You don't conform, therefore you're wrong
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 9:36PM 
You know exactly what you want from life when the rest of us are struggling to verbalize it? There must be something wrong with you. You don't feel the pain of separation from people you love because somehow you imagine you can still love them all? What about the drama, the pain, the back stabbing, the revenge for the past? You're weird, and you're wrong. You are direct in talking to me about things I can barely put into thoughts and you're telling me it is the truth and this is really how you feel? I don't trust you, you must be lying, you must have some hidden ideas and some profit you will make off of me after you're done with me. You're not afraid of change - but you have no freaking clue what is coming your way! You must be lying. Don't fool me with your perfect posture and open face - people like that don't exist, and if you want to exist, we won't let you, we will conform you to what we all are, so you won't stick your head out of the crowd thinking you're something special, something else. You will be punished for even trying. You thought you're strong enough to withstand us? There is only you, and there are many of us!
The power of the crowd can be overwhelming. When I find myself breaking conventional rules and openly speaking about it, not pretending to be someone else, not dancing around trying to communicate a certain way, to be accepted - every single time there is resistance. It starts with wonder, then turns to suspicion, then it's plain anger and misunderstanding - as if in the world of blue I showed up as yellow and claimed I was yellow - when everyone said yellow doesn't exist. I keep going forward showing off my new color, but others keep trying to drown me in their noise. You can't do that. Why? Because nobody can do that. You're not doing it the right way. Who said there is a right way? We all do it like that, who do you think you are to try it any different? And on and on it goes. I look in the mirror, and I think - maybe I should take that yellow off and be blue like everyone else, it would be nice and easy. But I like the yellow! I want to be that! I don't want to conform to something just because the majority of people haven't figured out a better way. I don't claim I did, but I have no illusions. Nobody is responsible for me except me. So what's their problem? It hurts. I'm guessing it hurts when one shows the others it can be done. The crowd will tear you to pieces for that. You're sticking out like a sore in the public eye. You dared to think you can be happy, things can be easy, love can be found, and life can be serene? No way. You have to swim in your misery, you have to share in our misery, we are all in it together. Smell the stink. You don't want it? Let us shove it up your face. Is this better? Let us smear your clean body with new dirt - you can't be reborn, it's a myth, humans are made to suffer.
I get tired withstanding public opinion, I bruise easily when being squeezed into conventional norms, and my voice is not yet strong enough to drown the screams at the crowd's exhilaration over my mutilation. After a while, I start doubting myself, thinking - maybe they are right after all? It takes me less and less time to know that they are not. The profound change that happened to me did one little thing that allows me to recover very quickly. I see where everything is coming from. It is transparent, where as before it was clouded with my perceptions, opinions, things people told me I was, things I grew up with. All of it lost any significance the second I realized my family was worse than Frankensteins. Out of the corner where I was being held, I saw that nothing was real, and it fell apart at that. Still, I was being handled like a toy - new, shiny, pretty - can't be, must be torn apart, must be disposed of. Today, every aspect of my life is touched by this battle. Do I conform, or do I not care and move forward as myself? Am I arrogant for that? Will I be labeled as an outcast, a weirdo, a freak? I found recently that I don't care. It was a surprise. It didn't touch me anymore. I stated what I wanted, what I believed in, and moved on, without a second thought, without even thinking back to the people I talked with the next day. I used to torture myself over it - what will they think? How will they now talk about me to others? What will it mean for me in the future? How will this affect me? I've lost sleepless hours agonizing over it. Not anymore. Is this what is called self-esteem? Something that I always had in the low levels, as defined by psychotherapists? Was I able to find that center inside, that invisible grounding that is usually given to us by loving parents - something I never had?
I stand in front of the mirror again and I try to make myself fall. My feet are planted very firmly, and they don't give. I know where I stand, and it is surprisingly easy to maintain. And I like my new color yellow, no matter what any blue might tell me. Not moving. Afraid - yes. Doubting - yes. But still standing. Bold. Strong. Me. So what that I don't conform - who does? It's another illusion. We try to believe it to make sense of the chaos called life, we group each other into misery clubs and bitch about anything worthy our bitching. But, honestly, there are better things to do - and those who dare to quit are not lightly forgiven. What, you're an incest survivor? Yuck! You must be broken for life! Don't even think of being whole ever again. But I am. I feel like every cut closed off and is no longer bleeding. I feel an even calmness and peace. It's over. I remember the emotional turbulence, but I no longer give in to it. It can no longer sweep me from my feet and make me crash my skull on the ground. And it's yellow around me, sunny, golden. Warm.
Photo by Amy Clarke.
Reader Comments (4)
Oh...wow...yellow it is! I'm purple in a green world, I'm round in a square bunch of holes, I'm the stuff that gets cut off when the cookie cutter comes down. Love your words, love your images and I'm celebrating YOU for loving your true color(s)! thanks for sharing this, quite similar to something I posted a while back about being able to be right, even when it isn't what they think right should be!
Yeah, and some other days it is red amidst the black, and some other straight among curls, and yet others liquid on rocks - it really depends on the day, but it does feel each time like I have to conform to others. Yes then I connect with folks like you, and I abandon the idea, I decide to stay me no matter what:) Thanks so much for your comment.
It's hard to be different in this world. Common people love uniformity. Special people who do great things stand out.
In fact, it is the only thing that set greatness apart from commonality.
Keep doing it.
Thank you dear Leo. This means a lot. I promise you I will.