PUT YOUR CAP ON

by FARI CHIDEYA
Nov. 11th, 2004.

Has anyone else here been letting themselves go? I admit, I’ve been in a totally crappy mood for a week solid. I’ve been eating lots of sugar, breaking out like a teenager, and furtively pulling up to drive-throughs. (Yes, I read “Fast Food Nation.” I know what’s in that stuff, and I ate it ANYWAY.)

I guess that was my own culinary version of the primal scream. But hey, the joyride’s over. Time to go back to the gym, cook, find conversation topics other than politics… and stop wincing when I read the newspaper.

Now’s the time to take care of yourself.

Now’s the time to take care of yourself. That may be a strange thing to say after one of the most intense elections in American history, but it’s true. Healthy people–physically, mentally, emotionally–produce healthy societies. Healthy societies produce healthy democracies.

And healthy democracies embrace dissent. Rev. Martin Luther King said, “The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”

Sort of like superheroes.

Bear with me here… I just saw “The Incredibles.” It rocked my friggin’ world. Not only is the animation sooper-dooper (just the leaves on the trees in the rainforest gave me chills), but it actually has a message.

Don’t worry, that doesn’t spoil the fun of the film. But let me just give one little quote that I scribbled on the back of my ticket stub: “Right now the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in we have to be like everybody else.”

We can do better than that.

Being a non-conformist in today’s society is definitely a heroic action. Non-conformity does not mean being different like everybody else. It does not mean getting the cool tattoo or t-shirt or dress, though, hey, that’s fine too. It’s about taking a searing moral inventory of your life–yes, I used the word “moral”–and figuring out where you fit in the big picture. It’s about NOT waiting for other folks to save the world.

Being a non-conformist is about accepting that you are unique and valuable rather than waiting for someone else to tell you. It’s about applying the idea of “do unto others”–a concept which flows across societies, faiths, ethnicities, and cultures–to yourself. Treating other people as well as you treat yourself doesn’t work too well if you don’t treat YOURSELF well.

So: treat yourself well. It’s the beginning of better days.

Farai