Iconoclast

I have talked in the past about how non-conformist I was as a child, and am as an adult. Over the years it has caused problems for me. Mainstream work placings frown on tattoos and piercings (at least they did back in the day, they might be more lenient now) I was stared at by moms because of purple hair, whispers of "don't stare" was heard all around me. STARE! Stare I say, I want you to know that I do not follow you. My mother took me out for my 16th birthday. I had left home 2 years before. I remember sitting in the back of the van and my mom telling her boyfriend, " I don't know what to do with her. She tries to hide her beauty by making herself up to be ugly". (I never wore make-up. It was the hair and dress she spoke of)

I was ridiculed in school for not wearing make-up or hairspray, "Phelan doesn't believe in hairspray. How can you not believe in something that is real?"

I was cornered in the bathroom by a group of popular girls and interrogated about the music I listened to.

After a time you stop defending yourself to your peers. And learn to accept others as they are. Most of the time others will leave you alone. Friendships could be difficult. People will always judge you by your outward appearance, which I do not find inappropriate. Your exterior should be a reflection of your interior. But they problem comes with the interpretation of the exterior. I was lumped in with the Stoners, skaters and criminals, all because there were no other goth kids at the time. Yes, I did smoke pot, but it didn't rule me like it did with some of the stoners. I got along with everyone, but they didn't want to get along with me. Friends were hard when mothers tell there kids about your Iconoclast mother. I'll allow her to tell the story if she wants, remember who thought dad was your dad? Those stories get around small towns quickly, they mutate and make a child's life hell.

Then you become an adult, and your ideals come with you but morph into something else. Less idyllic, but still a stubborn piece of you. You get to a point where you know that one person rarely changes the world. The idea starts with one, then the chain continues to others that feel the same. And then it falls into the hands of someone that can be persuasive, and more hear and more, until it has became mainstream.

There has always been a back to the land movement {I wish they didn't call it that} It was just done by hippies and retirees. In recent years, suburban families have decided that farm life would be good for their children. Most give up after they have purchased the land. They soon discover that there is little time to do everything, and work. It is very evident out here. There seems to be waves of this type of "movement". Making those of us that did it for other reasons, mainstream. It doesn't bother me, as I know that it will not last.

Homesteading is becoming a popular pass time with people. I can hope that lessons of self sufficiency will be kept after they have become bored and tired. But that is in the future, and something I can not predict.

This question has been past around the homesteading blogs before. But as our readers become more, and a broader audience emerges, I will broach it once again. I know many of you aren't talking to me right now, for various reasons of things I have said, so I will put up a poll. Yet if you would, please leave a comment and expand on your answer.

This is multiple choice.