Stranger than friction (5 Reasons Why I Think I'm Strange)

Name: duncantorr

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Product:	5 Reasons Why I Think I'm Strange
Date:	12/06/08 (549 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: "All is strange yet nothing new"

Disadvantages: "Something rich and strange"

Of course I don't really. Think I'm strange, that is, though I might perhaps lay claim to being individual, or even unusual.

The title for this category reminds me of the old saying "I am firm; you are obstinate; he is pig-headed," the idea being that the same characteristic tends to be more or less pejoratively described depending on who is displaying it. Thus the underlying theme of this category could be expressed as "I am individual; you are curious; he is strange," or "I am original; you are eccentric; he is weird," or even "I am extraordinary; you are bizarre; he is nuts."

So, strange though I believe people are, I'm not really claiming to be any stranger than anyone else when I confess to the five characteristics listed below, no more eccentric than you and certainly no more nuts than him.

But a little bit different, possibly. Because, much to my astonishment, I find that few people appear to share my attitude, or even to believe me, when I tell them that:


* 1. I don't want to be rich. *

No, honestly I don't. I've nothing against money. It's useful stuff, and having some is infinitely preferable to having none, as anyone who has ever had none can attest. Money may, as they say, not buy happiness, but at least it enables you to be miserable in comfort and with a certain peace of mind, so that you don't have to concern yourself all the time with penny-pinching. Look after the pounds and the pennies can go hang, that's my philosophy.

But how many pounds do you really want to have to look after, and to find uses for? At the risk of befuddling you, and indeed myself, with economic jargon, I'd say the ownership of money was a classic case of diminishing marginal returns to scale. When you're poor, a little extra money makes a world of difference. The less poor you become, the less difference it makes, until there comes a point when the only difference is to encumber you with more concerns and more responsibilities. Although I am not rich by any standards, I am as close to that crossover point as I want to be. I am conscious that there are many people with less who would regard my state as enviable, but that is not the point here. The point is that I do not envy, or wish to emulate, those with more, but am content to settle for what I have.

Let's imagine that I wasn't content to settle for it, but that driven by greed, I reset my sights higher and higher. Imagine too that I were lucky (or unlucky) enough to be successful, what next? A second or third home? No thanks: they only mean more upkeep and repairs, more insurance, more security risks. More, or fancier, cars? How many cars can one person drive simultaneously? We already gave up our second car when I retired because we found we hardly ever used it, and our remaining one works well enough. A yacht? It doesn't interest me. A private jet? A string of racehorses? I'd never derive pleasure from them commensurate with the time and trouble they'd demand from me. I don't even want to own Chelsea Football Club, with all the headaches and heartaches that would entail. Poor old Roman; my heart bleeds for him. Above all, if you start acquiring these things, you end up having to employ staff to look after them all for you, and nothing is more time-consuming or more troublesome than employing staff.

To me being rich has no appeal, and there is no kudos attached to its achievement. It is something I will happily leave to others, to you for example if it's an ambition that excites you, for I shall be smugly thinking: "I am comfortably off; you are rich, you poor old thing; he - fool that he is - is stinking."


* 2. I don't want to be famous. *

Why anyone would want to be famous is entirely beyond me. All right, not entirely. I can imagine two reasons for wanting to be famous. The first is that fame is a springboard to becoming rich, but since I don't want to be rich, that lift-off is of no value to me. The second is that star-struck females reputedly fling themselves at the feet of famous men. I can't pretend that this notion is entirely without its attractions, even at my age and in my happily-married state, though at my feet is not really where I want to find females. I like women of character and independent spirit, not the impressionable sort of bimbo who might do such flinging.

Against this trivial potential benefit, consider the downsides: people pestering you in the street for autographs, wanting to engage you in inane conversation on trains or wanting to take a poke at you for something they imagine you to stand for. You'd have to go round in disguise, or employ a minder. And talking of disguise, you'd have to dress up in fancy costumes to go to receptions and events to be seen and photographed with other fatuous celebs in order to sustain your celebrity. Talk about a treadmill.

Treadmills eventually exhaust those who tread them, just as a springboard is ultimately something from which one plunges headfirst into deep water. Those who live by celebrity are often in due course sacrificed to it, as the media grow weary of adulation and start instead to sneer. Once the spur, fame becomes the slur. Or, to put it another way: "I am unavoidably in the public eye; you are publicity-seeking; he and she are Posh and Becks."


* 3. I don't want to be powerful. *

"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about," said Oscar Wilde in an attempt to counter my thesis about fame outlined above, and we all know what happened to him, poor soul.

He should have applied his wit to a far more worthy target, power. For truly, the only thing worse than people having power over you is having power over people. Unless, of course, it's the other way round. Either way, to me it seems that all power corrupts absolutely, and I only hope that I was not too damaged from having once had to exercise it in the workplace, and that neither were those over whom I exercised it. No one ever took less pleasure in command, or tried to to apply it more lightly.

I am delighted to say that I now have no power whatsoever over anyone else, but if I had I would have to reflect regretfully that: "I am in a position of authority; you are a tyrannical bully; he is a bug-eyed megalomaniac."


* 4. I don't want to be a leader of men, or even of women. *

Short of actual power, there also appears to be something called leadership, to which many people aspire and which others admire for no very obvious reason. The idea seems to be that by inspiration, encouragement or example one person persuades others to do things or to adopt attitudes that they might not otherwise have done.

What a weird and frightening concept. The Fuhrer Prinzip, the Germans would call it. Now why does that sound sinister? Proponents of the Fuhrer Prinzip take the view that people have to be either leaders or followers. No thanks; I'm not a pack animal and I don't want to be either.

You only need to know a little history to know what a destructive force leadership can be. Leaving monsters like Hitler, Napoleon and Mao to one side for a moment, and thinking only of British examples, one can quickly see that they are at best comical and at worst disastrous. Imagine, for example, that: "I am a poor bloody conscript; you are Baden-Powell; he is Field Marshal Haig."


* 5. I'm happy. *

Sorry, I know how infuriating it is when someone expresses such an insufferable sentiment, but I am. I am happy because I am without desires that I cannot satisfy and ambitions that I cannot fulfil. Of course, I am not without my fears and trepidations, for myself, for those I love, especially for my wife who has been gravely ill, and for the world we live in. But I am convinced that there is nothing much I can do beyond what I am already doing to avert any threatened disasters, so they need not disturb my serenity.

This should not make me strange, but all my observations of others going about their everyday lives brings home to me that it is at least unusual. Far too many of my fellow-humans seem to live lives of dissatisfaction, dominated by thwarted desire and fear of failure. I might be saddened by this if I felt I could help to alleviate it, but I can't so I'm not.

I would not presume to recommend my approach to anyone else. Remember that I do not aspire to leadership or even influence. But I do sometimes muse that there might be less misery in the world if more people enjoyed a similar outlook. Then it would no longer sound so strange to say: "I am happy; you are happy; he is happy too."


© First published in its original form under the name torr on Ciao UK, May 11th 2004.

My "product rating" is for strangeness, and contentment, as concepts, not for my claim to them. Please note too that this review is in no way an assertion of selflessness - as some on "the other side" misread it. There is nothing selfless about not wanting what you don't want.

Summary: Strange, perhaps, but true