The Misfit's Manifesto

Excerpts from this book:

Misfits transform fear and anger and grief into expression rather than destruction - we give something of value to the rest of culture rather than succumbing to our own misery, particularly when those around us recognize our value.

To forge hope, we had to invent it at ground zero.

...if I could just truly and finally figure one of these origin scenes out, I'd know something about life and how to live it.

In place of hope, underneath my terror, which I had my entire childhood, was something else.  That something else was the ability to endure, to stay quiet like a still animal, close to the ground, and perhaps something even more important, the art of waiting for the right moment to act. I was, without knowing it, building a form agency.

...it may be more accurate to call us ghost people who are a little haunted and always in danger of being dragged under...by depression, or fear, or failure, or our unusual relationship to reality.

I believe in art the way other people believe in God.

I found my story inside books and movies and paintings and music.

I'm not the story you made of me.

In the plot of the hero's journey, there seems to be a kind of magical forward momentum implied.  If misfits could just push through the stages in order! Whereas in the misfit's myth, the stages are all mixed up, on top of each other, with false doors and creepy basements...