Okay, so I've been wearing this watch for roughly a week now, with the swirly shiny patterned strap and the face with Harry Potter's cartooned face on the face on it, and I've just realised this morning that I've hardly been looking at this really awesome watch at all (except for today. I looked at it like a billion times today. It was just so very THERE), which suggests that I've not been wearing it for practicality, but more for the comments that I get whenever people notice it, because that's always fun... Anyway, my point is, what is to say that the comments I receive aren't making it practical? I mean if people are going to form opinions on me based on my watch, I'd rather that they voiced those opinions to my face rather than hide them away in a little safe in their head, locked with a key that they eat and only regurgitate when they're playing truth or dare and they need to divulge into the awkward information they can use instead of actually speaking the truth. So maybe the watch is practical, even if I don't really use it as a watch? It serves a purpose, just perhaps not the purpose it was intended for when the manufacturers decided "hey, let's make a Harry Potter watch with a shiny strap that only tiny children and odd teenagers will wear", but why should that mean that it doesn't serve this new purpose in a slightly odd and unconventional way? For example, the comments I get not only entertain me, but they are people's voiced opinions. People have opinions on everything, from the best type of pea to how irritating that person on the street is who keeps losing his dog every ten minutes. People have opinions on people, and we can't really change them once they're there, but we can influence them, especially if it is an opinion of you. Opinions are developed by what we see of other people, be that the way they express their personality, the way we speak or what we wear. This means that although I wear this watch to make me feel awesome because I think it's cool, even though it's probably not, people might see me wearing it and think me a freak, which raises mixed emotions in me, but mostly I guess it raises issues on how we allow people's opinions to influence our actions and the way we treat people, and also how the average person (I hate that term, but it seemed necessary) reacts to what they know people's opinions of them are.
The most obvious and vocalised, and yet least taken point is that we shouldn't care what people think and that we should all try to be individual, and to an extent I agree, but that idea is never going to catch on. Perhaps in theory or with a few people, but not with the entire population of the world. I mean, we are supposed to be individualised by our names, but now think how many Johns and Hanks there must be in the world, it's ridiculous. Awesome, in retrospect, but still ridiculous.
I follow the idea of individuality by trying to be my own person and not following the trends of fashion any more than I have to if I want to avoid being ridiculed, which I'm fairly sure I am anyway. I've already come to the conclusion that an aversion to being laughed at is a natural human reaction from caveman days or whatever, but I'm not going to go on a whole rant about that now. Maybe tomorrow. I'm still trying to decide whether trying to fit in is a good thing or not. I know that for me it doesn't work, but why should I assume that the same applies to the rest of the world? That's just not right in any way, and it's definitely not the point I'm trying to convey. On the one hand, there's a difference between fitting in and allowing the clothes you wear to change the way people perceive you, and we really don't have much control over it. Personally I don't want someone to assume something about me from what I wear; I don't want to be judged that way, because I really don't care about following the crowd, but I don't want to be grouped as a follower or a rebel against the flow, because I don't see myself as either. I wear what I want to wear, whether that's because I'm in an expressive mood or just because I feel like it or because it's practical for what I have to do that day. Examples: Harry Potter watch, because it's cool. I have a t-shirt that I drew a platypus on because platypuses are like a running joke with my friends (I don't know how it started and I'm fine not knowing, but I like it), and also because one of my teachers didn't know what a platypus was, so I even added a helpful note to it that says "I am a platypus" and wore the shirt to non-uniform day, because I'm just THAT cool. I got several weird looks and to be perfectly honest I felt a little insecure at first, but after a while I was fine. I got over the urges to zip up my jacket on that incredibly warm day and happily paraded around school, my chest apparently declaring me to be a happy, duck-billed monotreme.
So is my strange yet brilliant watch something that I should be judged on? I doubt that. I don't really care either way.
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