The young man was tattoed, pierced and wearing all the right clothes , and he took on Hannity, who was trying to make him feel badly for not knowing the name of our nation’s VP.
The young man was having none of it – as he said (paraphrasing, of course), “Don’t make no difference to me who’s VP – you may know the VP but you ain’t swagged out!”

I wish I had a transcript or could find the archive. What it boiled down to was the young man telling Hannity, “I know who I am and I show off my identity every day. Who you?” By the time it was over, I was buying the killa’ swagged dude’s brand

I thought about this post while I was listenting to the conversation and came back to re-read with a new appreciation for the point you’re making. Amazing coincidence.

This time, it almost jumped off the page. It’s Carmina’s statement:

“I suppose we have little choice. I suppose we must play many of the roles that are expected of us and we must identify ourselves as members of the right herds if we want to be recognized, loved and validated or even left alone…”

The best response I can think of actually was written by J.R.L. Anderson, in his epilogue to Sir Frances Chichester’s book, “Gypsy Moth Circles the World”. Reflecting on the meaning of Sir Frances’ circumnavigation, Anderson says,

“The essential Chichester achievement is something more deeply personal – and personal not alone to him, but embedded in the hearts of every one of us. He has succeeded in making dreams come true; his own private dreams, and the dreams that most men have from time to time as they are on that ‘long fool’s journey to the grave’. For 99.9% of humanity, dreams remain locked up in the secret compartments of the soul. Not for Chichester. For him, to dream is to determine, and to determine, to achieve.”

“People will say, ‘Oh, yes, but he has been lucky. He has made money, he has found rich backers. He does not have to travel daily on the 8:15.’ But surely this is part of the achievement! No one HAS to travel daily on the 8:15!”