Here comes trouble.

"...society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers."

-Mignon Mclaughlin

I am not a conformist.

I have a little "Quote of the Day" calander, the kind where you tear off a page every day and get a new quote. This is my quote for today and my first question to myself was, "Self, am I a conformist or a trouble maker?" After not a whole lot of soul serching (I'm not particularly prone to soul searching) I came up with the answer that I am definately not a conformist.
So, am I a trouble maker? The answer is yes, but you reader are one too. Okay, maybe you think your aren't. Maybe you do everything right, maybe you are a good spouce, a good child, a good parent, a good citizen. Maybe you do whatever it is that to you makes a good person, go to church, recycle, volunteer, or whatever. The thing is, to someone or some society you are still a trouble maker.
I am an avid environmentalist. I believe in nature, I believe that nature knows what is best for humans not the other way around. I buy organic food and organic cotton clothing (which you can buy at Wal-Mart, so I'm not wearing crazy hippie clothes). I carpool to work and here is where my example begins to make sence. To big industry, say the oil companies, I AM a trouble maker. Sure, it would probably seem to most people that less polution is a good thing, but the oil companies want me to buy more gas and to drive a larger SUV.
Okay, I admit I'm also somewhat of a more traditional trouble maker. I question everything. I don't believe a lot. I have absolute positions on certian issues, which I will not share in such a public forum. I enjoy poking the belly of the beast.
So here's my thought for the day. Maybe we NEED to be trouble makers. Maybe without the trouble makers the hard changes would never happen. Think the women's suffrage movement and civil rights. Trouble makers move society, any society. The key is to cause trouble that brings the right kinds of results, I think.