CONVENTION VS. UNCONVENTIONAL

I've always flirted with the unconventional, while still being a bit conventional.
I know that sounds contradictory, but then, again, I am an avowed contrarian.
Still, let me explain. Throughout my life, there has always been a part of me that swerves well outside the mainstream, into the odd and unusual. So while much of my life is quite conventional, there is that part that defies convention and prefers something different.
Growing up, for instance, I was a huge football fan. I devoured everything I could read on the subject. Then I saw my first Canadian Football League game and was hooked. Here was something unconventional, unusual and it fit me just fine. I read about it, studied the game and the players and even subscribed to magazines and newspapers devoted to the game.
I lost interest in that once I reached college, so music took its place. I listened to what was popular, but then I joined the staff of the college radio station. The station, at one point, was ditching piles of records of unknown and unheralded artists. I took many home, found music I loved, and listened to these people often. Of course, no one else had heard of them or cared, so the music was my effort at being unconventional. I still enjoy finding the new and unusual in music and prefer it over what is popular.
When I was younger, and had just learned to drive, I fell for un-American car racing -- LeMans, Formula 1, Can-Am, rallying -- anything that wasn't limited to left-hand turns for lap upon lap. No one I knew shared this passion and while it waned for several decades, it returned when cable television started airing the Speed channel, back when European rallying and Formula 1 were among its regular programs and which still shows the 24 hours of LeMans from start to finish.
I was into distance running before it got big and stayed with it until health issues forced me to stop. I still remain a fan who can watch a marathon or track meet on television without a moment's remorse or guilt. Then I got into cycling, another European sport for which I have a deep and abiding passion. If I talk to people about it, they get this puzzled look on their faces since, after all, they stopped riding a bicycle in their teens and can see no reason to return to human-powered travel, except possibly if they are camping. And then only if they have to. To admit that, on Saturday, I logged nearly 30 miles in the rain and cold, simply draws looks of disbelief and an effort to get away from the crazy man.
I read whatever books and magazines interest me, which also draws me into the unconventional. For I am an incurable romantic, who still believes in the power and beauty of real love and is convinced that, in time, it will return for me, regardless of how long that may take.
While this may paint a picture of someone hiding an unconventional streak, I believe I am not alone in this. Though I have yet to meet another, I believe there are others out there who find their passions in areas the rest of their small world does not recognize or respect. Like me, they, too, long to find someone with which to share at least some of these passions, while recognizing that no person will, or should, match them passion-for-passion. Instead, we recognize and appreciate the differences in people and know our passions may ignite interest in another just as their passions may well inspire us to look further at something we previously had not considered.
Life does not have to be an all-or-none proposition. You can be conventional in part of your life, unconventional in the rest. You truly can be of two minds, one that enjoys what everyone else does and the other which strives to find that which no one else around you has ever experienced before.
Don't bow to convention. And don't limit yourself to an unconventional life. Be both. For as much and as often as you like.