resist buying anything on the menu than I thought it’d be.

This was about the moment where I thought to myself, “I think I’m just seeing too much.”

It’s not that I’m not curious about other cultures. I’m just not perfectly curious. The amount of code switching I do on a daily basis makes my own head spin. I code switch so hard I do it in another language. (Despite popular assumption, I’m not Latino. Same boat, different stop.)

What I see across the wide varieties and shapes/sizes of “being American” is a deep and cult-like desire to find belonging.

Blue Spec in a Red Ocean

I see the divide, plainly, living in Bloomington, IN. A liberal college town in the middle of a state that’s quietly redder than Texas. Alternative kids come from all corners of rural Indiana to find an oasis in Bloomington. Running away from diesel trucks, conservative views, country music, parents who just don’t understand and corn, so much corn.

In short, they were tired of seeing a world that they don’t feel like they belong to. Hearing that there is something different they come and hang out and find people like them. For a long time, Bloomington was a place that you could essentially forget the fact that you live in Indiana. The crystal ball that the internet provides reminds you that everything is so much closer, present, and real.

Where my curious side pulls me in, is when I look at the seemingly happy people walking in and out of that small town Hardee’s/Love’s combo. They lived in a world where they thought they knew what it meant to be American. I find the idea that that’s problematic very curious. There are extremes that overload me too. But never enough to feel like I need a gun.

America has always been in a state of change. But the fearful and suspicious can’t isolate themselves to like-minded peers anymore. They are exposed to everything. They are seeing too much on the internet. Some of it real. Some of it fake. But it’s a threat to their identity and what they believe it means to be an American.

Are you even American?

For a lot of people it’s just too much of stretch to accept that being American can be more than one thing. A little different is maybe ok. Going to First Baptist instead of Second Baptist. Sure, the first baptist folks are a little more snooty, but a Baptist is a Baptist. But Heaven forbid a Latter Day Saint missionary knocks on your door. Better get the gun.

Going to college is a proud accomplishment but come back with beliefs that contradict and now we reevaluate whether college is needed at all. At least until we can gerrymander enough districts to get enough votes to control what’s being taught.

This is where the suspicious get very dangerous. It’s one thing to heap guns and stick a We The People 1776 decal with an AR-15 to the back of your white pick up truck. Those people make me want to dissociate on their own, but they don’t really scare me. It’s the ideology behind it. It’s the fear of different.

The song is really the same. Not long after the revolution when early Americans dispelled the British, then became the work of eradicating whoever else you couldn’t subjugate. That’s the essential problem of the Try That In A Small Town song. It more or less suggests, if you aren’t this version of American, we’ll chase you down the road and shoot you. It’s kind of a vigilante anthem that crusades for mamaws, papaws, 4H club, and county roads. Anything that is not that, is not American. Sure, they mask this identity crisis with pulling in criminals to the “others” just to group those with different opinions in with the bad guys. It’s obvious, unless you have underdeveloped critical thinking muscles.

Belonging is overrated, and yet it’s everything

I’m not mad at people who can’t wrap their minds around a world that is different than themselves. I see it among my peers. I see it among people who don’t believe in the same things I do. My perspective comes from a lifetime of feeling exactly the same way. I’ve never quite been in a room where I belonged on any merit of physical quality, belief, intellect, or interest in aggregate. I find parts of myself within my groups, but never the whole, not even 25% of the whole. The difference for me is that that is what I believe the world is. A place where people aren’t that much like me. To the extent that if I do find too much homogeneity, I actually get uncomfortable and I go back to places where one of these things isn’t quite like the other. And not in an angsty teen way where I start to now claim that I’m so quirky and weird. I’m not weird. I’m pretty normal and easy to get along with. I’m just not the same.

It’s that comfort that I have with not being the same that helps me be curious. Curiosity helps me avoid fear, become interested, and love people more. We need a little more of that as a society. More comfort in feeling different, more curiosity, more interest.

Most people are good while many of their beliefs being bad. It’s hard for people of all walks of life to accept that part of human complexity. I’ve come to accept the fact that not everyone is as bad as you think they are and that not everyone is as good as you think, either. It just kind of depends on what you look for and if what you’re seeing is too much for you, try to get a little more curious before you reach for the gun.

Color is everything,

— Torlando

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