[MacSpirit] Zeitgeist, spirit, worldview: Rebel with a Mac (attitude)

by Rodney O. Lain

4/25/00

They're not fond of rules,
and they have no respect for the status quo.

from Apple's "Think Different" commercial

 

I always put at least one sorry-ass song on my albums to [eff] it up.

George Clinton, musician and "P-funk" pioneer, in a 1980s interview

 

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more.

"Network"

Even when I "wore the shoes of a younger man" -- to quote Billy Joel -- I had a rebellious spirit, an aversion to walking the beaten path, a distaste for things pedestrian.

I remember one morning asking my sister if I should wear my red shirt or my blue shirt to school. She suggested the blue shirt, since the red one was too obtrusive.

Of course, I wore the red one

My rebellious spirit revealed itself in events like the above; it was also stoked by other occurrences -- like the time I ran across a series of popular children's books.

I don't remember the details of the particular story, but I do remember that it featured "Encyclopedia Brown," child sleuth. Brown was dubbed "Encyclopedia" for his encyclopedic and photographic memory, as well as other genius-level aptitudes. Each storybook centered on his solving some neighborhood mystery á la Sherlock Holmes.

One story's plot involved Brown's sniffing out the bad guy simply from the way that Mr. Bad Guy looped his belt into his pants.

Brown was on the trail of some mystery in which the clues pointed to a bad guy who had to be a leftie: Brown deduced the identity of the story's fiend when he remembered that lefties typically looped their belts a certain way. After rounding up the usual suspects, only one of them looped his belt from the left -- mystery solved.

For some reason, while reading that story, my young, unformed psyche latched upon the idea that it was easy to "figure people out" by observing tell-tale clues like body language, nuances in speech, subtleties in dress and appearance. By merely looking and listening, one could divine all one needed to know about people by the way they talked, walked and acted, carefully ascribing a psychological profile from the physical.

I hated that. For some reason, it irked me that people could figure others out so easily. Being a sensitive, artistic soul that was slowly waking up to the ways of the world, I easily saw that there existed types of people who regularly obtained such knowledge in order to manipulate fellow human beings. I saw it in male-female relationships, employee-employer dealings and politician-constituent maneuvering. As I grew older, my hate expanded to include the hatred of "reading" people in order to label, categorize and pigeon-hole one another, to manipulate people into such prejudged roles.

Always thinking, always wondering, even as a child, I pondered ways to keep the private parts of my soul... private. I didn't want to be figured out, for fear of being locked into a box that limited me from fulfilling my outside-the-box aspirations. The first thing I did was learn to red herring anyone who tried to figure me out by way of the aforementioned means: I begin to loop my belt from the left (I am right-handed). I began wearing my watch on my right wrist (I still do, to this day, try as I might to reverse this habit). In college, I learned to make sure I talked liberal with the liberals and talked conservative with the conservatives -- all the while, forming my own, distinct worldview by culling the best of each ideology I wrapped my mind around.

I achieved the desired outcome: I avoided being labeled by others, as well as avoided succumbing to accepting labels that the world thrust upon me. I felt like a free man living among slaves. As a result, I often reveled in being the odd man out.

Yeah, I was the kid at a pissant Louisiana high school with a mohawk -- before mohawks were "cool." I was the one who talked my sophomore class into creating a nonsensical "Paisley Park" mural during Team Spirit Week --just to see if I could get away with it. I was the one who -- being a self-styled Mr. Afrocentrism -- moved to the whitest state in America.

It was no wonder that I converted to the Macintosh cult so easily.

In addition to hating the controlling mechanisms in human relationships, I hated the fact that no one around me ever questioned the way things were. Why did we have to live thusly? Why didn't anyone ever seek to rise above their socity-imposed lot? Why couldn't they explore views beyond the liberal/conservative dichotomy? Why must we follow the herd, if we know there are better ways of doing things?

In 1995, after having dabbled with Macs throughout the years, I landed a teaching job at another pissant school, this time a university in Georgia. Among the classes I taught, I led the instruction for a computer-assisted writing class. My teaching assistants were twenty PCs, loaded with Windows 95. Crashes were common fare. I contrasted this with my office computer, a small Macintosh all-in-one. "Old Faithful," I called it.

Over the next few months, I began to rhapsodize Old Faithful to my colleagues, who replied with a so-what? shrug. I asked one of the sysadmin types for info on networking Macs, on software available, etc. He turned his nose up as if he'd smelled something really bad. He told me that he hated Macs. That his boss hated Macs. That everyone hated Macs. That I should hate Macs, too.

Of course, I went out and bought a Mac, my first computer.

As time went on, I began to question the role of the buggy PC in the organizations I worked, since I never had a problem with my Mac -- Office 4.2.1 notwithstanding. The more I questioned things, the more uncomfortable it made those around me.

"Doing time" in corporate America also underscored my aversion to dog-eat-dog manipulations that we impose on one another, as well as my aversion to the "PC mentality" -- the tendency to rigorously defend the status quo for no logical reason other than it is the status quo. To this day, this describes much that I loathe in my fellow man.

I often have people who ask me to recommend a computer for them to buy. Some people -- PC users especially -- who ask that question usually aren't making a sincere request for information, but rather, are attempting to get me to gush about the Mac. They are trying to push my buttons. They usually ask the question with a barely perceptible wink and a nod to a nearby cohort. Never missing a beat, I recommend that they run, don't walk, to the store and buy a Packard Bell.

Using the Mac isn't fanaticism to me -- not anymore. It is symbolic of something deeper: my computing choice is just an extension of the way I view and approach life.

Many of you can relate to what I am saying. You know that it isn't just our affinity to the Macintosh that joins us together. It's a refusal to accept "good enough," a refusal to be like the rest (this makes us odd, since human nature tends to be very lemming-like). It's a belief that we're ahead of the curve, that we can see the future. The future's not necessarily a Macintosh. It's the truth of choice; it's that Truth that is at first scoffed, then eventually declared self-evident.

What is this Truth? you ask. It is the belief that there is always a better way. One day that belief may not be personified in a Macintosh computer, nor a Windows PC. Hence, we true rebels will move on, leaving Bondi-blue plastic in our collective wake.

We rebels are weird like that.

This column is © 2000 Rodney O. Lain. All rights reserved.

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About Rodney O. Lain

A former journalist and college prof, Rodney lives in Minnesota, where he freelance writes part-time and works for a Minneapolis-based software company. He has a soft spot for H. L. Mencken, Steve Jobs, Prince, Richard Wright and other well-known status-quo breakers.

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November 22, 2008