Sociologically, there are no exceptional people. I learned that in Intro.

In your neighborhood, the sociological inclination is to assume one family that foreclosed on their house are clones of the others, who will have foreclosed on their own homes in whatever economic interval that defines the area, and so if you default on the villa your neighbors will all have defaulted near the end of the fiscal year themselves. It's a zeitgeist of the standard of living. The nice neighborhoods are full of nice people, who will necessarily all go down together when the banks consume them.

Popular habits like obeying street signs are also a sociological phenomenon.

Sociology majors might tell you the two most common images that control us are street signs and images on television, and then group people into separate groups based on which images those folks are exposed to, and what kind of lives they lead. The patrolling police are bound to street signs, and television? That's us. Or me. And maybe no you, and so you may think you are an exception. But you must drive, and the sociologists will find you a space next to the cops and your mind will unconsciously mull over pike pass endorsements and red and green LED lights at the four ways. It's not intentional on the students', professors', or researchers' part. It's just science.

My teevee was given to me for Christmas, and it may have saved my life, the professors agree. Should I say that makes me happy? It was triggering a nervous breakdown that morning. At least I wasn't homeless. My peddlers' cardboard box could have read,

“The teevee only sometimes made me happy,” and give me seventy-five cents because the banks just bought out my mortgage.

But it was a Christmas present so I have to keep it in my apartment. It's like when I first smoked from a bong, and my lungs felt so much pain from the smoke that I could look at the pipe without a nervous spike. I try to pretend the teevee isn't there, and never watch it.

Oh, and no pills, no weed, and booze.

Booze before class in the parking lot, shots of joy in my burning mouth. I do drive to school, but I'm not a cop. I think my professor is wrong but that's actually comforting with the booze, and, when I drive home after class sober by that time, I'm usually pretty emotional but it's killed immediately by the first red light I see, and when I see the teevee when I finally get home I'm brought back to the sociological world I really live in.

It might be schizophrenic. We might be schizophrenic.

And if I'm schizophrenic, my professor would tell me, then the whole barrio will eventually be schizophrenic themselves, foreclosing on reality with their televisions in hand, a cycle of sociological inevitability. Patterns of population control. It could make you paranoid. You may be in control, but my professor knows the sociological perspective and told me an hour ago we're mentally ill regardless.

When you look at the big picture, you'll never be exceptional.