Exposure

You cannot find this blog on Google, I do not link to it from facebook. I've been insulted with blog comments from friends, strangers, and friends pretending to be strangers enough to be content to blog in the corner. But contentment is not happiness. I would like to have people read what I write and say things like, "wow, that was interesting. I was sort of thinking about it like this" or "I thought that too, but it happened to me like this". Kind of like how I wish conversations would go too, instead of me just blathering on and on and on.

Learn to Let Go

The internets are amused at a sign posted in some store, linked here. This is along the lines of no shirt, no shoes, no service rules that greeted me at eye level as a child when I accompanied my father into various gas stations in rural Wisconsin. I often wondered why "pants" was left off, and then I wondered what the big deal was about the lack of either article of clothing. If it was hot, lots of men wore no shirt, but their wallet was in their pants. When I was on a long car trip with my mother to Cincinnati, we might not have our shoes on when we stopped to use the restroom. But no shoes was an obvious safety problem, shirts less so. And this ban on saggy pants seems even less logical.

I didn't get socialized in a normal way. I've always been on the outside of normal society and thus looked at it from the outside and learned the views of the outsiders. I've only recently realized how abnormal I am, which led me to think that any knowledge I gained in the course of my life was simply the information that all the normies acquired when they didn't invite me to parties.  So when I look at strange clothing, different ways of behaving, music and dance, I don't assume that my initial reaction of shock should turn to disapproval. I assume my shock is simply a result of me being on the outside, so I accept the reality that is and move on. Sometimes, I look into the roots of what I am seeing, but if I find no harm in the newness, acceptance is enough for me.

So I do find the low pants phenomenon to be strange. It has been going on since at least the mid 1990's (see Clueless), so I think it has passed the 'fad' phase and it is now a staple in American dress styles. I've seen pants so low that I wonder how a person can walk. It seems utterly impractical to me, similar to the fad (I can only hope) of the platform high-heel, but without the inherent foot damage. And yes, I can see the plaids and stripes of boxer shorts between the pants and the shirts, but they don't register to me as offensive. One could be wearing plaid pants, or these guys could have briefs on under those boxers.

This is where cultural relativism has completely taken over my value system. I do not believe in absolute cultural relativism by any means, but perhaps my childhood spent not feeling a full part of my own culture, then studying other cultures and feeling ashamed for mocking them has made me immune from the outrages that others of my culture jump to so easily. The only things that bother me are the things that cause real harm, all else is noise or intrigue.