Oh, I know you’re a conservative in academia and had tenure troubles because of that. But that makes you a conservative in very liberal environment, not a non-conformist.
Of course you can call yourself anything you want to and the label is sufficiently fuzzy and could be defined in many ways. Still, from my perspective you’re now a part of the establishment—Smith did grant you tenure, even if screaming and kicking.
I am not passing judgement on you, it just surprised me that what you mean by a “huge non-conformist” is clearly very different from what I mean by a “huge non-conformist”.
It’s also stuff such as I don’t like sports, music, fashion, or small talk, and in high school and college made zero effort to pay attention to them and it cost me socially. I realize now I should have at least pretended to like them to have had a better social life.
I figured out when I was about 15 years old that I had to keep on things I didn’t care about to earn points socially and it helped me a great deal and powers what I do as a writer and talk show presenter.
Oh, I know you’re a conservative in academia and had tenure troubles because of that. But that makes you a conservative in very liberal environment, not a non-conformist.
Of course you can call yourself anything you want to and the label is sufficiently fuzzy and could be defined in many ways. Still, from my perspective you’re now a part of the establishment—Smith did grant you tenure, even if screaming and kicking.
I am not passing judgement on you, it just surprised me that what you mean by a “huge non-conformist” is clearly very different from what I mean by a “huge non-conformist”.
It’s also stuff such as I don’t like sports, music, fashion, or small talk, and in high school and college made zero effort to pay attention to them and it cost me socially. I realize now I should have at least pretended to like them to have had a better social life.
That makes you a fully-conforming geek, as you undoubtedly know. Welcome to the club :-)
I figured out when I was about 15 years old that I had to keep on things I didn’t care about to earn points socially and it helped me a great deal and powers what I do as a writer and talk show presenter.