“No person of quality ever remembers social restrictions save when considering how most piquantly to break them.”
― James Branch Cabell
It started in my Junior year of High School. My parents sent me to a private school that had an amazing number of rules that seemed to govern every aspects of our time and behaviour. It seemed so much more restrictive than the public school I had been in the year before. Fairly early on tho I began to gain a new understanding. Because there were so many rules to keep track of, the part of the faculty responsible for discipline were kept on their toes. As in any bureaucratic system the more rules there are, the easier it is to manipulate the system. Because I showed an aptitude for math, they wanted to move me up one class. They told me it was up to me to decide where I felt most comfortable. I could take the lower class third period and have fourth period free or I could take the more advanced class forth period and have the third period free. It really was an easy decision. I told my forth period teacher that I was taking the easier math and the third period teacher, I was taking the advanced class and for three months, I enjoyed a double free period. By the time they had caught up to me and decided to keep me in detention for quite awhile, I had left to see if there was life outside of high school. Five months later when I came back, the heads of the school were rather dumbfounded and allowed me to take two classes during the summer and graduate with my class the next year. To be honest they didn’t know what hit them..
Since then I have learned that breaking and bending rules social and otherwise have consequences, yet not all of them are necessarily negative ones. Its a matter of self-honesty (Bob Dylan said that if you lived outside the law you have to be honest and he was correct) , understanding the reasons why the rules are there in the first place (not all rules are bad–there are as many rules are in place to promote safety as there are rules that benefit the convenience of those in charge). If we rebel for the sake of rebellion only than we are still being controlled by others, in that we are reacting to them rather than following what is right for us. Figuring out what is right for ourselves and following that is of primary importance. Didn’t William Shakespeare say “Above all else to thine own self be true”
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Pulling the Moon by G A Rosenberg
The Beating of Wings by G A Rosenberg
