If there is anything that I have accomplished in my life, it is always adhering to my own personal brand, despite the friction that it can sometimes generate from outside opinion. I have always had a stark sense of individuality, and that has always been paramount to the survival of my own personal psyche. I feel like in this world dictated by connectivity and constant “plug-inned-ness” that we are all subjected to and participating in every hour of every day (see social media for the worst example), we have to fight to maintain our sense of self despite outward pressure to assimilate over issues. Humans shouldn’t be that simple.
There are constant lines drawn in the sand that shoehorn us into a broad bracket. You can imagine what that looks like when seen in the context of a college sport playoff screen. Unfortunately what that creates is a simplified minimization of our individuality by lumping us into smaller and smaller groups which inevitably end up placing you into an “either/or” scenario. It may be convenient to simplify life into those terms for feelings of solidarity depending on topic, but we are making the mistake of proverbially painting in greyscale rather than using the whole pallete of colors that we have access to that could be used to diversify the final picture. We are unintentionally diluting ourselves.
Groupthink can generate an amazingly gratifying sense of accomplishment when you find like minds, but more often it becomes a springboard for eliminating large swaths of the population from your list of possible positive interactions. Lots of times that leads to the mentality of “since I don’t understand it, I am unsure that I like it”. Then someone is whispering over your shoulder reasons to dislike this foreign thing (idea, person, group, etc.) ,and so the lines begin being drawn. This simplification, I feel, is causing us to miss out on the bigger picture daily because we are backing ourselves into a corner by choosing a side based largely on social acceptance and hot button and inflammatory topics. You’re giving away a piece of yourself. This is a poor representation of a thinking individual because it discredits the subtleties that truly define you as a person. Those subtleties are important. These minutiae are responsible for writing YOUR personal description under your name. Whether you intend to or not, you are giving away your ability to define yourself the way that truly represents you as an individual when you allow a generated topic that is presented to you from an outside source lead you blindly into a diluted mob. Then you as an individual with your individual voice and your individual mind dissipate into a haze that looks from a distance like a slowly moving river that isn’t in control of its final destination.
Life can be simplified as taking pieces of information that you gather from other thinkers who have been trying to figure themselves out and make sense of the world that they are a part of and applying it to your own life. You then develop a sense of self by forging a unique path of your own based on what you have learned from those who have walked before you. Don’t let someone else lead you to a destination that you didn’t choose for yourself. Don’t lose sight of who you are because you’re busy chanting in mimicry with the loudest voices.
Carl Jung wrote:
“A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally shortsighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hands of a madman. Unfortunately, this realization does not seem to have penetrated very far – and our blindness is extremely dangerous.”
We are watching the result of that now. Maintain your sense of self and your individuality. Don’t make the mistake of giving it away because it is easier to walk without friction in a crowd than to develop the strength to walk alone.
Two roads indeed did diverge.