Date:         Tue, 09 Jul 96 08:27:11 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: A serious plea for help.

why do people to go to the Catholic church? or the Baptist church? or the
Jewish synagogue??

why do people eat at McDonald's instead of Hardee's or Burger King or Wendy's??

why is there air? :)

we do what we feel is comfortable.

now, some folks are not able to figure out what THEY feel as comfortable ...
so they follow along with the "herd". they eat as a herd, they vote as a herd,
they buy as a herd ... whatever the herd is doing this week, that's what they
have to do. whatever is "popular", that's what they want.

and think of the energy savings: no thought involved, other people have
already shown you the way, it's cheaper cause the volume is higher. why,
there are LOTS of advantages to being just another brick in the wall, just
another cow in the herd. :)


but then ... there are those of us who are dissatisfied with being part of
a herd. or at least, part of such a LARGE herd. some of us break off from
the herd. some ride Harleys. some go even further and ride pedal bikes.
others drive VW's. and even among the VW "herd", there are those who would
take different paths to "freedom" .... beetles, buses, things ... but all
"different" from the Lemmings of Leisure.

Life is not easy. perhaps it is not meant to be easy. Life is, and always
has been, a struggle against Nature, the Odds, other animals, other people.
some of us enjoy that struggle, even encourage it; tempting Fate and Destiny
each time we step out of our caves.

as we grow older, we tend to regard Fate as not so much a worthy adversary,
but some mean-ass bastard that hates us and is trying to kill us. and we
long for the dull-minded security of the herd, the mindless existence of
letting someone else tell us what is good and right and proper. Thinking is
Work. it takes time and effort. and it gets harder every day with the modern
world and its ever increasing burden of information and technology.

who, indeed, would fardels bear ... ;) ... when you could slough off these
intellectual coils and drive a Chevrolet. but would YOU be happy? could you
drive something without THINKING?? can you drive an machine that was designed
to be as cheap as possible and placate as many of the masses as possible??

or would you prefer to spend your time and money on a machine that appears
to have logic and purposeful design as part of its construction? a machine
that seems to speak to one's inner being, even as a wife or child does.
and, like a wife or child, that machine is seldom without its aggrevating
qualities ... it cannot be all things at all times. no thing or person can be.
we search through Life for Companionship ... some find it in machines, some
in animals, others in Nature, and others in many different areas.

marching to the beat of a different drummer has always been difficult ...

but at least you can hear the tune.

:)