Insect Gangs

Maybe it's Africa, or maybe it's South America, somewhere exotic. A certain species of ants manages to form a two foot ball and roll down hills, consuming all life in their way. For this blog and what my point will be, lets call that an "Ant Drive-By".
When my oldest brother and step-sister heard in their classes that ant species do not like different species, they did what I considered was a shockingly mean experiment. They took our family ant farm, and dropped a fire ant from our nearly two foot ant hills found behind our home inside the ant farm. In seconds the foreign ant was torn to pieces, limb from limb.
#As a side note, that farm taught us that ants can die of frustration. Take my word for it. We just shook their home 3 separate times and after all the work of restructuring their home, they died. That is the extent to how mean we got to animals as children, and I just observed. I'd be an accessory to murder.
People are viscerally territorial. Take the town of Big Flat, California: off the 299, population less then 100 people. I moved there with a man I dated off and on for almost two years. He lived there for over seven years before my two week stay. The locals did not accept me. At first they had no reason, they were just literally illiterate jerks. I tried so hard to be liked it was ridiculous. They would do things like mention they were driving to Redding (at the time my friend's first baby was having her one year birthday) and in the presence of my boyfriend say they would take me. After he left for a grand mother's funeral in a different state, the rules changed. I knocked over and over. It was my best friend's daughter's first birthday. I could hear these adults get quiet when I knocked. They would hide. Adults. At this point I was desperate for a friend and felt so foreign and detached. So I started to buy beer in the morning. I went to take their dog- the dog on a one foot lease that never went on walks- for a walk for once. The dog ran for freedom as soon as I untied him and I had to ask for help retrieving him (took all of 5 minutes from the owner, who now had a reason not to like me.) Nothing makes me more angry then animal cruelty. I was there for two weeks. When my boyfriend got back and saw the town did not accept me, he did the cowardly thing: went with the crowd. I moved.
The same in L.A. Ant brains. I had not a single friend. I became a cheerleader to a reject who had all these wonderful ideas about talent and being a team. I sunk into depression from lack of exercise, which lead to seek happy chemicals, which lead to fights, and eventually I left and never looked back. I think this man was more of an ant because he knew I left a stable life for him, and if the roles were reversed: if he was a guest in my family's home, I would have treated him like a king. Two against the world. He is probably still living with his parents. I came back up to Arcata, got a job, started running, quit smoking, had not been this happy since; a long long time. So it was a blessing in both cases.
High School was a baffling time to anyone who ran into me, because I was not in a click. So the main question I was asked was, "What music do you like?" I value being unique. I am drawn to unique people. I am not part of an ant farm. I have no role.
There is a similar themed blog in here about being around very smart people, who I had coffee with from a girl who brought me with her to their after-school coffee shop. They too rejected me for being shy (I had just moved from the East Coast to Redding, California) under the pretext of wearing a Banana Republic T-shirt (with pride, it was my step-sister's treasured shirt and my favorite gift from her.) I never returned to that coffee shop again.
Follow the music. Ants may listen to it, but just for the abstract hooks. You have friends in literature characters, artwork, ideas, theories. There are lots of others out there to meet. Too many to fall in love with if you really open your eyes.
Having the freedom to be unique is something I actively treasure. There is no Caste system here. I can listen to The Nitty Gritty Dirty Band if I wanted to (but I don't.) I will think twice about moving into someones territory again, but true love does not act that way. Class, dignity, love: they transcend us from our primal behaviors. Class, dignity, love, and understanding. Follow the music.