To Stray From The Path

From the time we are brought into the world, we are taught to conform to society’s views of what is acceptable and to continually strive for a mark of approval from the masses. We are brainwashed. Occasionally, however, someone breaks free of the mold. They do not strive for, or even make attempts at gaining approval, but is this positive in the long run?

Last year, I, like so many others, made the embarrassing mistake of getting into a horrible relationship. At the start of my relationship with Hallam, I loved how different he was from the rest of society. Eight months later, however, I left for the exact same reason.

I had known Hallam since the beginning of his senior year of high school. He had always been well-known amongst his class, but never well-liked. He had never been overly kind to his peers, always viewing himself significantly above them in value. After graduating from West Albany High School with a 2.6 cumulative grade point average, Hallam swore he would leave behind his peers forever. I suppose he did, in the end, but never in the way he anticipated. Within one month of graduating high school,

Hallam had quit his job as the janitor at Albany First United Methodist Church. In the next two months, he had both acquired and been fired from a job as a line cook at a local burger joint. He attended one week of community college courses (which were, on a side note, free of charge for him under the fifth year program) before dropping out completely.

Despite these ominous, and obvious, signs that our relationship would not fare well, I did try to make our admittedly strange relationship a success. Over the course of the next few months, however, Hallam slowly cast most people close to him out of his life, even his family and step-families. He grew more passive-aggressive than ever before, more grouchy, more cruel. Then working as a technology clerk at the local Walmart, Hallam grew more and more embittered as his high school classmates matured and worked to make something valuable out of their lives, leaving him behind.

I will never forget, nor will anyone involved ever forget, the final incident, the incident that would drive us away from his side entirely. Two weeks before I was wise enough to finally end our relationship, Hallam arrived home from work to realize his roommate had invited three of their mutual friends to play video games. Hallam flew into more of a temper tantrum than usual, yelling at everyone to leave and then storming into his bedroom when no one obliged. Several minutes later, when everyone was still yet to leave, Hallam came out of his room wielding a salt gun (although he was the only person at the time who knew it was only a salt gun and not a real gun). He

threatened to shoot if they did not leave immediately, going as far as to chase them off of the property.

Naturally, no one chose to stay in Hallam’s life after this incident. We all met at a local restaurant (well, all except Hallam himself) to attempt to decide what to do. While everyone had known Hallam would eventually explode, no one had thought this violent of a reaction plausible. Before breaking off my relationship with Hallam, I tried to reason with him. This is, perhaps, the most disturbing, and illuminating, conversation I ever had with Hallam. Despite everything he had done and said, Hallam felt none of his actions to be out of line. After this conversation, I broke off the relationship, and Hallam and I have not spent time together since.

John Paul Titlow wrote an essay, fittingly titled “#Me: Instagram Narcissism And The Scourge Of The Selfie,” in which he discusses whether or not social media encourages narcissism  and the reliance on societal approval (1). Unlike the masses Titlow describes, Hallam never strove for or wanted societal approval. In this essay, Titlow explains, “ Some of these images feel a little too intimate. As you scroll through, you start to get the feeling that you’re peeking through a window of a world you’re not quite supposed to have access to. But mobile and social technology have given us millions of little windows into the worlds of others, so we keep scrolling” (1).

Similar to selfies being a window into worlds we do not belong in, Hallam was a window into a part of humanity I never had any business in viewing. These little glimpses into other worlds leave us reeling with the aftermaths, with more questions after the glimpse than answers. These little glimpses are addictive, and like most

addictive substances, are horrid for us in the long run. We learn more than we are meant to learn. We see more than we are meant to see. We feel more than we are meant to feel.

Several months ago, Hallam quit his job at the local Walmart and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. His mother says he is happier now, and that he wants to become a locksmith. Maybe he is happy. I hope he is happy. But whether he is happy or not, the rest of us are still rebuilding our lives out of the rubble he left behind.

To stretch one’s wings and find one’s own path through life is important. To not rely heavily on the opinion of another is important. If we stray too far from the socially accepted path, however, we might just find ourselves in danger of losing everything truly important to us.