I've always been the different one.
Dec. 18th, 2020 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkI used to feel it was just because I was the book nerd. And in fact I still feel that many of the differences stem from being a feral child, raised by books because my parents were too busy with my "difficult" brother. (Who, btw, was a totally normal child? Mom said once the goober reminds her of him. I was just an unnaturally biddable baby, so when he came along, they were shocked and confused, and also let one bad teacher influence them into giving him a label that ruined his life. But that's an entire other rant, really.)
ANYWAY.
I was thinking about an incident today, that shows that even when I was neck-deep in Mormonism, utterly devout, super dedicated, absolutely fully bought in, I still thought differently from those around me.
I was a missionary, and of course I met a lot of interesting people. If there was somebody who invited us back that I liked seeing, I would draw them "furry" self portraits. "I draw people as animals, if you were an animal, what would you be?" I'd say. A lot of people had no idea, so I'd come up with one for them.
Stephen was rail thin, super smart, and a little manic. I drew him as a cheetah.
I also drew him wearing a (clean) wifebeater that showed his shoulder tattoos, smoking a cigarette, and leaning in a doorway. That was how he looked every time we talked to him. He smoked like a chimney and didn't seem to notice he was in Ireland where it's chilly and damp. It's probably the best of those portraits, and maybe I'll see if I can dig it out and add it to this story. I made a copy for him, but I still have the original.
When I got home, I was going through my missionary journal with my mother, and I showed her the portrait of Steve. She was horrified that I'd drawn him doing something as evil as smoking, and also with the tattoos, and told me I should have drawn him as the good person I knew he was deep inside, just waiting to be converted to the truth.
Thing is...he wasn't. We didn't convert him. We talked to him a lot, and we tried to help him quit smoking (there's a funny story there about my nutball companion, she was great) and we attempted to get him to church, but frankly I think he had more impact on my thinking than I ever did on his.
The thought that I should draw him somehow perfected and made Mormon hadn't crossed my mind, even though the very idea of drawing a cigarette at all shocked and horrified my mother.
I've never been horrified by the "evil sins" of the world.
I just haven't!
I've been uncomfortable with them. You could ask my husband about my early request that he stop drinking and swearing. (He did for a while, and ironically does both now much less than I do.) But even while I did think of them as sins, they didn't horrify or shock me. Stephen's cigarette and tattoos were part of who he was. I was drawing a portrait. The very idea of drawing him as some other person I wanted him to be made me deeply uncomfortable, in fact. It's not my place to do that, not even in a sketch. (And btw. I always thought the "we make you Mormon after you're dead" thing with posthumous baptism was only morally acceptable because I was taught it only "takes" if the dead person accepts it, it's just that with them being up there with God now and all, able to clearly see the truth, they probably all would, right?)
This all goes to show, though, that I never thought like most Mormons seem to. At the time I didn't realize, but it turns out that I was seeing people as full, complex humans and coming to like them that way, even when I would have been pleased if they changed and improved themselves, while the Mormons around me were seeing Horrifying Sinful Others who needed fixing.
P.S. Found the picture! Stephen the cheetah.
ANYWAY.
I was thinking about an incident today, that shows that even when I was neck-deep in Mormonism, utterly devout, super dedicated, absolutely fully bought in, I still thought differently from those around me.
I was a missionary, and of course I met a lot of interesting people. If there was somebody who invited us back that I liked seeing, I would draw them "furry" self portraits. "I draw people as animals, if you were an animal, what would you be?" I'd say. A lot of people had no idea, so I'd come up with one for them.
Stephen was rail thin, super smart, and a little manic. I drew him as a cheetah.
I also drew him wearing a (clean) wifebeater that showed his shoulder tattoos, smoking a cigarette, and leaning in a doorway. That was how he looked every time we talked to him. He smoked like a chimney and didn't seem to notice he was in Ireland where it's chilly and damp. It's probably the best of those portraits, and maybe I'll see if I can dig it out and add it to this story. I made a copy for him, but I still have the original.
When I got home, I was going through my missionary journal with my mother, and I showed her the portrait of Steve. She was horrified that I'd drawn him doing something as evil as smoking, and also with the tattoos, and told me I should have drawn him as the good person I knew he was deep inside, just waiting to be converted to the truth.
Thing is...he wasn't. We didn't convert him. We talked to him a lot, and we tried to help him quit smoking (there's a funny story there about my nutball companion, she was great) and we attempted to get him to church, but frankly I think he had more impact on my thinking than I ever did on his.
The thought that I should draw him somehow perfected and made Mormon hadn't crossed my mind, even though the very idea of drawing a cigarette at all shocked and horrified my mother.
I've never been horrified by the "evil sins" of the world.
I just haven't!
I've been uncomfortable with them. You could ask my husband about my early request that he stop drinking and swearing. (He did for a while, and ironically does both now much less than I do.) But even while I did think of them as sins, they didn't horrify or shock me. Stephen's cigarette and tattoos were part of who he was. I was drawing a portrait. The very idea of drawing him as some other person I wanted him to be made me deeply uncomfortable, in fact. It's not my place to do that, not even in a sketch. (And btw. I always thought the "we make you Mormon after you're dead" thing with posthumous baptism was only morally acceptable because I was taught it only "takes" if the dead person accepts it, it's just that with them being up there with God now and all, able to clearly see the truth, they probably all would, right?)
This all goes to show, though, that I never thought like most Mormons seem to. At the time I didn't realize, but it turns out that I was seeing people as full, complex humans and coming to like them that way, even when I would have been pleased if they changed and improved themselves, while the Mormons around me were seeing Horrifying Sinful Others who needed fixing.
P.S. Found the picture! Stephen the cheetah.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-19 07:05 pm (UTC)Also, I feel a lot of people at least have that moment of "there's more to people than this simplified how of the world," even if it seems a lot of them then stuff that down as far as it will go so it doesn't show up again and give them thoughts.