I think I take pride in breaking the rules! Yep, even the 10 Commandments sometimes bug me.
All the stupid rules at church, at school, wherever...Oh, I don't mean GOOD rules - like driving carefully on ice, or seat belts, or being kind to animals and children..I obey good rules most of the time.
The thing is - my childhood was TOTALLY RULED... enforced by THE MOTHER who said NO: NO slamming doors, NO loud voices, NO running, NO arguing, NO speaking with your mouth full, NO interrupting, NO worldly music, NO movies, NO dancing, NO lipstick, NO FUN. etc.
So naturally, in order to become any kind of an individual, I had to break the rules....like laughing right out loud, and "talking back'. I have to believe a rule makes sense before I obey it with good grace.
I was 14 - sent away to boarding school where the rules, in my estimation, were silly and stupid... Like not running in the halls, not wearing hose with runs in them....(we're talking 1948!) and not laughing in the dining hall....So I deliberately ran a sharp nail down my nylons til they looked like lace....20 demerits!
And told hilarious ridiculous jokes at my table in the dining room...50 demerits!
And put a bowl of jello on the fire escape landing where the girls who snuck out to be with their boyfriends would slip on the jello and slide messily down the fire shoot to the ground....100 demerits..and on and on.
So after 3 years, I was expelled...for ATTITUDE, more than anything.
The years have softened, but not eradicated, my attitude toward rules. Why just the other day I 'borrowed' a whole magazine from the doctor's office, not just the recipes - (which i rip out quietly while coughing loudly to cover the shriek of tearing paper!)
It feels so good to break arbitrary rules.
Once in a while, at the reputable university where I taught for decades I would leave campus early bearing a big cardboard box with my own purse and briefcase inside ...mentioning to the secretaries in passing that I was going to the University Research Library (in which no one could ever find me)..and then drove happily home to work in my garden.
So I guess I'm still resisting authority...on a case-by-case basis! I still think many rules just satisfy the power needs of society's gate-keepers....and I still refuse to comply. Quite immature of me, I suppose....or maybe I'm still fighting for my own individuation.
