PEANUT GALLERY: Introduction

My husband, well before we were married and during that period when he presumably should've been trying to court me, once called me the "peanut gallery." I didn't know what that meant but decided it couldn't be very nice and remember feeling a little offended. But now that I know what it means, I guess my husband knew me well then, and knows me even better today, when he not only still thinks I am the peanut gallery, but also thinks that I can't take nearly half as much as I dish out. (By the way, "peanut gallery," according to Wikipedia, means "an audience which heckles the performer.")

So I guess I have a propensity toward commentary. It's not a mean or mocking commentary, but a sort of reality-check type of thing, where I see people living life as if it's a grand performance and, in response, I feel the need to articulate – even if for no one but myself – the silliness of the performance.

I'm not sure how I became this way….this way of limited patience for frivolity and a knack for seeing the unreal. I remember telling a friend of mine back in high school that, as much as he'd like to think he was a rebel, his drinking, smoking, and other antics were conforming almost perfectly to society's image of the rebellious, indifferent teenager. Society tells you what you have to do to be a rebel, and then you conform to its image of rebellion. What a farce.

Performance breeds mediocrity. There's nothing unique or extraordinary about conforming to a script, whether it be in values or actions. The question isn't about predestination, since no one knows for what he or she is predestined and can therefore not conform to it. Nor is this a question about learning our morality from religious texts or even community social codes. It's about recognizing that we may in many ways be products of our environment, but that it is up to us to determine which elements of that environment will ultimately impact us and shape our character.

It's about knowing and unknowing social conformity. We all fall into it to some degree, even I who mocks it so unforgivingly. But some do so more than others, to a point where it's hard to tell where, in the grand performance, lies the individual. Or if there even is an individual. Can people ever define themselves if they never know that "self" can be defined outside of social conformity?

Before I sink into total abstraction, I'll offer an example: teenyboppers (defined by Wikipedia as "a teenager, especially a girl in her early teens, who follows teenage fashions in music, clothes, etc."). I've come to use this term to denote a broader concept: girls and boys (including men and women perpetually frozen in adolescence) who think and act as told to by peers and media. It's the phenomenon of "teenybopperism" that I feel explains infantile, conformist, performance behavior.

(Ok, so maybe my commentary is a little ruthless…)

I feel exasperated by teens who fall into the same predictable behavioral patterns. They all spend more than half their time, and sometimes all of their time, in total frivolity, dragging their feet when faced with endeavors of greater, deeper meaning. Some risk their health, breach their own sense of morality, and even play with their life, and not for any noble reason either.

Maybe there's a shared human tendency that leads to many of us making the same mistakes. Or maybe when we're told time and again that this is how society expects us to behave, coupled with peer pressure to fit the mold in order to feel accepted, we feel we have no choice. Maybe our sense of criticism and uniqueness is blunted by overwhelming social coercion.

Still, I feel exasperated – especially so when the teenybopperism seems to seep into so many people's adult years. Society, with its emphasis on preserving youthfulness, having fun, and shunning commitment and responsibility, fosters persistent, prolonged adolescence. That, at the core, is what I'm railing against. Not so much teenybopperism in our teeny years, but a teenybopperism that is so pervasive that it colors our goals for and perspectives on life. We're stuck in it, we'll live in it, we can't escape it.

Maybe this is what is meant by the hadith which admonishes us to wake up before we die. Maybe we need to prioritize our life and stop wasting it. Extract ourselves from the performance and create an un-manufactured "self".

And it occurs to me that performance is not just about frivolity, but also about feigned ambition; ambition driven by the need for external approval, prestige, status. Philanthropy, academic achievements, humanitarian work—even these can force us to perform when motivated by superficiality.

As I've gone through various tragedies in my own life, with my own expectations of life and "how it's supposed to be" destroyed time and time again, I've learned the futility of performance. Suffering penetrates through the superficiality and forces us to search for purpose and meaning outside physical limits. Encouraged to think in theoretical and possibly spiritual terms, we cease, at least temporarily, to be performers.

Growing up, though, has also made me wonder about the inherent merits of my commentary – my intolerance with the performance. Am I like this because I feel left out? Is this a reflection of my resentment? Am I becoming cynical just for the sake of being cynical? Perhaps my heckling at the performer is a form of defensiveness, a cover-up for insecurities?

Suspended between possible cynicism and a more generous, heartfelt desire for truth and sincerity, I feel agitated. My commentary is a means of coping with the agitation. I see people living life as if it's a grand performance and, in response, I feel the need to articulate – even if for no one but myself – the silliness of the performance. Perhaps by articulating it, I am trying to ensure that I don't fall into it myself. Or perhaps the articulation makes the apparently fake seem real; perhaps it's another attempt to find what lies at the core.