some rules matter. others, not so much

I discovered a fun fact about myself vis a vis “rules”:

I believe strongly that rules are important. One of my favorite things is to challenge myself to be as creative as possible without breaking any rules. This is why I got so much joy out of doing the 48 Hour Film Project, and think that cheating on the CNY Treasure Hunt makes it so much less fun. So clearly I’m a fan of rules. As long as they make sense. Actual rules have a purpose that can be explained to me. If they don’t have a real purpose, if the best you can tell me is “that’s the way it’s done,” I tend to discount them as “rules.” (read: ignore) I have a tendency to think of them as “a bunch of words that don’t make sense,” in which case there’s really no rule to break. So then I do what I think does make sense – which might not actually fit within those “bunch of words that I was told was a rule.” Some might see that as breaking rules, but it seems I don’t. I really don’t think of myself as a rule-breaker and take no joy in the idea of breaking rules.

Maybe not a major insight, but I found it curious nonetheless.