Conformity has been the source of lots of problem in my life. I actually think it is a major problem with society as a whole. We, and the systems that we have created punish anyone for being authentic. One feels like a puppet in daily life. I think conformity is bad specifically because it accentuates the repression of one's shadow. It makes it so that one hides parts of themselves even harder then they would normally. Creating lots of anxiety. I personally have horrible anxiety over how I am perceived in public.
A while ago, I realized I was getting way too much anxiety over seemingly small things, stuff that seemed like I should have been able to just do. I would consider doing things, but I would never actually do them. I would only think about doing them and fantasize about how I would be if I did do them. This happened over super little stuff.
For example, I had wanted to try energy drinks for a while. but I never did it because I had never been a person who drank energy drinks before. It might seem super simple to anyone else that one should be able to just go buy an energy drink. But for some odd reason, it was so hard for me to accomplish.
Then one day, I was wandering around the mall and I saw Monster Pipeline Punch (the pink one) being sold on the open in one of the small stands. And I again did the thing where I imagine buying the thing but don't actually buy it. For about half an hour, I just strolled around the general region of where the stand was.
I did buy the drink in the end, but buying it was extraordinarily difficult for me, in a way that it shouldn't have been. But after I bought it, I felt something slightly change in me. Stuff like this has gotten easier ever since. At least buying that specific drink is not a problem for me anymore. And I must say that I buy it on a regular basis now, since I quite enjoy Pipeline Punch.
Maybe this sort of experience is caused by my parents being on the overprotective side when I was a child. I have several health problems. I especially have a problem with blood pressure, and my parents always told me to even stay off the coffee. When I was a child I saw it as reasonable but now days, with more knowledge about caffeine and blood pressure. I think they were being overly risk averse.
But if you think about it from a logic perspective. If I think of my parents as being risk averse about how they kept warning me about caffeine. Then I should act accordingly and ignore their warnings. So why am I not doing that? Why was this simple act of buying an energy drink so difficult for me? Well I think it boils down to conformity. My parents constantly reminding me over time how I should be consuming less caffeine. Made it so that going against what was known to me as the status quo in my behaviour difficult. I mean I am an avid coffee drinker. But it has been difficult to keep that up in the past too. Despite how much I enjoy it and the benefits it provides me.
Every man has in himself the most dangerous traitor of all.
~ Søren Kierkegaard
The more I think about it the more I realize that. My own internal chaos is often caused by presenting false dilemmas to myself. Then feeling guilty for being unable to choose. When I didn't have to choose in the first place. I don't know how to stop doing this. But I guess noticing it, is a start.
It's like there are actual polar opposites but society has deemed to me that the poles are bigger then they are in reality. I want to dye my hair for example. But I also like reading. According to the preconceptions I have, intellectuals don't dye their hair. This is not true obviously. And it's blatantly obvious that dying your hair has nothing to do with reading. And if I dye my hair I can still enjoy my literature. But for some reason mentally in the background I have always seen these two things as exclusive.
The biggest weakness of humanity is to encage itself for absolutely no reason. Most of my life has been spent trying to escape a cage I built for myself. Likely the same for lots of others.
I feel guilty for feeling/wanting to reread books to better understand them. There is no guilt in it though. It is actually probably worthy of pride to feel such a way actually. So why does my brain go to guilt instead? And more importantly, how do I stop it from doing that?
Well after realizing these things I have tried to be less conforming on purpose. Lots of advice tells people to try harder at things. What I needed was the opposite. I was putting way too much pressure on myself because of how my personality developed as a child. I had way too much anxiety over the smallest things. I needed the opposite advice. I needed to stop trying so hard. I needed to chill. Stuff has been better ever since I realized that.