What Uniform Do YOU Wear?

[Doktor Howl]

In Tucson, there are a number of drones, dorks, and low-functioning anime tards who insist on wearing what appears to be an official uniform.  This uniform consists of trip pants, black t-shirts, really bad tattoos, and the requisite shitty skull jewelry.  This uniform apparently serves to demonstrate their individuality.  The worst part about this is that the people I'm talking about range in age from 27-37.

Now, this really isn't any different than wearing a suit & tie to work, but at least those people have some form of excuse...IE, a dress code.  The drones, on the other hand, are doing this shit because they want to.  It is their way of bellowing their faux-weirdness to the world.  By acting like perpetual 15 year old rebellious teenagers, they are relieved of the burden of actually being individuals.

You see this sort of shit all the time.  People wrap themselves in the flag, to show what great "patriots" they are.  Some roll around in a flawed imitation of ethnicity.  Some staple their animal rights beliefs or religion or anarchism or what have you to their foreheads, so we'll all know what they're about...When anyone worth knowing doesn't bother, because their beliefs, their weirdness, is too deep & complex to be explained by a two dimensional meme as described by some schtick.

Back when I was in the service, I ate that shit up.  I was all about the army, all day.  After a few years, I noticed that I was boring.  People in the army already knew what I had to say, and people who weren't in the army didn't care.  It occurred to me that I was spray-painting myself OD green, so that I could get lazy and let my weird atrophy...Almost everyone falls into a similar trap, and I count myself as being very fortunate to have escaped.

It is, after all, one of the more insidious forms of pinkness.  We laugh at people who MUST bellow out their Christian or Pagan beliefs, especially the ones that insist we get on the train to Crazytown with them...But isn't that very thing we do, without even thinking about it?  Your inner primate is a crafty little bastard.  He'll sneak up on you like that, without you ever noticing.

I am not a Cornishman.  I am not a Discordian.  I am not a suit at a refinery.  I am not a father.  I am not a husband.  Well, I AM all of these things, but they aren't me.  They are roles or duties which I perform without being consumed by them.  I feel no need for a silly uniform, for a cause into which I must mold myself.  I am Doktor Howl, not an ape with a facebook tag you can use to see a snapshot of my beliefs, so that you can Like them.  I am LEGION, because specialization is for insects, and identifying plumage is for birds.

So I'm telling you, brothers & sisters...look at yourself.  Determine if you are wearing a uniform...And if you are, STRIP THAT FUCKING THING OFF, AND GO RUNNING DOWN THE STREET INTO THE FUTURE THE WAY GOD MADE YA, NAKED AND SMILING, WITH ALL YOUR CRAZY DANGLING IN THE BREEZE!  YOU AREN'T THAT UNIFORM!  YOU AREN'T THAT SIMPLE!  YOU ARE YETI, AND NO CHEAP SUIT CAN HIDE THAT FACT!

AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Okay for now,
Dok

[LMNO]

Hell yes!  Adopting a cultural uniform means you're either a part of a rigid tribalistic social system, or you're fucking lazy -- and neither of those options are very much fun.  John Waters has a chaper in Role Models obliquely about Comme des Garçon, and more directly about his sense of style and fashion, and it strikes to the heart of what you're saying Dok.

I mean, I do understand the appeal of signaling tribal affiliations (goth, punk, bear, banker, etc), but unless you put some personalized twist on it, you're a bore.

[Doktor Howl]

Hell yes!  Adopting a cultural uniform means you're either a part of a rigid tribalistic social system, or you're fucking lazy -- and neither of those options are very much fun.  John Waters has a chaper in Role Models obliquely about Comme des Garçon, and more directly about his sense of style and fashion, and it strikes to the heart of what you're saying Dok.

I mean, I do understand the appeal of signaling tribal affiliations (goth, punk, bear, banker, etc), but unless you put some personalized twist on it, you're a bore.

I'll have to give that a read.  There's probably a copy at the used bookstore in Tucson.

I'm also gonna qualify the bore thing.  There's plenty of people I know schlepping around in uniforms that are interesting people...But you kind of have the uniform blocking that signal, you know, getting in the way.

One of the more interesting guys I know has put on the conspiracy freak uniform, when he finally became disgusted with the GOP uniform.  Thing is, he's a great guy with loads of cool shit to say, but I have to keep steering the conversation away from Alex Jones.

[EK WAFFLR]

Am I uniformed? I actually have no idea, and I don't particularly care. I mostly wear corduroy jackets, and some form of shirt with tie, bow-tie or ascot. And black or grey slacks.

[Doktor Howl]

Am I uniformed? I actually have no idea, and I don't particularly care. I mostly wear corduroy jackets, and some form of shirt with tie, bow-tie or ascot. And black or grey slacks.

Not quite the point, Waffle Iron.  It's not so much the clothing that you wear (though that can be part of it), but whether you wrap yourself in a prepackaged image to avoid thinking.  This can be clothing, a political view, a religious outlook, a style, or any other "cause" that people adhere to, to avoid the hassle of being a person.

[EK WAFFLR]

Oh of course. I misread it a bit. Sorry 'bout that.

[Doktor Howl]

Please note that this doesn't mean a person shouldn't be enthusiastic about something...But if you have to announce that enthusiasm every minute of every day through dress, speech, etc, then it's stopped becoming a hobby and become an identity.

[Elder Iptuous]

Does your friend who currently wears the CT enthusiast uniform change frequently?
If someone fully robes themselves in one or the other for their whole life, i can see how that is sad, from the perspective of one that values experiencing a broader spectrum of life.  But if one frequently changes their interest, is it still bad?  perhaps that's an example of what you described as a Tofu type?

[Doktor Howl]

Does your friend who currently wears the CT enthusiast uniform change frequently?

Well, I've known him since 2005/2006-ish, and he's only changed once (in 2008).  It was pretty startling, though...He's gone from "both parties are fucking us" to "chemtrails, man, CHEMTRAILS" in the subsequent 4 years.

If someone fully robes themselves in one or the other for their whole life, i can see how that is sad, from the perspective of one that values experiencing a broader spectrum of life.  But if one frequently changes their interest, is it still bad?  perhaps that's an example of what you described as a Tofu type?

I am all about trying new "reality tunnels", but there's no need to become a style in order to experience it.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Uniform people are primarily about ONE THING, isn't that why everybody hates hipsters? (Well, one of the reasons... ) No discernable facets. You can see them on facebook posting about ONE thing, over & over & over: "I AM AN ACTIVIST", "I'M HOT", "I'M MIDDLE AGED BUT LOOK AT MY PICS AND TELL ME I'M STILL HOT", "I AM CREATIVE LOOK WHAT I MADE", "LOOK AT THIS BAND I SAW LAST WEEKEND", "LOOK AT MY AWESOME STUFF I COLLECTED", "I JUST HANG OUT WITH MY FAMILY AND COOK AND AREN'T MY KIDS CUTE?", "OH NOES THE GOP", "SAVE THE AMINALS", "...any one of which is great if you mix it up with other stuff, but they never do.

I know a conspiracy buff who used to be a Ron Paul supporter...I think it might be a necessary phase in the deprogramming. 

[Doktor Howl]

No discernable facets. You can see them on facebook posting about ONE thing, over & over & over: "I AM AN ACTIVIST", "I'M HOT", "I'M MIDDLE AGED BUT LOOK AT MY PICS AND TELL ME I'M STILL HOT", "I AM CREATIVE LOOK WHAT I MADE", "LOOK AT THIS BAND I SAW LAST WEEKEND", "LOOK AT MY AWESOME STUFF I COLLECTED", "I JUST HANG OUT WITH MY FAMILY AND COOK AND AREN'T MY KIDS CUTE?", "OH NOES THE GOP", "SAVE THE AMINALS",

That can be shortened, of course, to "LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

No discernable facets. You can see them on facebook posting about ONE thing, over & over & over: "I AM AN ACTIVIST", "I'M HOT", "I'M MIDDLE AGED BUT LOOK AT MY PICS AND TELL ME I'M STILL HOT", "I AM CREATIVE LOOK WHAT I MADE", "LOOK AT THIS BAND I SAW LAST WEEKEND", "LOOK AT MY AWESOME STUFF I COLLECTED", "I JUST HANG OUT WITH MY FAMILY AND COOK AND AREN'T MY KIDS CUTE?", "OH NOES THE GOP", "SAVE THE AMINALS",

That can be shortened, of course, to "LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Or "facebook, your one-stop WalMart of masturbatory threads". 

[Elder Iptuous]

as far as the CT trap goes, i've seen people take two paths.  it's an insidious little pit, since it has a seemingly tight community affiliation.  (so... you're one of us?  a truth-seeker?  you're awake, too?), but it's also so lonely due to the paranoia.  since it comprises so many disparate and contradictory persuasions, there's a ton of bickering, and when faced with this, a "newly aware" person will either be jumping from one theory to another, or they will drill in to one particular crack in the pot.  if it is the former, it seems a pretty good chance that they will stay at a high orbit, and eventually see what the ball of shit actually is, giving them that little bump that pushes them to escape velocity.  here's hoping to your buddy.

i dig what you mean by becoming the style.

as for myself, i've always seen myself as a baseline.  an average. undifferentiated except by exertion of will.  i hadn't ever seen this as a bad thing or a good thing, really.  it's simply normal.  i guess it's simply the crux of ego, being the reference point by which i judge others.  a frame of reference that needs no label other than 'origin'.  looking at it like this, it seems the healthy way to be.  "Becoming some style" takes that reference, which has no baggage/requirements attached to it, and re-pinning it at some point that does.

[Lenin McCarthy]

I have a few friends who are great people, but are annoying to be around too much because they go on and on about how legalizing drugs will create world peace, stop all organized crime and solve "insert complex issue that demands a complex solution".

Single-mindedness makes the world easier to deal with for some people, I guess.

[Faust]

This isn't a suit I am wearing. It's my tribes ceremonial battle garb, it inspires fear in my enemies and makes their women swoon. These wingtips are for stomping morons. They're refined, angled and engineered for swift kicks in the ass. This tie? I fucking use it to charm snakes before I sink my teeth into their bellies and poison 'em.