Against the grain
A topic I find super intriguing- conformity.
At an early age we learn behavior by copying others .
We love the latest trends on clip clap or whatever that ridiculous dancing video app is
We all dress, basically the same…shoot, if we didn’t wear the “cool” labels we’d get made fun of in school- even to the point where it affected our self worth
We want to surround ourselves with people who are like us
And when don’t fit in, when we aren’t the same
Often times it feels lonely, we question ourselves, wondering why we can’t just be like everyone else?
Or maybe we’d be happier if we just went along with what everyone else was doing?
I know, some of it is innate. Humans are social creatures. We need conformity to an extent, to follow rules and moral standards. I think a main player in conformity, though, is fear. We fear being rejected. We fear rejection so much that we’re willing to compromise bits of our souls to fit in. Psychologists claim that fear and love are the two most driving emotions in human behavior (yeah, I still remember quite a bit from my psych studies.. I knew that 30k of student loan debt had to come in handy at some point) So in addition to being evolutionary, conformity is rooted in fear.
Conformity in itself isn’t inherently good or bad, it just is. It’s a factor in human life. It’s essential for our species to survive. It becomes a detriment when we start chipping away at ourselves. When we start placing our self worth in the hands of others. When we walk away from something beautiful because we’re scared of rejection. And to the extreme- when we feel the world is better off without us because we feel so misunderstood and out of place, because society rejects us.
The topic of conformity is obviously layered, complex, and makes for a great philosophical discussion. I find myself thinking about it from time to time, probably much related to my self proclaimed ‘black sheep complex’- pondering human nature and trying to figure out where I fit in, oftentimes feeling (and accepting) that I’m a bit against the grain when it comes to a lot of things. I think about how many Pinterest quotes you see about “being yourself” and “a flower doesn’t compete with other flowers it just blooms”, “haters gonna hate”- literally millions of motivational quotes about loving yourself despite the opinions of others because it’s such a huge, prevalent component of all of us. We were put on this earth unique, diverse, one of a kind, and are driven to try to mesh with hundreds of billions of people. It’s an extreme effort, part of our evolutionary growth, to get to a place where we love ourselves as we are. Some of us never get to accepting ourselves, let alone loving- it can really be such a daunting road to travel, the road to self acceptance, especially when you just don’t feel like you “fit in”.
I find when I start trying to be like everyone else, I create total garbage. I feel all down in the dumps and like I suck when really, what i suck at isn’t creating- I suck at being like everyone else. My best self shines through, I feel the most confident about what I put out there, when I’m not worrying about pleasing others, when I’m not trying to make my work look like someone else’s I admire. Its why I’m at a point now, where the clients I work with are ones who give me that space to be myself, who lean into the process, and we communicate how to make the marriage not just work, but work beautifully. It was a hard lesson to learn when I was first starting out, the lesson of figuring out how I actually want to create and what that entails. I often wonder if there wasn’t social media how it would affect what and how I create. Holy hell, have you seen the talent out there? I could rattle off the top of my head SO many legitimately WOW artists and they are all so uniquely, perfectly them. Who wouldn’t want to try and fit in to that club? The club of fantastical, talented, million followers, highly sought out photographers. I think though, truly, what’s better… is finding what works for you. But man, it is not easy. I’m definitely curious to know how much am I reeeeally influenced by my peers? I wonder if I could pull it off- shutting out the world for a few months, deleting all the apps and just creating with no pressure of putting out content, no comparing trends or editing styles. It sounds like a fun experiment to me, I’m actually really tempted to carve that into my schedule..
