From the beginning I'm contrarian.
Vivid memory: the class is walking as a group from our classroom toward the cafeteria. We're under the awning, it's kindergarten or first grade. The sun is blazing, the kids are in t-shirts. I have on my jacket. "I'm hot, I insist, insistently, to a little girl walking with me. "You're weird, she says. Fine. I'd rather be weird than conformist.
If it's cold I'm in my t-shirt, if it's hot I'm in my jacket, if the kids all drink milk I want orange juice, if they say up I say down, and I mean it.
Why? After-echoes of a previous lifetime where I died when a great crowd of lemmings swept me off a tall cliff into the sea?
Good an explanation as any.