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Originally Posted by scleaves
Okay, here goes. Disclaimer: Speaking my mind ahead.
Okay. So a good question is, why do we believe what we do in the first place? Just seems to me like we choose to believe what society shares an opinion of or finds to be correct. It's like we would have to get out a history book and find where everything started. Trying to be different for the sake of being different tends to be considered a bad thing. Why?
I'll give an example while trying to keep it PG. There are certain things a person finds phsyically attractive about a mate, and society tends to share these opinions and agree on them. But many years ago, I'm pretty sure I have read that society found diffent things attractive about a person. I'd be part of the new society but why? What happened to change opinions?
It's unlikely that anyone has all of their ideas thought through, so they should stop acting like/pretending that they do.
To be different and not be able to change it is to be eccentric. To be different by a choice is rather stylish, in my opinion. That's how I see it.
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People dislike people who are different purely for the sake of being different because there's no real incentive for it aside from seeking attention. Now, everyone seeks attention now and again, and of course, many things that one person might consider simply personal choices can be interpreted as attention-seeking stunts by others - there's no black and white definition here.
Generally speaking, however, people appreciate honesty, and by that I don't mean saying "yes, you do look fat in that" - I mean personal honesty: for example, if you like something, people will [usually] respect that. If you pretend to like something strange because you do not wish to fit in, then most people will view your "taste" with the same contempt as they would view someone who was merely pretending to like things in order
to fit in - do you understand?
Excessive contrariness can make you appear to be attention-seeking and dishonest. This is why people find genuine eccentricity to be more appealing/ excusable than blanket anti-conformism.
I find it interesting, also, that although on the one hand you claim to make a decision *not* to conform, on the other, you express interest in cults, which are all about conformity. Cults seek to manipulate and control the way in which you think, so that you are incapable of making objective, considered decisions - or even so that, ultimately, you are incapable of making decisions at all. Since arguably free will is partly the definition of sentience, it's understandable and unsurprising that most people feel uncomfortable with the notion of you effectively stating a desire to transform yourself into a programmable robot.
Finally - do you seriously not perceive the paradox in copying another person's non-conformity? You're conforming with your idealised concept of this random person you've chosen to idolise. A. Nobody is perfect, so idolisation is always based upon an inherent, delusional fallacy. B. No one person's situation, experience, and thus, behaviour, is applicable to another. I know it sounds like a cliche, but I really cannot underline enough the value of being your own person.
You are you. You are the only you that there is. NO ONE ELSE in the world experiences that world in the exact same way as you, because everybody's universe is experienced through the filter of personal perception. And hey, guess what? This is it. You are a tiny, insignificant organism, stuck to a rock by gravity, zooming through space. Once the cells that compose your body expire and degenerate, all that is you shall cease to be.
So... why waste what is, in the scale of the universe, your eye-blink of an existence, on trying to be somebody else, on avoiding calling the shots in your own brief, subjective life? There is no other chance for you to live, to decide, to choose what to do, what to think, how to *be*. Don't turn your back on your own free will - in a very real sense, it's all that you have.