Facultatively myself

Facultative.

It's a nice word. It's a very neat way of saying "I do as I please", and sounding smart while you're at it. Not many words can accomplish both, without making you sound condescending as well. And that's a bad combination. Rebellious, smart-alecky and talking down to people.

I first came across the word in the 11th standard, when we had a class about facultative anaerobes. These are bacteria that normally grow in low-oxygen conditions (like what you'd find in the centre of a compost pit/rotting carcass. They're the ones that are usually responsible for the "aroma") But they'll grow just fine even if they're kept in open air.

I brought it up because I've been using this word quite often. Usually to describe myself. It goes something like this:

*Facultatively non-vegetarian: I eat vegetarian stuff mostly. But I can live almost entirely on meat if I need to. As I did for the one week I was in Argentina. People there live pretty much on beef and pork. And if you don't eat that, your options are Boiled pumpkin/potato/carrot. yum :P

*Facultatively religious: If there's a homam at 3 a.m. , feel free to start without me. However, if it's at an earthly time, and there's prasadam to be had, count me in! But no, I've decided to stop being so hypocritical. I'm gonna stick to being agnostic for the time being.

*Facultatively Victorian: I'm the sort of guy who'll open doors, walk on the outer side of the pavement, and go right up to the footstep of the girl's house. But when money comes into play, we'll probably go dutch (as someone just found out today!)

*Facultatively pacifist: I won't go around with a chip on my shoulder. I don't go out looking for fights. In fact back in primary school, I would go around trying to stop fights. But a month back, i told eternal dreamer that I'd fight her for soupy, so...

So, yeah. I can be a little contradicting at times. I guess we all are in some way or another.