How to Hold a Fork

This is actually how he holds his fork... It must be hard to be my friend, because I whip out my camera and snap everything...

I am not anal about these things, but I do notice how people hold their forks and pencils. I come from a place where these things were important social reflections, so I was this short of beaten to hold everything "properly". For my poor, teacher parents, it was important that their kids learn proper manners, they could not afford to have us grow up in to marginalized adults - at that time they didn't know their daughter will grow up to be a heathen physicist - so my parents are excused. But really people have no idea how teaching "manners" to kids makes li'l robots out of them, that grow into big robots, who then go and buy SUV's just because everyone else is, because they can not think by themselves... Ok... the SUV thing was a metaphor, but you get the idea...

I am not saying all the kids who learnt to hold the fork "properly" think inside the box or all the kids who hold the fork "improperly" think outside the box. But what really defines "proper" ways of life?

How each of us decides
I've never been sure
The part we play
The way we are
How each of us denies any other way in the world
- The Cure, in This is a Lie

Today, this guy who holds his fork like this, and I who hold my fork like that, are equally good people - but I had to work that much more to let my creativity grow, than this guy who never was suppressed... Sort of reminded me of my first days in grad school, when I looked around me and saw all my Chinese and former Soviet Union friends, who were brought up with no religion, just as good as I am; I who was brought up in a very Catholic environment... It must have helped that my parents were rebellious Catholics, at least rebellious against the church.