Musings On A Rainy Afternoon

I wonder what would happen if I were able to jump into a Calvin and Hobbes strip, if only for a day. Which character, if any, would I appear as? Would I join with Calvin in his quest to live freely as a 6 year old kid, or would I be like everybody else, telling him to stop it and be 'normal'. This, of course, raises the question of what 'normal' is. I am in the opinion that normality is relative to one's own experience, and therefore can not and should not be objectified by the general populace. Of course, I fully realize that the general populace does not share my views, and has therefore labeled me as 'abnormal', which, I think, only strengthens my own argument even more. But there is a price for not accepting society's social guidelines, and that price usually consists of being labeled as 'weird', shoved out of most peer groups, and having a lot of people go out of their way to make you miserable, all in the hopes that you will conform, thereby destroying what made you you in the process. This is happening everyday, all over the world, and nothing is being done because the general populace is gaining steam, and mediocrity is the new standard. What happened to the times when differing opinions were accepted, even encouraged? When having a creative mind was superior to being able to pin a guy in tights to a sweaty mat? Better yet, did those times ever exist? People ask me all the time how I can be a Marine and have the kind of mindset that I do, and I answer them the same every time: Being in the military does not imply that you enjoy not having to think, but implies that you have more love for your country than for your own personal freedoms. But this isn't a post about being in the military, this is a post about how alarmed we all should be. If creative thought continues being stomped out, everybody will suffer. The entertainment industry has already fallen into this trap; the new fad for movies now is that they all have to be about superheroes, or they'll never be successful. Don't get me wrong, I freaking loved The Avengers, Iron Man, and Chris Nolan's Dark Knight series, but when that's all that's coming out, you tend to get burned out and start to hate superheroes. If I had my way, superhero movies would follow the Harry Potter movie schedule: every other year, alternating between summer and winter; that way, you get a regular fix of awesome movies, and you'll actually get excited for when the new one comes out. Oh, and no doing two superhero movies at the same time. I'm looking at you, The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spiderman. Granted, they probably won't come out at the same time, but just the fact that they're already making both movies at the same time angers me. It angers me because superhero movies require huge budgets, and more often than not, it's the studios who end up bankrolling the majority of those films. Now, what if somebody came up with a genuinely original movie that is guaranteed to make millions for everybody involved. Thanks to the superhero movies, there's no more money in the budget for this movie, and it gets discarded, never to be brought up again. And that is probably one of the saddest things in the world. Anyways, I figure I've taken up enough of your time, so I'll leave this post with a personal favorite: Be who you are say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.