Tag: mainstream

About This Blog

This blog is primarily about a celebration of life Outside The Mainstream.

It is about:

  • Living life on your own terms, and dealing with adversities along the way
  • Choosing your own path instead of following the herd
  • Lessons you might learn from personal stories of success and failures.
  • Thinking for yourself and finding your path
  • Being Unique, Exceptional, Extraordinary, and yes even Eccentric
  • Celebrating creativity in all its forms

It’s about living your life on your terms, not what someone else has decided for you. It is about dealing with your adversities and even making them a positive part of a fulfilling life.

Most people seem to think that the comfortable place to be is in the mainstream. I intend for this blog to show you that while it might be the more comfortable it is not nearly as satisfying and rewarding as living life with drive and direction rather than apathy.

The margins are where life happens. Sometimes the margins are forced upon us and sometimes they are chosen as our life path, either way can make life more fulfilling and interesting. Stick around and I will convince you of that fact. 😎

My View Of The Mainstream…

In looking back on my life I don’t think I have ever thought of myself as part of the mainstream. When I was a kid I guess I liked comic books just like most others my age, but that seems to be about it. As mentioned in my About page above, my Aspie traits make speaking my mind an absolute necessity for me.

It seems to me that if you are in the mainstream, you have to almost give up much of any unique thoughts. I simply can’t do that. My very being is stacked against being a part of the herd. I think too much. I no longer take anything on faith, it has to be backed by at least some facts, I mean real facts.

Here is an insignificant observation of why the mainstream often drives me crazy. My wife and I eat our daily lunch watching the cable TV show House Hunters. We have watched hundreds of these episodes and I can’t tell you how many times people go into the kitchen and says “It is a total gut job! It doesn’t have white cabinets or the right countertops. I can’t possibly cook in this kitchen!” The logic of that proclamation totally confounds me. The quality of the meal depends on the color of the cabinets? How asinine.

The equally illogical responses on these shows are that now all walls have to be gray and all floors have to be grey as well, and definitely no carpet. If there is a hint of color, it has to go. (No, white, black or grey are not colors 🥸)

If you have visited my primary blog over at RJsCorner you know I have mentioned lazy minded lemmings several times. This mainstream mentality is much more tragic than the House Hunters example. The Trump MAGA cult is the epitome of mainstream mentality. They believe EVERYTHING that ignorant narcissist says! They drink his Kool-aid daily it seems. He invented the phrase “alternate truths” because he was too lazy to even look for facts to backup his selfish, self-centered obsessions.

Plainly speaking, that is the only kind I speak, being part of the “go along with the crowd” drives me crazy at times. Why can’t people think for themselves. Don’t they know how dangerous it is to put your faith in someone without any proof that they are even remotely deserving of it?

Herd mentality totally turns me off!!

Living On The Margins

I am still very much in the process of setting up a strategy around my new theme here on RJsView. For now, I have decided to call it “Life on the margins”. I know at one time or another all of us have been on the margins. But, visiting the margins once in a while is not the same thing as living on them day-to-day. Looking back on my life I can see that I have been living on the margins for most of it.

Whether you admit it or not, almost everyone lives at least part of their life on the margins. Those are the places where where you just don’t fit in with the crowd, either by choice or circumstance. Some try very hard to stay in the mainstream; some do everything to make their own paths.
I seem to constantly live on the margins, so I thought why not celebrate that fact and show others why living life on the margins can be joyful and fulfilling, or at least not boring.😎 Looking back on my life I have come to realize that I have lived most of it on the margins. There just doesn’t seem to be anything mainstream about me.
Here are some examples:

  • I am deaf and have been so for more than thirty years now. That category alone puts me on about 1% of the population. Since I went deaf at the age of 40, I have never really felt that I belong in either the hearing world or the deaf world. That puts me on the margins.
  • I have some Strong Aspie Traitsand have had them all my life but didn’t know they had a name or that others share many of the same traits. It is estimated that 1 in 500 have significant Aspie traits. That is about 0.5% of the population. That puts me on the margins.
  • I have an IQ of 136 and that puts me in the top 1% of the population. I guess that makes me unique, but I don’t really feel that way. I feel it just puts me on the margins.
  • I question Everything and always think for myself. I look at almost everything in life with a contrarian/ anti-mainstream view. I simply don’t go along with the trends until they are demonstrated to improve my life or the lives of others. I don’t know where that puts me on life’s scale, but it is way better than any of the alternatives today, especially those who follow defective heroes simply because everyone else does.
  • I got kicked out of a Lutheran Evangelical church because I didn’t believe the “right” things, or maybe more truthfully spoke up about my disbelief. In the 10 years since that day I have moved even further toward the margins in my spiritual life and have found that is a very enlightening place the be. I found I share my beliefs in this area with Tolstoy and Jefferson, that’s kind of a neat crowd to be with.

Here onRJsView – life on the margins I want to celebrate living outside the mainstream, and show you that it can lead to a joyous and fulfilling life. We don’t need to follow the crowd and do what everyone else does. There is nothing wrong with discovering our unique path through life. Thinking outside the mainstream is in fact a downright satisfying way to live your life.

I’m still not totally sold on that new caption “Life on the Margins”, If you want to give me any suggestions they are welcome.

About Living Life On The Margins

Anyone who comes to this blog via the WordPress reader or similar tool probably doesn’t know that I am taking RJsView in a different direction. I am narrowing its focus but broadening it coverage. I know that makes no sense, but that is just who I am. It is going to be more focused on my life and times and the lessons it has taught me, but broadened it to include more of the areas that you might not know about, but they make me who I am.

I intend to get more personal on the posts and in the process give you even more examples of why living life on the margins can be joyful and fulfilling. Looking back on my life I have come to realize that I have lived most of it on the margins. There just doesn’t seem to be anything mainstream about me.

Here are some examples:

  • I am deaf and have been so for more than thirty years now. That category alone puts me on about 1% of the population. I have never really felt that I belong in either the hearing world or the deaf world. That puts me on the margins.
  • I have some Strong Aspie Traits and have had them all my life but didn’t know they had a name or that others share many of the same traits. It is estimated that 1 in 500 have significant Aspie traits. That is about 0.5% of the population. That puts me on the margins.
  • I have an IQ of 136 and that puts me in the top 1% of the population. I guess that makes me unique, but I don’t really feel that way. I feel it just puts me on the margins.
  • I question Everything and always think for myself. I look at almost everything in life with a contrarian view. I simply don’t go along with the trends unless they will improve my life or others. I don’t know where that puts me on life’s scale, but it is way better than any of the alternatives today, especially those who follow defective heroes simply because everyone else does.

Here on RJsView I want to celebrate living on the margins, and show you that it can be a joyous and fulfilling life. We don’t need to follow the crowd and do what everyone else does. There is nothing wrong with discovering our unique path through life. Thinking outside the mainstream is in fact downright satisfying.