Good times, good times.

Pretty uneventful day today. Went to my classes, got homework for all of them, stuff like that. But I did have a few moments that just made my day today.

The first being in my first class, which is physics. Class of 70-80, and I sit in the second row. Anyway, class was a few minutes away from starting when someone a few rows back started whistling. Now, in of itself, that would be pretty cool, because music in boring school, always fun. But he was whistling that song that I love for its whimsy, which I think has been in a car commercial or two. ~What a day for a day dream/ what a day for a day-dreamin' boy/ and I'm lost in a day dream

The second was a little shorter and simply that of walking past Melissa and saying hello. You ever notice those people whose smile can just light up a room and is completely infectious? Just like that. Cheered me right up for a few minutes, not that I was really down.

Now onward I go to do homework. Yay.

We are the borg.

You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile, for < 1 ohm.

I've been thinking about individuality lately. Just an errant thought really, but it keeps floating around, so I figured I should nail it down, maybe have it stuffed and put on my wall somewhere. Anyway, just thinking about our American/Western European culture we have going here, it's simply very odd. I mean, we have this culture that thrives on the idea that we need to be individuals, that we need to shine and step forward and be counted, and so on, yet we express this inevitably by being the exact same individual as everyone else. We conform, but since that is seen on the surface as bad, we are not going along with the crowd, we're being individuals. But really, we hate individualism with a passion, time and time again (not to say there aren't exceptiosn of course). Having been that outsider/loner/individual, it's so fairly obvious that we shun true differences.

In high school, this is the whole cool thing, or the gang thing, or the popular thing, or whatever. Schools themselves do this. As we move into college and on into the "real" world, this banding together to crush those who don't conform is done in the form of p.c. for the most part. I'm always reminded of the story of one ruler who sent a messenger to another great ruler, asking him how he had such power. In response, the second ruler took the messenger to a field of grain, and chopped off all the stalks that rose above the average height. Of course, we take it further, creating a culture in which the stalks pull themselves down to the level and if not, the others will cut them off by themselves.

It's all very disturbing on some level that I'm not quite sure of. But it is none the less disturbing.