I've been reading Donald Miller's book, Searching For God Knows What, and he's been talking about how all of us are equal as humans, but most of us play a game where we rank each other and spend so much energy trying to gain rank and not lose rank. It's a horrible and stupid game that we play, and it shows how dumb we are when we play it.
I remember a moment in high school that I look back on with shame and regret. I was friends with this guy named John Cosnowski. We had a mutual love for heavy metal and great rock music. He was kind of goofy in the coordination department, fitting the type of a mad scientist with his wild, coarse and wirey hair. His thick glasses and Polish name didn't help. But he was cool. We were friends. One day I was at a new kid's house, and we were all skateboarding in his/her garage, using makeshift ramps out of plywood and whatever we could lean it on to ride up, over, and kickturn back down. I was with one of my best friends, who soon ruled the school as the coolest guy in our class. It wasn't done in a crass way, as we were laid back Californians, but it was pretty much true that this friend was numero uno in our invisible game of rank. We were friends, too. I think I ranked as probably his second best friend, after this other guy who he'd known in junior high and had just moved back. But anyway, me and Top Dog were skating with a few other folks when John Cosnowski comes riding up.
Top Dog hid against a wall with his skateboard in front of his face, and loudly kept repeating what sounded like, "LEAP!" What he was really repeating was "LEAVE." We were all doing it, and even John laughed, repeating "LEAP!" as if we were all frogs. He laughed, but I releazed that Top Dog was asking him to leave. I wish I would have made a scene and stood up for John.
Perhaps I did, because I vaguely recall leaving with John later. He had come to my house, found I wasn't there, and came over here after my mom had told him where I was. Maybe I was able to make a small, silent impression upon my friends, in refusing to be ruled by the ranking game. While the details are fuzzy, I kinda wish now that I had made a public and loud stand that "John was cool," but I was probably afraid of losing my rank if I associated myself with someone lower in the known rankings.
This was a shame for our school, especially, because we were fairly classless in our social interaction. We were not a school divided up into jocks, scholars, stoners, and preppies. Not a single preppie existed, and practically everyone at our school partied, a lot of us played sports, and so there wasn't a lot of divided cliques. We did fall into the age-old trap of wanting to be cool and wanting to be accepted, so I can't say we had it all together.
:?)
John moved away sometime during our sophomore year. Last I heard he had moved to the San Diego area. It'd be fun to catch up with him and see where his life journey has taken him thus far.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at September 4, 2006 03:43 PM