Croc-wearers endanger our individual Selves

Earlier this summer, I attended a lecture in which the speaker asked us to consider a world… Earlier this summer, I attended a lecture in which the speaker asked us to consider a world without the hog-nosed snake. I won’t go into the specifics of the circumstances of his request, but rest assured that the question made perfect sense. I’d like you to take the consideration seriously. I mean it: Close your eyes – wait not yet, finish reading this first – and really imagine a world in which there existed no hog-nosed snakes.

OK, now close your eyes.

What’s it like?

Probably exactly the same as the world you currently live in. This is because many of you have most likely never even heard of the hog-nosed snake, let alone seen one or been affected by it in any way. Yet our lecturer argued that the hog-nosed snake, though completely detached from the human food chain, is worthy of preservation simply because it’s an interesting animal.

I countered this claim by asking the lecturer if he, forced to choose, would save a basket of hog-nosed snakes over a basket of adorable puppies with Christmas bows tied around their necks.

This is what I do when I get uncomfortable – I make a fool out of myself. Like when I, a normally unabashed omnivore, find myself surrounded by a roomful of vegetarians and, suddenly abashed, start arguing that tofu is one of the leading causes of the disappearance of the middle class, when actually I just think it’s gross.

In that lecture, in which I should have felt interested by a new philosophy on ecological maintenance, all I was feeling was guilt for caring more about the common – albeit adorable – puppy than the elusive hog-nosed snake. And that guilt was making me defensive. And what was I even defending?

This little anecdote about the snake is an allegory. I don’t really give any weight to the importance of having to choose between a basket of snakes and a basket of puppies, because if I ever live in a world in which that choice has to be made, I think I will probably have much bigger problems. But the trend of the story is definitely an important one: Every day we are faced with choices that are seemingly trivial. And these choices, whether they are with the fashion, against the fashion or outside the fashion altogether, actually compose the very fabric of our individualities.

Take, for example, the current bane of my existence: Crocs.

Crocs are perhaps the most unattractive footwear that I have ever seen. I don’t even want to go into why I hate them on an aesthetic level since I think that it is really obvious.

And I hate Crocs even more because people keep telling me how amazing they are. OMG, they’re made of such durable material! They are so comfortable! God wears Crocs!

But what I hate most about Crocs is the fact that I am forced to hate them so loudly.

Every time I see a pair of Crocs I feel as if it is essential to my existence for me to automatically switch into basket-of-puppies mode. It’s as if the wearing of Crocs so endangers my wearing of flip-flops that I have to be preemptive in my condescension. And usually I just look silly.

And what is actually endangered is not my cheap taste in shoes, but my perception of all of my tastes, or at least what I imagine the conglomeration of those tastes – i.e. my Self – to be.

Milan Kundera, who is most famously known for his implied cameo on the series finale of “Gilmore Girls,” but who also penned a few books, once wrote something along the lines of – and I’m paraphrasing here – “There are few ideas and many people.” Since it’s a large stretch to imagine that our sense of individuality is born from one great idea that is purely our own, our Selves must instead be composed of some mosaic of alliances and loves and hatreds. I am aligned with those who love to hate Crocs. This is part of my Self.

Yet, it’s a non-commonsensical part of my Self, and therein lies the problem. It makes sense for people to wear Crocs. They’re totally utilitarian. And it makes sense to eat tofu for a number of reasons. Yet like the hog-nosed snake, which has no commonsense value, there is an inherent part of my Self that cannot shake the hatred of these things. The hog-nosed snake does not make sense except in that it exists, just like the little, odd, Croc-hating pieces of our Selves.

I guess this column is no more than a plea for patience to my Croc-wearing, sprout-eating friends. I am trying to learn that Crocs do not necessarily reflect on a person’s character. I am trying to learn that just because someone eats tofu while I do not does not mean that I should feel guilty. And I am trying to learn that I needn’t be so boisterous in defending my Self since it inherently, purely by being my Self, is not at all endangered.

But it’s hard to pay attention to learning these things with a basket of Christmas-bowed puppies at your feet.

If you have use for the fanny pack that came with Cassidy’s new eight-piece luggage set, e-mail her at cassidygruber@gmail.com.