A Manifest Destiny

While preparing myself a nice cup of wonderful Oolong tea, I glanced at the short hairs on my fingers, thus bringing me to think about that conversation from the Fourth of July regarding body hair.

And you know what? It made me laugh. *

I replayed the banter in my head and the things that came to mind after my cousin had made her witless comment really made me laugh. Here we are, in the twenty-first century where people will do as they please, stereotypes are shattered, and laws are rewritten.

My previous arguments may have been an accurate summary of my thoughts, but I just have so many thoughts...

If we all obeyed what "society says," ...
1. ... We would be living like the Amish.
2. ... The world would be flat.
3. ... Culture would not evolve.
4. ... Bread would not be sliced.

You get the picture, right?

It just irks me that someone would actually say something like that. Sure, it was only implied in regard to a single practice, but you could argue the same for every instance that a similar notion was uttered.

And what are trends if not practices that are popularized and normalized by mass numbers of people?
"Society says twerking is cool."
"Society says Gangnam Style is cool."
"Society says that you have to be on every social network to be cool."

But this is 2013! Two-thousand-and-thirteen. Humans have populated this planet for millions of years and we've come this far. Isn't that incredible? We didn't come all this way and made all this progress just to make statements implying reversion!

I think human beings are pretty damn remarkable, don't you? We can continue to be so by breaking the rules and exploring the unknown. "Society says" should become "what if"s. What if there are extraterrestrial organisms? What if we could live on the Moon? What if we could live at the bottom of the ocean? What if we could disrupt gravitational forces?

This, my friends, is my manifest destiny. 

* For those of you who are unfamiliar with what I am referring to, a family member of mine answered "Society says" to my "Who says I need to shave?"