There's All Kinds of Fearless

     So, right here you get one nearly perfect example of why I didn't have a lot of girlfriends.

     I initially posted this pic to my Facebook page, because I've pretty much jumped all in on the whole "Throwback Thursday" bandwagon. I've jumped on an awful lot of bandwagons in my time. I jumped on the parachute pants bandwagon (I'm sure I've got a pic of that shit somewhere), I jumped on the Transcendentalism bandwagon (Thoreau was my homeboy for a good while), I even jumped on the Jolt Cola bandwagon (which probably shaved a few years off my life, because that shit was probably toxic, but it was way cheaper than weed or booze). Later as an "adult," I jumped on the Clinton-Gore bandwagon, the Grunge Music bandwagon (which automatically put me on the Flannel Shirt bandwagon), and the Let's-Move-To-New-York-And-Have-An-Experience bandwagon.

     People jump on bandwagons for lots of different reasons: some cultural, some spiritual, and some because it's flavor-of-the-month (parachute pants). But I think that one underlying reason most people jump on bandwagons is to have a sense of belonging. Call it a club, a tribe, or a community; we all want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. And if I may be allowed to play armchair psychoanalyst for just a second here, I think another, more insidious reason people jump on bandwagons is fear. Fear of being excluded, shunned, rejected.

     And that's exactly why I posted this silly fucking photo.

     Facebook is a community to which a lot of people belong. Like, seriously, over a billion. What's cool about it is that, for me, I get to regularly connect with people who are not in my immediate social circle, but who were (and in most cases, still are) important to me. A lot of my friends from those days are going to look at that photo and say, "Yep. That's Larry." They will smile quietly to themselves, because they will remember that I was a goof-ball when I was 16 or 17. But some folks who know me as Middle Aged Larry might look at that photo and be slightly disturbed. Maybe more than slightly disturbed, especially if they knew me when I was on the Church bandwagon. I posted that pic on Facebook for Throwback Thursday as a thumb in the eye for anybody who thinks that, just because we happen to currently be on the same bandwagon (Throwback Thursday), they are somehow empowered or entitled to pass judgement. I honestly and truly don't give a shit what you think. This is for me, and for all of my friends (near and far) who remember me fondly as a clown. I'm still a clown; ask my daughter.

     I'm an individual who is not afraid of bandwagons. (Except maybe Nazis. Those fuckers are scary.) Neither am I afraid to be thought a fool - because I am often a fool, and often not by choice. There's all kinds of fearless, and I hope you know what yours is, or that you will take a personal day off from work to look for it. Because it's important. Fear is not a bandwagon, but it is often the rope that pulls us onto one. We need a place to belong, a place where people will accept us as we are, underwear skid-marks and all. But let's not jump on because we're afraid of being left out, or judged for NOT jumping on. Let's be fucking fearless.

     Happy Throwback Thursday, y'all.