Cubicles in a nine to five job. Classroom upon classroom of perfect students with perfect grades. Rolling miles of suburbia. Gray. This is conformity. This is death of individualism, one of the most powerful and valuable, but fragile things people have. Without individualism, we cannot become ourselves, we cannot contribute the best things we have to the world. We cannot afford, as a species, to waste our time conforming, wallowing away as we try to fit social norms. Conformity and individualism cannot coexist.
Following a different route does hold many trials, that is no secret. Those who attempt to pave their own path risk humiliation, alienation from their own peers, and worst of all, failure to succeed. As according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, "To be great is to be misunderstood." If one is not willing to be misunderstood, one cannot be great. If one is too hesitant alienate oneself, one cannot grow. If one is not willing to be alone, one cannot learn the virtues of independence. If one too afraid to fail at what has never been done, one can never succeed in it.
Furthermore, to a certain extent, being deaf to the voice of others is unwise. Not following the teachings of those before discards entire generations of work, and humanity will never progress if we are constantly creating and never learning. So therefore, another solution should be found—and that solution, to me, is listening with a grain of salt. A balance must be found between complete deafness and copy and pasting.
When a person finds this medium, the benefits can change their world completely. As Henry Thoreau described in his scintillating piece, Walden, "If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed...we never need read of another." What is so often portrayed as important has all happened before. The media latches onto the same problems in different words and sells it to the general populous as new. Nothing new is accomplished or achieved when conforming to what the media demands. Truth cannot be found if people just listen to the will of others.
And truth is the ultimate goal of humanity. Every day, people study to reach new pinnacles of knowledge. Humanity advances because as a whole we yearn to understand. We yearn to understand the one transcendent truth that ties all together. And we can never understand if we listen solely to the truths fed to us in small spoonfuls by past minds. We can never advance if we refuse to develop old ways, to branch off from the wide path and forge our own narrow alleys.
Follow the beat of a different drum, and once you have mastered that, find a new one. Find your own. For falling into the rut of the same old song will leave you sick of the earworm ingrained in your mind, and you will be an expert in nothing but that way of life.
Um. This is the first draft of an essay I did on nonconformity and transcendentalism. Not gonna lie, this is a backup in case Google Drive stops working in class. If you liked it, that's cool I guess?
-Alex🌹
