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“Why fit in when you were born to stand out!” -Dr Seuss

Hey y'all,

We are, by and large, a species made up of conformists. Don’t stand out, try to blend in. One of the largest indicators for whether you have a lawn service is if your neighbors have a lawn service. We tend to dress like the people we spend time with, shop at the places they shop, do the things they do. According to the Kelly Blue Book people, in 2024, 78% of SUV’s sold will be either gray, white, black, or silver.

We bought a used gray SUV last year and it looks just like every other SUV in a parking lot, leading to me almost getting in the wrong car on multiple occasions.

A friend who is a political operative told me that this is true philosophically as well as aesthetically. He said that a person doesn’t generally become a Republican, for example, because the person has strong beliefs against abortion - rather, people are much more likely to develop strong beliefs against abortion because they see themselves as Republicans. In other words, the belief shifts as a cost of membership in the group.

Youth pastors have known this for ages. Get the teens to hang out and eat pizza and develop friendships in the youth group, and their beliefs will shift to stay in the crowd. At least until they go to college, and get a new crowd, and beliefs shift to conform to that crowd.

A clergy friend who shifted his theology to become inclusive of LGBT folks told me his theology changed to match his relationships, and that rang true for me - my own experience was similar.

Standing out is costly. This is one reason I love cottage gardens. They are riots of color, with no discernable design - often tatted up with things like folk art, garden gnomes, and rose arbors. And, in my case, a six foot colorful rooster.

It was a present to myself for my birthday, and it sits in our front yard, standing guard over the daylilies and the zinnias and in front of the new rose arbor and beside the blueberry patch. It faces my neighbor’s very traditional sod lawn, devoid of flowers, that has all the individualism of a Hampton Inn hotel room.

I love a landscape filled with colors. In fact, because of my depression, I actively need them. They make me very happy, in a way that a sterile conformist lawn would not. And, I believe in investing in my joy.

Today’s links are a riot of color. I didn’t plan it that way, it just worked out that way - as it does sometimes. But I take this as a reminder to not be afraid of color, to not be afraid to stand out.

I once went to church with an elderly woman named Alice, who always wore red. She had grown up in a conservative Amish household, and red was a scandalous color, never worn.

“So I left”, she told me. “I decided I was just the kind of person who needed to wear a red dress.”

Maybe you are too.

Five Beautiful Things

The website Capture The Atlas has their Milky Way Photograph of the Year award winners up, and they are breathtaking.

In the category of things one did not know existed - a directory of colorful fire hydrants, mostly in Brooklyn.

I’m not qualified to discuss it in any real way, but the African portraiture of Tamary Kudita is fascinating, I especially love the rich use of color and scenery, and how disrupting it is.

Gigi Chen’s bird paintings are almost surrealistic, and again, the colors are deep and dramatic. I love this a lot.

A Pride flag made of images from NASA photos. (This is also apparently the most shared post in BlueSky history). Mad props to Rachel Lense, the NASA team member who put this together. It’s beautiful.

TCB

The most opened link last issue (~12% of opens) was the artist whose work pokes fun at patriarchal social media censorship rules.

We’ve gained 7 new members this month. Members is the term we use for the people whose patronage keep this site going, and keep it free and add-free for everyone. While we welcome members anytime it makes sense for you, I put a little extra focus on our membership plan during June - think of it as my own little pledge drive, ala NPR. And while I don’t have tote bags for you, you will get my undying gratitude, and you will help keep making this project possible.

Would you click here to learn more about becoming a member?

Other ways to support me and this work include buying me a cup of coffee, share the web version of this letter (see the link at the top of the page) on social media, send cash via a half-dozen ways, send a note to the address at the bottom of the page, or just forward this email to your friends. But however you do it, I'm grateful beyond words for your support over the years.

Take care of yourself, and each other.

HH