DARWIN WOULD DIE!

DARWIN WOULD DIE!

By Missy Shackelford (c) 2015

What does Intelligence look like...? Maybe it is not what it seems.

People exist in all sorts of packaging. Often, this “packaging” is an individual who resorts to the unspoken wardrobe of a stereotype. They fight against it all the while embracing it. 

I have found as a professional in the entertainment business, this is most prevalent.

When I first began my journey in this business, I was in a theater crowd.

 It actually was there that I began searching myself, for myself.

I noticed that I stood out a bit. I still had the smell of a main stream popular kid.
As a habitual traditionalist, fueled by teenage insecurity, I preferred to blend into the status quo. However, in this new theater crowd, I noticed there was no real standard of which I could scale my normalcy. 

This was all too confusing to me. Until I realized there indeed was a scale!
 It just weighed differently.

My initial assessment was that the convention of this particular group was to be the exact opposite of everything I had considered the standard.

In fact, to be exceptionally the opposite of the standard, was the goal.

The definitive objective would be achieved by being so exceptionally opposite of the preconceived “normal” that it was obvious you were a “theater kid”.

In other words, your conformity to eccentricity concluded that you were unconventionally unique.

“HUH?”

I just couldn't wrap my brain around that until time caused me to be transformed by osmosis. It was such a gradual and unconscious process that I was unaware I had become one of the “theater kids”.

 It wasn't until I was no longer around them that I noticed my “packaging” no longer fit into my new Nashville songwriting crowd.

Damn.

I would have to exchange my combat boots for cowboy boots.

Many years later, I am disappointed to declare that nothing has changed.

Even after college, life experiences, education, awareness and AGE; this packaging issue remains.

My social circle has changed. Definitely CHANGED more than EVOLVED.

I still am in the entertainment business but, most of my colleagues are richly educated and creative. 

This is a very powerful combination.

I find that I am privileged to have friends that engage in conversations about physics and psychological predispositions to politics and social apathy, 

all swirled into co-discussions of creative genius.
They are fascinating and intellectually stimulating.

Yes, I consider myself an intellectual. 

In all of my social circles.

I may not be the most brilliant but, I  can competently hold my own in most conversations. I enjoy deep thinkers and the language of the conversation.

Yet, still at my age and influence, I find the pressure to “be”.

Where at one time the pressure was to look like you were MORE than you actually were- now everyone wants to look like LESS. No sparkles, no Name Brands. The aesthetic embodiment of "I don't care how I look".

The New Non-Conformists.  
However, it is a very calculated design. It does NOT come natural to wake up and look like you have left the set of a granola bar commercial. 
Yes, even the New Non-Conformists shop. They do not weave their own clothing, though some may lead you to believe this.
So, YES. THEY SHOP AND BUY CERTAIN OUTFITS.

Some of my friends have never been on African Safari’s but, look as though they are fresh off the boat. 

Some of my friends have never lived in the rain forest or hiked mountains but, physically appear as they have a backpack ready.

 (Some actually DO have a back pack ready which still throws me off…)
None of my friends are Amish yet look like they hand stitched every shoe they wear. Shoes that, by the way, cost as much as the average American earn in a week. AND NOT SAFARI ready.

Some of my super human cerebral friends have never dug ditches for the under privileged but, one glance at their hands and one would assume.

Yet, THEY poke fun at ME for my current season Vera Bradley purse and that I have on lip gloss!

Some unfamiliar people in my crowds even assume I am the “wife” of someone in the group. 

I have found ultimate judgment at events and gatherings where I sit at the “intelligent” table. Where I am eager and ready to insert my ten cents.

Yes, I said “ten-cents”.

Yes, I have a Southern accent with a sassier verbiage, I wear makeup and my nails are polished and YES I can discuss any topic and do so on YOUR level.
No, I don't want a Soybean Tea- I want a strong coffee.
No, I didn't make these earrings. I bought them. From Target, too. Not even at a cute locally owned boutique. However, that doesn't make me a "capitalist" or lessen my IQ.
Yes, I still am SMART.

Hell, I AM INTELLIGENT!

Yes! I AM an INTELLECTUAL. 

I swear to God.

I am not here to BLEND in.

 I am not here to impress you by under impressing you.

I don’t use my lack of grooming to scale my capacity of intellect or aptitude.

AND I AM NO ONES WIFE! 
...OR NANNY EITHER, for that matter.

Yet still, just like high-school, the same unspoken rule remains: 

you will be adjudicated by your appearance.

I know a man. 

He has a long beard and long hair.

 He wears the same t-shirt almost regularly with his too-loose and rarely washed jeans. 

His best accessory is his “Organic Tea” that is ever present. 

He is quiet and seems reflective. 

Many assume he is a savant of some sort.

He is not.

I know him.

He has accomplished nothing outside of cashing his grandfather’s inheritance and finding the perfect blend of Starbucks to accommodate his marijuana dry mouth. 

He is quiet and seems "reflective" only because he is high.

No poetry involved. 

Yet, to some he is the “mysterious philosopher and potential creative mastermind” that makes the Mid-Town coffee rounds.

All because he is dirty and consults his “Hipster” board on Pintrest.
His deepest thought is if one side of his beard is longer than the other.
Yet, his opinions are welcomed and he gets all the unspoken respect that I FREAKING DESERVE but, am too clean to receive. 

 I can write a critically acclaimed article about “Creative Brains” based on my research in neurology and psychology and still be demeaned because of my purse selection. Assumed to be someones wife because I have on heels.
He barely wipes and is assumed to be genius because of it!
Go figure.

I can’t help but wonder what Charles Darwin would be packaged in. 

Some of this seasons skinny jeans, converse and a cave man hipster beard? 

Maybe some throw back Birkenstocks?

Maybe he would throw us all off and be decorated in camouflage and have his own television series. 

Certainly, even an intellectual of that echelon would succumb to at least some of today’s social conventions?

At least a Facebook or Twitter.

Facebook Status:

 “feeling superior” 

Or Twitter: 

#thesebrains #damnevolution

I could go on…

But, I will stop here:

 Imagine Darwin taking a “selfie”.

Ahh, the irony of THAT thought.

Basically, I don’t know what Darwin would do. 

I can see what everyone is doing around me; I just DON’T CARE.

I am me; with all of my flaws, thoughts, opinions and tastes.

I like what I like. I am who I am.

I bathe. Sorry.

…and I am SMART.

Pinky Promise.

XOXO,

Missy :)

“Given a long enough period of time, the descendant populations of an ancestor species will differ enough to be classified as different species, a process capable of indefinite iteration. There are, in addition, forces that encourage divergence among descendant populations, and the elimination of intermediate varieties.”