Name:
Location: Granite Falls, North Carolina, United States

I'm an ordained United Methodist minister no longer pastoring churches, a former media producer with skills ten years out of date, a writer trying to sell my first novel, and a sales associate keeping body and soul together working for the People's Republic of Corporate America. I'm married to the most wonderful woman in the world, who was my best friend for 17 years before we married.

Monday, December 11, 2006

On Being an Iconoclast

I had my sixtieth birthday the other day, and it has sparked feelings inside me that I haven't been aware of for a long time. I have thought about how different I have always been from everybody that I have ever known. I have thought about how I hated authority even when I had to be authoritative. The hardest part of being a parent, to me, was having to manage the household and exercise the parental authority I grew up rebelling against.

Of course, now I am an adjunct university professor, which is the best thing I've ever done, and I have to be an authority again. But somehow, it isn't as bad. At least I'm not in the Administration.

Crispin Sartwell has a link to an essay on his blog (eyeofthestorm.blogs.com) about the rage that formed his anarchy. I identified with that.

I always felt different. I had a larger vocabulary than anyone in my class at school, and got ridiculed for using such "big words" as "obnoxious." I mean, hey, doesn't everybody know words like that? Geez. When somebody asked a question in an assembly I would shout out the answer the way I heard crowds of kids shout on TV, thinking everyone would be shouting it, but the person instead called on someone who had a hand raised. Uh. Imagine how embarrassed that made me.

I have always had dreams of soaring, but never the practical mind to build the wings to do so. I blamed it on my chronic depression, even though other people said I was just plain lazy. I don't know.

Now, I still feel different. In graduate school at Appalachian State, I was told that I saw things clearly--they were obvious to me--that nobody else could see. I see analogies that other people can't grasp. Colorful analogies make me a better teacher, and I appreciate that. And I have learned empathy with others that help in my selling and in my teaching.

But I still feel different.

This brings me around to this blog. I have stated some pretty strong opinions on here, because politics is in my blood. But I bear no brief for any party. Generally I'm against whoever's in power. Now that the Democrats will be in charge of Congress, I expect to criticize them, too.

We'll see.

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