My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol.4, #19, November 23, 1998

CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY AMARETTO TRUFFLE

I was listening to a CD my friend Jenny made for me of some of her favorite songs, and while other songs appealed to me more as music, the one that grabbed my mind was Alanis Davis, singing "I am 32 flavors and then some." It was one of those "Right on!" moments, as I thought, yes, we're all 32 flavors--so why does the world keep trying to turn us all into vanilla?

For one thing, society needs us to be consistent all-of-one-piece personalities--it's so much easier to sort us, and control us, if we're utterly predictable . But we are not. Like The Rain People's song says, "I keep finding people hiding out inside of me." I have a wicked witch of the west who emerges from time to time, especially when people come at me with a hostile attitude. My mommy personality comes out when I see a kid who's hurting or confused. When I am planning reasoned rebellion, my interior 8 year old keeps trying to throw bombs. My white-rabbit personality takes over whenever I'm on a tight deadline: just do exactly what I say, stay out of my way and don't bother me with different ideas about how to get things done.

I'm willing to bet you too have little splinter personalities hiding out inside, who occasionally mutiny and take over, leaving you wondering, "Why did I do that?" "Why did I say that?" No, that doesn't make us Sybil. We all knit our little bits and pieces of personality into a crazy quilt that nonetheless has discernible patterns. Out of mine comes a generally consistent Marylaine who is calm, amused, cheerfully cynical, and maybe above all curious--the part of me that never stops peeking out is the irritating 3-year-old who's always asking "Why?"

The world not only demands of us a whole predictable personality, it also insists that out of all our abilities and interests, we choose just one or two of them to make a living with. It rewards us with promotions and bonuses for getting better at those jobs. Unfortunately, we are also choosing NOT to do all the other things that interest us, leaving us to wonder all our lives about that road not taken. For me, there are too many things I want to do, and there's nowhere near enough life to go around. I've been a teacher, a mommy, a librarian and a writer. Now I want to be a writer and a volunteer--but I'd also like to teach again, run a children's bookstore, take in foster children, and maybe even run for office. It's why the idea of reincarnation is so appealing: who would sit around for eternity in a heaven that sounds outstandingly dull, when you could live your life all over again, this time as an astronaut or a firefighter or a president?

The place where the world limits us and prepares us for sameness is school. The current vogue for school uniforms is simply an extension of one of the unstated functions of school--to train us to listen and wait politely for permission to speak, to restrain and control our energy, to force us to focus our minds on subjects determined by adults, not by our interests. It's where we learn about power: who gets to make the rules, who has to follow them, and who can manage to break them and get away with it.

Naturally kids rebel against this, just as adults rebel against equally authoritarian social structures at work. But even rebellion comes cloaked in sameness, because when kids set up their own social order, they still play follow the leader--the only thing that changes is who gets to be the leader. The popular kids decide what's cool, the other kids mindlessly follow. And the sillier "cool" looks, the better--could there be a rawer assertion of power than getting everybody to wear their baseball caps backward and their pants belted under their fannies? (And yes, the fashions when I was in school were every bit as ridiculous.)

It's not just how you look that matters, though. It's also how you behave and think. Kid culture is resolutely anti-intellectual. To take an active interest in ideas raised in class is to court social Siberia, while reading books for fun is as socially damaging as being caught picking your nose. Women's liberation might just as well never have occurred as far as teenage girls are concerned--if they want to catch a guy, they still have to hide their brains in public. (My theory about why Hillary sticks with Bill is that in some part of her mind she remains the smart, geeky girl who unaccountably snagged the homecoming king, and she has never really stopped being grateful.)

If kids don't want to be the flavor of the month, the only safe way to rebel is in groups: the debate team, the consciously James Dean-ish outlaws, the artsies dressed in black, the What-would-Jesus-do crowd, are all recognized flavors, even if not the correct one, and granted a certain degree of acceptance. Kids who have invented their own flavor, who insist on their uniqueness, have a hellish time of it in school.

To a discouraging extent, high school culture carries on into the real world (though the ability to make lots of money allows some people to get away with being themselves). The stars still decide what's in and what's out, and the wannabes still slavishly imitate them and suck up to them. It's just that now, they make us wear neckties and suits, or skirts, pantyhose and high heels, and tell us which kinds of cars and watches and restaurants are cool.

They still tell us how we're allowed to behave, and the range of acceptable flavors is determined at least in part by the categories we fit in. The old conjugation game continues to apply: I demand the best from my people, you come on strong, she's a bitch on wheels. A man who gets straight to the point without smiling and chatting is businesslike and direct, while a woman who does the same is simply unfeminine.

Those of us who want to be our own distinctive flavors can cope with this world by learning camouflage. We can be gray on the outside, hiding and cultivating all our sunrise colors inside. We can say "Yes, sir!" while mentally sticking out our tongues. Jane Austen wrote her masterpieces in the sitting room, between tasks and visitors, never mentioning them--do you wonder at how much fun she took in puncturing the little vanities and pomposities of those whose dictates forced her into hiding?

Or we can refuse to be somebody else's flavor anymore. Age and self-assurance can liberate us from vanilla. I have reached a point in my life where I have decided, "I am what I am, and if you don't like it, too bad--you don't know what you're missing." I am 32 flavors and then some, including flavors that nobody but me ever thought of before.

And so, my friends, are you. In fact, we may not have even begun to figure out what all our other flavors might be.

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