Rebellion and Conformity

Someone tells you you're wrong. You know you're right. More people tell you you're wrong. Now you know you're wrong. Or do you? Or are you just avoiding conflict? Avoiding standing out? Against one, OK, but against many?

Jesus, the hero of Christianity, would have been killed a thousand times throughout history. The threat against conformity is a serious one. The rebellion of tattoos, pink hair, and same-sex love is not a threat to conformity when it is part of conformity. The tattoo is only a threat where there are no tattoos. Pink hair likewise is only a threat where there is no pink hair. And same-sex hand holding, again, only where there is no same-sex hand holding.

You think you're rebelling with your ink, but if every second person around is inked, then how are you rebelling? The rebellion is the one with no ink. You are still, to your horror, conforming. Perhaps you're successfully rebelling against your parents, but this kind of rebellion is a natural process and happens by default at one point or another.

The true rebellion, the true threat to conformity, is in the mind. The mind that isn't floating with the ducks downriver or the one that is swimming hard with the salmon upriver. It's the mind that looks around and determines, defines, a different story than what is being observed. Choosing by selection and not automation. Afraid of disappointing self and not the community. Always knowing that the end is below the ground, eaten by worms.

Society survives through conformity, but there are enough who will conform so you can choose a different story for yourself. There's enough who will follow the script of the masses so you can write your own script. And the greatest punishment will be that of much loneliness in thought, in mind. But rejection in thought doesn't have to mean rejection of society and people, but rather rejection of programmed rules.

Unlike anarchists, you won't need to raise a red flag and throw things at riot police, for you understand that conformity is needed by society, but you have the freedom to choose to not conform. You have the understanding that it's a privilege of a few, and it's good so. There's no need for you to call bullshit when you see it, but of course you can if you're just expressing yourself. But if you expect change, you will find yourself in isolated misery. Life is not about changing lives of others; it's about becoming the change you want to see in the world.

It's about choosing and not surrendering to the program. And this thin line of choosing a personal defiance will not result in punishing consequences of the body, perhaps the mind at times, but not the body. Those who don't understand this difference go for mass rebellion, not realizing that in their rebellion, they are once again conforming with a different group and find themselves in battle between two or more groups of conformists.

Choosing originality starts in the mind and has little to do with superficial appearances. The one who is an individual in the mind is naturally individual on the outside without forcing an appearance of rebellion.

Look at the world as you look at ducks in the pond. Appreciate the serenity and realize the privilege that you are not a duck.