What Are You Changing? Who Do You Think You're Changing? You Can't Change Things, We're All Stuck In Our Ways

--"Rise Up With Fists (cover)", Rilo Kiley

Back at St. Rita's I was pretty good friends with a set of identical twins name Paul and Phillip. For the most part, they acted like identical twins are supposed to act, which is to say that acted quite alike. They dressed alike, they were involved in the same things, and they even had the same tastes in a lot of different.

The one difference that always struck me as odd was the fact that whenever they went to McDonald's, Paul would get a Big Mac and Phillip would get a Quarter Pounder. I don't know why I always assumed that they would order the same thing, but it always left me with a feeling that of all things to differ on that was by far the most inconsequential. I know food preferences is a matter of taste, but to act and react so alike in so many ways and to diverge on what fast food order always seemed petty to me. I don't know--I always assumed that if either of them were to assert their independence from one another it would have been taking up different musical instruments, which they didn't (they both took up the accordion). Or to hang out with a different crowd of friends. I guess that's why it struck me as weird that to my young mind they were practically indistinguishable from one other except for the whole McDonald's quandary.


and I will rise up with fists
and I will take what's mine mine mine

I don't know if I could have ever been a twin. At the very least I would have made for a very bad one. From a very young age I valued having my own identity almost to exclusion of co-opting anyone else's. I think the pressure to customarily dress, act, and otherwise be a mirror to a sibling would have only served to make me act completely different from him or her. Even taking a look at my own relationship with my brother, it's fairly obvious that I never wanted anyone confusing the two of us for one another. Whenever he got into something I didn't automatically jump into it too. I always had to make sure that it was important to me and it is something I wanted to associate with. Conversely, when he got into something I liked, very often I would abandon it on the simple principle that if it didn't truly matter to me then there was no reason both of us should be doing it. I've always had identity issues in verifying that everyone I knew had a clear idea of what I was about and what I stood for.

I guess you could say that I've never bought into doing something just because everyone else is doing it. As Rachel once wrote, "Right is right even if no one does it, and wrong is wrong even if everyone does it." I believe that not only does it work best when everyone is doing what he or she like, I actually believe that society is much worse off when everyone is of exactly the same mind. I think any group works best when people have various opinions AND still find a way to come to the same conclusion. It's when people start thinking that they should fall in with the rest of the group without examining their principles and beliefs that groups get into trouble.

I guess that's why I always had trouble with the concept of twins. I want to be the only person who thinks like I do and I want to know that when I run into somebody they'll have a vastly different set of beliefs to challenge or strengthen my own.

I want to be able to order a Big Mac when everyone else is ordering a Quarter Pounder or vice-versa.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers