Color

REI was having their 20%-off sale today (well, it was ending today at least) and I went in to get a nice waterproof shell-jacket. 20% is too much to pass up so En and I hitched a bus and went downtown to the main REI store.This isn't news.What is news is that I've gone from buying black and earth-tone jackets to getting something that's just plain frickin' loud.Rocket Red.This is something I wouldn't wear in Cleveland.I made the realization as I was walking home with En looking at what I like to wear here. I was looking at the houses around us as we walked back from the bus stop -- they were all different colors.In Solon all the houses were variants of beige. Here there is color.The unseen pressure to conform, having been lifted, is no longer clouding my judgement.:-DColor is only one way to conform. Color is just one, rather unimportant, reflection of thinking. Conformity, broadly applied, brings you down to the lowest common denominator.