THE UNKNOWN INFLUENCE

.....We've been inundated with talk of

Obamamania these last couple of months. The media is reporting that he is having a huge influence on people. It was said that Kennedy managed to influence a generation. They signed up for the Peace Corp and asked what they could do for their country.

.....This got me wondering about the possibility of being influenced by people we've never met. Does somebody we don't know have the ability to alter the decisions we make over our lives? Surely many people sign up to fight in battles because of the actions of people like Hitler, but what about in normal, everyday events?

.....I would say that I have had somebody influence me in that way. She'll never know it because she is dead. When I was in highschool, there was a party. Many people of my graduating class attended, although I did not. It was held in an open field not far from where I lived. During the course of the event, a girl was killed. She was reported missing and after a search her body was found some distance from where people had been drinking. In fact, I had gone for a walk the afternoon right by that area.

.....Everybody was talking about it at school. People knew who did it but nobody told the cops. In fact, nobody told the police for a really long time. Even at the ten year highschool reunion when some guy got drunk and started to rail about it, somebody else hushed him up and said,

....."Be quiet, it was an accident."

.....I had planned on studying English at university as I have always loved to read, but I changed my major to Criminology. It wasn't to study evil people. They are boring. Who was it that made the comment about the banality of evil? Ann Rynd? What fascinated me was the people who knew and kept quiet. At the time, it was a small town. These were very middle-class, very white kids. None of them were hardened gang bangers. This wasn't the mob where somebody would be planted in the drink and swimming with the fishes with cement shoes for talking.

.....So, this dead girl inspired me to change my career. This choice was reinforced by the fact that I met her father when he came to my parent's house. It turns out that my father knew him. The fallout of violent acts had a real face and real consequences.

.....I have also been influenced by Simone de Beauvoir. I picked up one of her memoirs one day and I was hooked. Here was a woman who wrote about what was important to me; that with rights comes responsibilities. That doing nothing sometimes makes you more guilty than those who act.

.....And no, despite my problems with eating too much or too little, I have never had a model as an icon.