Hoops and Hoopla

            Some people are designed or born or bred to jump through the various hoops life places in our path and obtain status quo success. They followed the rules, went to a good school, graduated, got a good job, married, bought a house, had children and work at a job they do because they can do it. (Whether they enjoy it or not.) They get up on time without alarm clocks and feel a general sense of satisfaction when they look in the mirror.

            Some people look at those same hoops as if they were on fire and think, “Well, that sure as shit ain’t for me”. I happen to be one of those. I’m not a jump though the hoops sort. It always made me feel bad that I wasn’t one of those types. People made me feel bad about not being one of those types of people, like there was something wrong with me, that my way was not the right way and therefore I should be punished or disciplined.

            I’m starting to learn that this world is designed for those on the thick part of the bell curve, those hoop jumpers, and people like me tend to wander the fringes of the curve. My dreams of success are constrained by a world where the hoop jumpers rule. My way is not wrong however, it’s just different, and I shouldn’t be punished for it.

            America is all about rugged individualism, as long as you follow the herd of other hoop jumpers. To stray from that flock can cause you to be shunned or looked down upon and cause a person to develop some deep seeded resentment for the system; a system that favors the hoop jumpers, designed by hoop jumpers, for hoop jumpers. I’ve often felt ostracized by the system. Which makes me feel lonely, sad and ‘out of it’.

            It’s hard for me to follow the rules of a system that rewards conformity, mediocrity and illogical redundancy. Although I am often told I just have to do it because I have to. Which I don’t accept as a reasonable reason for doing anything. I’m not an anarchist or a nihilist or anything so extreme. I just am tired of being made to feel bad because the way I want to conduct my life is not in line with the fat part of the hoop jumpers bell curve.

            I have a different perspective on what success is. I have a different perspective on what a meaningful life is. Although I strain to explain what it is exactly using the terms of the hoop jumpers’ bell curve. I can’t explain it and I don’t think the hoop jumpers would understand it. Their perspective is wholly different from my own or from any artist really.

            I wouldn’t really dare to call myself an actual artist, but I do feel I have that perspective. I don’t see the world like the hoop jumpers. I’m just not in that club, never have been. But I’ve been made to feel bad because I don’t see the world like the hoop jumpers and I’m tired of it. I won’t ever succeed in a cubicle. I won’t ever succeed behind a desk. Unless that desk is my own as I put the finishing touches on the “Great American Novel”.

            I just wonder if people will let me be who I am and not put the demands of the hoop jumpers lifestyle on me. My happiness doesn’t lie along that path and it never will. The more pressure I get to conform, the worse I feel about who I’ve become. When I really shouldn’t. I am working on being proud of what I’ve accomplished outside the sphere of the hoops.

            Life is hard for the non-hoop jumpers; it’s extreme and difficult to keep your chin up when surrounded by those that measure their lives by how many hoops they’ve jumped through. I just don’t want hoop jumping happiness. I want raw, real, dirty, messy, surviving, sloppy, anti-hoop happiness. So bear with me as I try and figure out how to do that on the fringes. It isn’t always pretty. It’s just the person I am and I'm only just realizing it.