Nonconformist

Con­for­mity has its rewards. The nail that is not above the board does not get smacked down (my ver­sion of an old Chi­nese say­ing). Fit­ting in gives us the illu­sion of being right. There is secu­rity in num­bers. There is also the temp­ta­tion for a lit­tle bit of self-righteousness. Being con­sid­ered “nor­mal” puts a per­son a lit­tle out of reach, when it comes to crit­i­cism. “Kiss­ing the sys­tem” is a term I first heard in grad­u­ate school. It has to do with play­ing the nec­es­sary aca­d­e­mic games to get a degree. It also has a lot to do with ris­ing up in most sys­tems. Insti­tu­tions look for the “safe” leader. Com­plex sys­tems usu­ally pro­tect them­selves with medi­oc­rity.
His­tory has more of an eye for the non­con­formist. It likes to record the actions of the change agent. Some­times it has to wait a gen­er­a­tion. There are stig­mas attached to the uncon­ven­tional. Then again, there is noth­ing heroic about hid­ing in the mid­dle. I often remind myself that it is more inter­est­ing to make his­tory than to read about it. There is another way of say­ing it: “There are those that write dis­ser­ta­tions, and there are those about whom they are writ­ten.” Few remem­ber the stu­dent, many remem­ber the trail­blaz­ing pio­neers.
Uncon­ven­tional actions, sim­ply for the sake of non­con­for­mity, do not go very far — nei­ther do those that reject con­for­mity within the safety of a group. Young peo­ple often rebel against the older gen­er­a­tion, but they com­monly do so in the safety of the same actions and sym­bols. They are all dif­fer­ent but just alike. We too passed through that stage. I still won­der if I have ever met a true non­con­formist. I have known some mildly odd peo­ple and some extreme eccentrics, but I do not think I have ever met a truly orig­i­nal per­son.
You have to go through a lot of lay­ers in your soul to get down to the essence of who you were meant to be. Con­for­mity at the expense of orig­i­nal­ity begins early. Par­ent­ing and the edu­ca­tional sys­tems are influ­ences here too. No one seems to have the energy to deal with the unpre­dictable. The short­cut is to ham­mer the unique ones into the socially con­structed and con­trol­lable forms. March­ing in lock­step gets to be com­fort­able rather quickly. The numb­ing trance removes the vibrancy of orig­i­nal thought with ease. Few put up a fight.
It is never too late to go find your­self. There are pre­cious qual­i­ties hid­den by our super­fi­cial­i­ties. Qual­ity lies deep. Going after it takes some effort. The rewards and the price of non­con­for­mity are usu­ally equal.