Most of you reading this website are here because you want more.

Tried and true may be comfortable, but boring.  The traditional life path may be safe, but uninspiring.  The status quo is average, but nothing extraordinary.

You know there’s something missing, but you can’t pinpoint what, exactly, it is.

We’ve essentially been told for years that hard work pays off.  You’ve gone and done everything the way you’ve been told you were suppose to do it.  We’ve been under the impression this whole time that as long as we put in our dues, we’ll be rewarded, and handsomely.   This was the model of reality we’ve built up in our minds, assuming that by following the rules, eventually the right of passage would open its doors to us, and we’d saunter on through in our Armani suit, whistling show tunes and brushing our shoulders off before asking someone to pass the Corvasier.

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that right now, you’re lucky if you even have a job, let alone an Armani suit.  Maybe you happen to be in that crowd.  If not, then chances are you’re probably looking for a job. Or maybe you’re one of the brave, who’s elected to try and build an unconventional business & lifestyle.  Regardless of the circumstances, you haven’t been able to quiet the small, nagging voice in the back of your mind that says, “Is this it?  Is this what I’ve been working for my whole life?  This?”

But you make every attempt to silence that voice, because now that you’ve put so much time and effort into X career or Y life plan, you feel obligated.  You tell yourself that you’re just going to have to stick it out.  And so you do.  But it doesn’t get better.

The small voice eventually becomes a bigger one, reminding you that you deserve more. You start to resent that voice, and then start to resent yourself.  This is your one precious life, after all.  But just as soon as the thought pops into your head, you immediately hit a brick wall; you wouldn’t know how to change it if you wanted to.  What’s a person to do?  Go back to school?  Up and quit?  Stay and start a business on the side?  Exile themselves from the country?  Just say screw it, and sit at home eating buckets of fried chicken and Twizzlers all day long?

I’ve been in that position.  Not the friend chicken and Twizzler position (usually), but the lost and confused and crushed position.  And man was it unsettling.  Frustrating.  Disillusioning.  Heartbreaking.

Others have asked themselves these same questions, too.  Take Colin Wright of exilelifestyle.com or Andi Norris of instigationology.com.  Both of these cool cats started out doing out doing something entirely different than what they’re doing now.  Yet somehow, all of us have managed to jump oh-so-gracefully over that little disheartened hurdle, and leap into something that, after taking some inner inventory, made more sense for us.  We’re now doing things that we like to do, because, well, we like them.  And isn’t that the point?

But more importantly, we’re doing things we like to do because we gave ourselves permission to go ahead and do so. To not be afraid to scrap it all and start over.  To teeter on up to the edge of something new, poke it in the side and say, “Hey.  Let’s take some risks, you big, Santa Claus – esque imaginary metaphor, you.” To put ourselves out there, recognizing that the universe can never say yes, if we never ask anything of it.  It’s a go big or go home mentality, and it’s literally saved our lives.

Zee Big Annoucement

So maybe that’s why when the three of us got to talking about how much fun it would be to, oh, say, drive clear across the United States, we knew right from the beginning that this was something we had to do.

What better way to connect with all of you that we interact with online each and every day?

What better way to take our broader message and inject it with a straight shot of nitrous oxide?  (Not in the laughing gas sense, of course, but in the car racing sense.  Zoom, zoom, anyone?)

What better way to create a larger purpose, and leverage the awesome networks we’ve been fortunate to build, in order to bring more of you together in the name of facilitating innovation, big ideas & even bigger ass kicking?

Allow me to formerly introduce to you the official Status Quo Smackdown Roadtrip 2010, where myself, Andi & Colin hop in a car, risk extreme cramping of the limbs & the very real possibility of insanity, in order to drive thousands of miles to come visit in person.  And we couldn’t be more excited / thrilled / unable to stop thinking about how dangerously terrific it’ll be.

The Plan

Starting July 1st, 2010, we’ll begin in New York City, heading north up to Maine, and then loop back down again to Washington D.C. From there, we’ll mosey on down to Florida, hopefully encounter some white tee shirt contests, at which point we’ll swing back up through New Orleans, Memphis, Missouri & Illinois, chillax over in Madison, Minneapolis, Omaha & Denver, and then ride ‘em cowboy our way right back down to Texas, New Mexico & Vegas, before zooming up through California, stopping to play in Oregon & finally ending in Washington state.  The schedule is tentative to date, but we’ll be making adjustments over the next two months before the tour begins.

So, there you have it!  We’ve got some amazing potential sponsors (and if you have suggestions for someone we should be talking to, definitely get in touch), and we’d like to encourage anyone & everyone to come meet up with us in your nearest city, where we’ll be holding all sorts of fun un-conferences, meet-ups & beer drinking sessions.  To sweeten the pot, there might even be fake mustaches.  But shhh–Colin & Andi don’t know that yet.  We’re also open to your ideas on what you’d like to see from us, so feel free to give us a shout.

We’d be honored if you’d go ahead & check out the new site, www.waybelowstatusquo.com, and sign up to come hang out with us in your city, under the “Groups” section.  It’s no definitive commitment–we’d just like to get an idea of what to expect, and where.  You can always bail later if you want, but I’ll probably cry, in which case you’ll be obligated to come buy me a drink.

Last but not least, let us know if you’d be interesting in hosting our happy little threesome.  We want to really connect with everyone, and we’re trying to make a point of not staying in hotels for that reason.  I’ll be including updates about the tour at the end of my regular posts as they come up, including more definitive dates, but let us know if you’re interested.

Hope to see you soon!  And for the record, I will have mace with me, just in case you’re still mad about my Education post.  Or the racism one.  Orrr the one on capitalism & altruism.

Status Quo Smackdown Roadtrip 2010, baby.  Who’s in?

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The Girl In The Photo

See that girl?  She’s got long, brown wavy hair, and a collection of freckles that further intensify her sense of childlike innocence that’s so clearly evident in the way she moves.  White earbuds dangle down the side of her face, and I take pleasure in imagining that she’s listening to Avril Lavigne, or Pink, or someone equally as gusty and fierce that I probably haven’t heard of.  Actually, I’m certain it’s the latter, because this girl is one of those girls that just exudes uber-coolness, and uber-cool people always know all about the other uber-cool people–especially when it comes to music.

There’s a reason for my infatuation with this earth-goddess, racerback tank-wearing, leather bracelet-donning, pop punk rocker, and that reason can be summed up in two words:   hula hoop.

I’ve seen her three times now; she appears on campus at the university where I’m completing my graduate work.  She hasn’t got a care in the world, as her and her iPod jam out in the middle of an uninhabited patch of grass, her hips gyrating to the beat of the music, as she hula hoops around and around in endless circles.  Passersby heading to their next class look on in amazement, and I hear them snicker amongst their circle of friends, calling my sweet earth-goddess pop punk rocker names like crazy, insane, psychotic, and wacky. They ridicule, scorn, sneer and laugh with contempt.   While the fact that she’s wearing a racerback tank top in the dead of winter in Pennsylvania is, perhaps, questionable, as much as they mock her, I think they’re all secretly green with envy of her bold confidence.  I know I am.

You Can’t Hula Hoop In Public! *Gasp*

You see, for some reason, the fact that she’s hula hooping in the middle of campus is somehow considered wrong, against the rules.   It’s not considered “socially acceptable behavior,” and as such, is condemned, judged, and scrutinized.  It’s weird, and it makes us uncomfortable.  To cope with our discomfort, we label her a host of undesirable things.  She must be those things.  After all, we would never hula hoop in the middle of campus all by ourselves, and we’re the normal ones.   Scoff, scoff.

Now imagine for a moment that instead of my earth-goddess, it was a little girl out there hula hooping in the grass, be-bopping around to the rhythm of the music.  Her hair flies wild in the wind, and her cheeks are rosy with life.   Passersby–you, me, everyone–would look at the little girl and be filled with a warm sense of nostalgia.  We’d appreciate and admire her youthful vibrance and untainted purity.  We’d look on and think to ourselves, Oh, to be young again.

At what point do we cross over?  At what point does it become unacceptable to be young and carefree?  At what point do we become uptight, guarded and judgmental?  And more importantly, why?

Socialization Irks Me

It seems that the socialization process is to blame for my inability to hula hoop in public, or skip down the hallway of a corporate office building, or grab the cute guy standing behind me in line and lay one on ‘em.  (That is, my inability to do so without it seeming extremely strange.)  Socialization–the inheritance of the norms, customs, values of a culture–is an ongoing process that starts at birth, and usually regarded as a positive transformation that teaches new members of society how to be, well, members of their society.  It prepares individuals for the roles they are to play, for example, their gender role, and shows us how to participate “successfully” in society.  And while that may be good and nice and even useful in some arenas, in the arena of my own personal growth and the free-spirited, carefree Ashley that I am, it’s damn stifling.  Socialization is nothing more than a big, fancy synonym for “fitting-in,” and in case you couldn’t tell…me and fitting-in don’t always play nicely together.

Let me run down a fun little list of some of the goals of the socialization process:

1.  Impulse control. In other words, the cute guy behind me in line is out of the question.  I don’t like this already.

2.  Development of a conscience. Wait, I thought we had religion for that?   You mean to tell me that there’s other factors that actually determine whether or not you eat puppies for dinner?  That’s a relief–I was wondering why I didn’t do that.

3.  Cultivation of sources of meaning, i.e. what is liked, what is valued. He-llo, money-is-my-everything-and-on-which-I-base-my-self-esteem.  (By the way, stop doing that already.)

4.  Preparation of humans to function socially. Yeah, we really don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable around here.  Don’t rock the boat.

It is just me, or does the idea of being taught what to feel and when (sad when people die, fake happy when people get the job that you wanted, sexy when you fit into a size 4), and essentially learning what you’re suppose to be really, really creepy?

If we’re constantly living our lives based on a predetermined set of rules–emotional responses, gender roles, etc.–then how can we ever know who we really are?  How can we ever know what’s natural?   Is life just a series of fabricated obligations?  Are we just a series of fabricated obligations?  Are we really alive, or just living by the rules?

Ashley Rant

I don’t particularly care for hard and fast rules when it comes to being a human being.  We live and die by what’s “socially acceptable,” and we socialize ourselves right into submissiveness–not submissiveness to society, but rather submissiveness to ourselves.  We suppress urges.  We muffle feelings.  We smother instinct.  We stifle sensuality.  We trample our senses.  And we put a big, giant Stone Cold Steve Austin choke hold on spontaneity.  Instead, we’re a bunch of cold, unfeeling, desensitized, devastatingly inhibited creatures.   And that sucks.

I’m blatantly heartbroken by the university professor who uses his/her status as an excuse for acting like a condescending jackass.  I don’t care where you got your Ph.D. from; you’re still a human being and–surprise!–so am I.

I’m thoroughly saddened by the doctor who is too busy to answer a scared, anxious, dying patient’s questions.   Who’s actually more important in this scenario?  Apparently, the doctor thinks its him/herself, which is a conflict of interest.

And I’m maddenly distraught by the hundreds and thousands of everyday citizens who look away from the homeless person, because offering them an innocent smile and, perhaps, just a glimmer of compassion, would be too much to ask.  We’re deathly afraid they’re going to ask us for money, and then we’ll have to feel guilty for denying them it.   After all, it’s all about us and our feelings.

All of these scenarios are dehumanizing, and I’m tired of watching people’s actions reflect their manufactured “roles” in society, instead of reflecting their roles as a human being.

When are we going to realize that human connections are truly all we’ve got, and we should be nourishing them, instead of discouraging them in order to feed our individual ego?   Let’s be honest with ourselves–in the grand scheme of things, I’m not all that important.   And you’re not all that important, either.   And it’s about time that we drop the act.

Be real with yourself.  Be real with others.   Be silly.  Be uninhibited.  Be free.  Be the earth goddess, racerback tank-wearing, leather bracelet-donning, pop punk rocker.   Be you.   And most importantly, be a human being–not just a representation of one.

The Contest

Here’s your first opportunity to do so:

Go buy yourself a hula hoop, because you’re going to need it in order to videotape yourself hula hooping in a public place, which you will then send to me.  What?

Yes, that’s right.  I’m initiating a contest–the person who hula hoops in the most creative public place, and videotapes themselves doing so, wins the prize.  What’s that, you ask?  Well, it’s $100 for the first place winner, $50 for the second place winner and $25 for third place–voted on by the readers!  The deadline is March 22nd–one month from today–at which point I’ll post a video montage of all submitted entries on The Middle Finger Project. The vote will take place, and winners will be announced no later than March 31st.  For official rules, click here.  What are you waiting for?  Get out there, shed some of your inhibitions, and have a damn good laugh at yourself.  And then score some cash, you animal!

Okay.  Ready?  On your mark.  Get set.  GO!  Send all entries to ash @ themiddlefingerproject.org.  But shucks, don’t put the spaces in there.  Deal?

P.S.  Please don’t throw out your back.  But if you do, be sure to videotape that too.