my daughter, the outcast

Once I read a profound statement in a magazine interview. I love it. I have no idea who said it. It goes like this: "Every worthwhile person I've ever known, has been an outcast at some point in his or her life."

My daughter is an outcast. Not the temporary kind, like the celebrities who say something crass and get ostracized for an obligatory ten minutes. She's the dyed-in-the-wool real deal: born different, growing up different. She's a girl with faint pariah markings, invisible to most adults, but clear as day to other children. A girl no good at fitting in.

Here's an idea for a book: I'd like to take a poll of former and present outcasts, and give them each a page to tell their story. Here's what I would ask them:

1. When and why were you an outcast?
2. Would you say you were an outcast because of something you said or did, or because of who you are?
3. How did it stop -- or did it never stop?
4. Did any good come of being an outcast?
5. Did the experience scar you? change you?
6. What words do you have for the outcasts of today, and for the never-been-outcasts who don't understand them?

I was an outcast at my first residency. Everyone hated me -- that was the bad part. But because I walked alone, I was the only one free to speak against what went on there.

No other resident ever thought of rocking the boat. They were smack in the middle of the boat, had paid a high price to keep those comfy seats, and had their eyes fixed on the opposite shore where a gilded citadel awaited them. (Meanwhile I was in the drink with waves crashing over my head, gasping and struggling to hang onto the side with one hand.) With their arms draped around eachother in comradeship, they moved and thought as one body. It wasn't their fault. They checked eachother's faces when shocking things happened, and were reassured. No one was the first to declare outrage. No one else was quitting in disgust. It must have been easy for each to convince himself that nothing shocking was really real. See? No one else minds. It's not that bad. Anyway, I didn't see a thing.

The other residents played golf with the attendings. The corrupt bosses joked with them in the doctors' lounge, gave them praise and pats on the head and promises of rich practices waiting after graduation. That made for a pretty strong incentive not to bite the hands that fed. I lived a different reality: the same hands that fed them, slapped me. And when I finally got mean enough and desperate enough to bite back, I sank my teeth as hard as I could and went for bone.

I wasn't more virtuous than the others. I certainly wasn't braver. I just didn't have anyone around me to dispute the evidence of my eyes and ears, or convince me I should keep silent and play along for everyone's good. I had no loyalties. I didn't give a damn how crappy the call schedule would become for the rest of them after I walked away.

So this is why I think we should celebrate our outcasts: Yes, it's true that sometimes they stray too far from the herd and end up holding classrooms hostage with assault rifles. But aside from those few -- and I do think they are few -- the rest perform a function priceless to society. They are maybe the only ones among us who get to see, think, and act for themselves. They keep the majority from drifting over the line into mass insanity. Therefore, I propose National Outcast Day, with parades in every city and little children waving flags: one day a year when anyone who's cranky, odd or reclusive wakes up to find her doorstep heaped with bouquets and notes of appreciation.

I hope my daughter loses the mark of the pariah as she grows, because as a mother it breaks my heart to see her so alone. I want an easy, happy life for her. But if she never learns the trick of changing to fit in, maybe it's not so bad. Maybe she'll grow up smart and free-minded as few others ever can be.

Maybe the people who can't shape themselves to fit into our world, have the best shot at reshaping the world to fit their vision.