Obeying Idiots - part I

It’s fascinating how kids perceive life through a prism so different than adults. There are things in a kid’s experience that just stick and never leave the memories, sometimes shaping their entire personality as grown-ups.
I have distinct memories and flashbacks from childhood, that have changed my life forever, even though they were only some petty little remarks, made by the people around me, or some of those “you’ll know what I mean when you grow up” things. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to grow up – just so I’d know what the hell all the old ones were talking about.
So, tiny little remarks, made by my father still play a big role in my life to this day. I remember distinctly not only what he said to me, but where we were, who else was in the room and even the look on his face. I looked up to my dad so much! Everything he said meant so much to me. Many of the things, that I may even find wrong now, became laws in my mind. He hated soccer (football), I hated it too. He hated grammar in school, where you have to name the noun, the verb, the adjective in the sentence and I got to hate it so much that I had an even harder time learning English, because of that. Not to mention, I spread my hatred as far as hating literature all together. But it didn’t matter. My dad loves math. To him even today it gives a person survival patterns of thinking. So, I loved it and until my teacher made me hate it to death, I was awesome at it. May be it did help me organize my mind better and taught me to be a master at problem solving today. When my water polo trainer was giving me hard time, my dad said: “Don’t listen to him. They are usually proud when they return from a competition and none of the team has drowned. You’re probably better off with skateboarding.” I quit water polo immediately. And I still skateboard to this day…
One of the most amazing things he said to me while scolding me for being defiant, was that one day I’d go to the army and then, only then will I learn what obedience means. How it breaks the heart to have an idiot with no education tell you what to do, even though he is completely wrong, and you not only have to follow his orders quietly, but show him the utmost respect!
This shuttered me! It left such a big hole in my heart that I got scared of going to the army forever. It’s not the physical torment, nor the insane two years of what can only be called “jail time for adolescents” that scared me. It was the cringing of the soul of being bossed around and laughed at by idiots who have no idea about anything in the world, but their little boxed up minds, given the power of judgment! It makes me want to scream with pain and disgust when I think about it even today.
The effect was so gross, that my little game had changed forever.
I always used to play the game: “If you could chose – what creature would you rather be born as?” Generally my thoughts were those – not an animal, because they live in constant fear. Other animals, or worse – humans will sooner or later get to them. I didn’t want to be a woman, because they have to give birth, and I’ve heard from my mom, that those are the worst pains one can endure. So up until then, I was always happy and proud to be a boy. You have your own instrument, that makes you proud and is fun to play with, and you don’t have to give birth, or get eaten.
And then dad told me about the army and turned my world upside down. Now I had nothing left to choose. I didn’t want to be a man either.
The mandatory army years diminished with the gradual departure of the communism train. When I was in high-school, they were down to one year. After I graduated, you could go to college, and after college you only had to do eight or even six months. After I was done, and moved to the US, as soon as I turned 26, they didn’t want me there anymore. I was already too old.
So, I was happy! I had beaten the system, I had won at the game “what you want to be born as” and the answer was still “a man”.
But I was fooling myself.
“It’s the army that will make you a man! It’s them that will teach you to hold your tongue behind your teeth, be mentally strong and obey.” My dad had said, envisioning what a strong man I would be some day.
I’ve always felt the biggest disdain against the old Bulgarian saying “A bowing head does not get severed.” I fucking hate it! Only the smallest, most broken, chewed up, cut down, mashed against the pavement, kicked in the face, spit upon spirit, having been branded under Turkish yolk for 500 years can ever come up with a defeatist saying like that! But today, the heroes aren’t the ones that bowed down. The ones, for whom the sirens wail on the national holidays aren’t the ones who licked the shoes that kicked them in the face!
Obedience made me sick! I was hardcore! I was against the system and the world! I had a band, I wrote songs, I could say whatever I wanted, do whatever I decided and be the king of the world! Don’t forget it – thought I was so different!
The boy scouts hated my long hair. I was only 14 and my hair was down to the middle of my back. They wanted it gone. It wasn’t part of the image they wanted for themselves. So, they told me I had to cut it, so I could go to a Boy Scout camp in the glorious America (after communism, America was paradise – the dreamland, that no one has ever seen, or been to. The haven where you can afford to buy anything you can think of.)! I told them I wasn’t going. My parents supported me! I love them for that! Their friends told them that they’d brought up a kid with a strong character. I was a hero! I had given up a trip to the USA, to keep my hair. Even the scout leaders looked at me differently. They made me a troop leader and sent me to the camp on the next year not for one, but for three months! I had totally won this one. I proved the system wrong! I held my ground.
And just when I thought I had escaped my “army service”, we moved to the States.