If I were to be completely honest, inside I’m a rebel.  Inside I am tattooed, pierced, my hair is purple, and my feet are adorned with combat boots.  My heart is in the shape of a pulsing fist with middle finger promptly displayed.  My blood is 20 degrees hotter and my eyes set dumpster fires with their glare.  I want to take all that is wrong in the world and strangle it, first into submission and then to its glorious demise.  I want to make all that is wrong, right.  Fiercely.  Quickly.  Ruthlessly.  Heroically.

But on the outside, I have succumbed to the constructs of our society.  Hair is a palatable shade of brown with subtle blonde highlights.  The skin is mostly pristine (maybe a tastefully hidden tattoo can be found).  Piercings do not overwhelm or distract the onlooker and are relegated to the appropriate places on the earlobes.  My smile is engaging, my eyes avert at the appropriate times as to not appear threatening.  To strangle anything is unthinkable.  I once almost got in an accident trying to avoid hitting a butterfly with my minivan.

I see the problems in this world.  So so many.  And it is instantly overwhelming.  Where does one begin?  Where does one start to make something good happen in the world?  To make something so very wrong, so very right again?

Sometimes you start by adopting a cat from the pound.  And then you turn around and do it again for a dog.  Maybe you give a homeless man twenty bucks.  You donate your old clothes.  You buy needy kids presents for Christmas.  You donate food to the Boy Scouts.  You recycle.  You buy your car and appliances based on their energy efficiency.  You hold the door for someone.  You let someone with less things skip you in line at War-Mart.

Why do all of those things seem so pointless?  They seem so trivial.  Small.  Minuscule.  Insignificant.  It doesn’t seem much like rebellion.  Rebellion against comfort.  Rebellion against safety.  Rebellion against getting your feelings hurt.  Rebellion against status quo.  The kind of rebellion that puts everything on the line because it’s the right thing to do.

That kind of rebellion is likely in all of us when the right buttons are pushed.  When the right cause is found. When that thing happens that is beyond comprehension.  That thing that goes against all that is good in the world.  That thing that rips down deep into the core and causes us to question everything.  That thing that makes us rage inside, makes us jump up, fist in the air, ready to fight!

Inside we all have purple hair.  Or blue hair.  Or Mohawks.  Inside all of us is a rebel waiting on its cause.  I have burning embers of rebellion deep within.  Smoldering.  Seething.  Churning.  I am a rebel with too many causes to choose from.  So many battles ahead that I thought were behind.  It never really ends, I suppose, battling evil for the greater good.  Godspeed to all that continue the good fight all over the world!