Out of Step.
The occurrences that change the course of our lives are often private and almost imperceptible to everyone else, even those closest to us. For me, one of those moments was listening to Minor Threat for the first time. My stereo was turned all the way up, my headphones, pressed tightly to my ear. I was twelve years old, and I knew at the exact moment the song “Filler” began that I was different than before. The music communicated a new way of thinking and living that very few people in Greenville, South Carolina—especially my parents and teachers—could understand. It was defiant, and every yell, every chord, every drum beat exposed the hypocrisy of adult society. The songs screamed it was not only OK, but it was my responsibility, to be out of step. It was exciting.
Despite my enthusiasm, my new worldview did not instantly change the world. Everything went on as normal. My twelve-year-old self didn’t understand how this could be. But the disconnect between my personal transformation and my life’s consistency continued beyond that day and produced a lot of the angst and self-righteousness of my teen years.
I started thinking about this experience after reading Gregoire Bouillier’s Report on Myself. A nine-year-old Bouillier sees his friend’s mother naked, and he beautifully describes the event’s effect:
That evening, the whole family gets together to eat off trays in front of the television, while waiting for the Sunday evening movie. Everything takes place as if nothing had happened. As if I were still the same. Yet daily life has been smashed in two. How can the walls, the plates, the bedspread still remain in place? Doesn’t anyone see that nothing can be as it was before? Even so, I’ve lived an entire life in one afternoon, and it’s impossible that it could have happened unnoticed. There must be a mark on my face, a crease, something, a speck of the cosmos in my eyes. But no. Dad hands me a piece of bread. Mom wipes her lips before taking a swallow of red wine. I see every gesture, and each seems out of proportion. Their ridiculous repetition hits me in the face for the first time.
The book is good, not great, but like life, it has these intense flashes of insight that should not go unnoticed.
