tablesaw | The Eternal Question.

In going through my boxes of stuff, I occasionally find something of interest. I was struck by this essay from my Junior year of high school. Here it is, retyped from the hard copy and submitted for your curiosity.

Tablesaw
English III (H); Period 1
Feb 23, 1995

"But What About Tablesaw?"

One of my friends at school told me about a Psychology class that she was in. The class was discussing popularity; the idea being expressed was that in order to be popular, one must conform to the desires of peers. One student then raised his hand and asked, "But what about Tablesaw? He's popular and he does whatever the hell he wants."

I never considered myself a popular person. According to Webster's, popularity is the state or quality of being "commonly liked or approved." In my experience, popularity has always been gauged by TV; the more sitcomesque one's life was, the more popular he was. I was never captain of any team; I didn't really like sports at all. My life in general was decisively less than spectacular. Accordingly, my years in grade school were spent out of popularity.

In the fifth grade, after moving to a new school and with adolescence raging towards me, I gained acceptance into my Mecca, and began my pilgrimage. First, I tried being really smart. I was resented after that. I tried making fun of the teacher after that. It worked for a while, but whenever I stopped, my popularity drained away. As a last resort, I went punk. The details of that experience make me shudder. I was left after seventh grade with only one year in which to achieve the golden mitre of popularity before my graduation.

However, during the summer I took part in a Pre-College program for gifted students. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I made friends there faster than I had in my entire life up until then. During those three weeks I didn't have to change myself to fit any norm; everyone there was so extraordinarily different that there was no norm. I was, as everyone else seemed to be, popular.

My experience left me as high as a kite, and when I returned to class in September, I realized that I cared about my classmates' opinions of me about as much as I cared about navel lint. I tossed conventionality to the winds and for that year I did what I wanted to do.

When I started high school, I found, to my dismay, that the people there weren't incredibly different from those in grade school. But after a few months, I discovered, to my relief, that I was not alone. There were others who felt the same way that I did about being accepted. (There weren't many of them, but they were there.) I developed friendships with these people, the only real friendships I have ever had with my classmates.

But during the three years in which I have coexisted with my high school, my aversion to popularity has had a paradoxical side effect. Like the fool in a court of kings, I have become popular. Admittedly, my name is not synonymous with fame, but as shown by the anecdote that launched this essay, I am considered by many to be popular. I may never be "commonly liked or accepted," but I am respected as being unique. And in a school where almost everyone can be classified as belonging to one stereotype or another, the question must be asked: "But what about Tablesaw?"