Tag Archives: conformity

The Road to Diamond, Day 178: “Like Everybody Else”

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 25, 2025- As I explained that, unless there is a lot of background noise, I can hear people speaking in a normal tone of voice quite well, one of the others at breakfast objected: “Why do you not have hearing aids, like everybody else here?” While I could use a wax cleaning, the fact remains that I don’t have a sustained hearing loss, as yet.

There have been frequent times in my life, when well-intentioned people have urged: “Fit in!” I have, as the years have gone by, pretty much struck a balance between those aspects of conformity that have made sense to me and following my own path. Doing things a certain way, simply because that is what “everybody else” is doing, does not inherently make sense. First of all, no one knows “everybody else”. Each of us knows only a small segment of a given community, and can only claim to have a cursory knowledge of what the rest are doing. Secondly, we know even less of what others do, behind closed doors and drawn shades.

I have basically chosen the road map offered by my parents and other trusted elders, in charting my course and passing along guidance to my son-and the grandchild(ren), when they come. He, and they, in turn, will use their own judgment in adapting to changing circumstances. Conformity only makes sense, when circumstances are the same -as in “driving on the right hand side of the road (except when in countries where it is customary to drive on the left), showing courtesy to those one meets, or bathing/grooming each day,for the sake of health.

So much has changed, though, in my seventy four years, to say nothing of son’s nearly 37 years-or the short lives of my grand nephews and nieces. There are bound to be further changes, and even some of those will be temporary. It is the basics, those behaviours based on love, that will endure and be the foundation for a useful conformity. For those, we can hopefully count on “everybody else”.

The Unlocked Power

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 26, 2021- There is an emerging sense of self, when a person turns eight. Individual responsibility has already become expected, a year earlier, and for those who can make sense of toeing the line, that sense of responsibility takes root. It is the full personality, however, that starts to shine, as one enters the ninth year of this life.

As with all new realizations, it takes time to be comfortable with the individual quirks and aspects of one’s personality. Like a sapling in a storm, a newly-emerging personality can be all too easily knocked over by unexpected or intense criticism, by reversals of fortune or just by one’s gnawing self-doubt-which is all too common, even in the child who is receiving a healthy amount of love from parents, family members and adults in school, as well as in the wider community.

It is all too real, for a child to be just lonely enough, that the power which comes with personality’s emergence goes unrecognized, buried by the growing conformity that is expected. That’s a shame, as to my mind, a community and a society can only be made more robust by the recognition and nurturing of an individual’s strengths.

I had the bounty of being able to hone in on the strengths of twenty four eight and nine-year-olds today. Granted, their socialization was such that the conformity, necessary to get a goodly amount of work accomplished, had already been established. It is not stifling, however, and the unearthing of individual power is something that would not be very difficult to bring about. The biggest impetus to such self-realization would be for the child to be enveloped by adults who are themselves not hobbled by their own powers being locked.

My energy will be ever directed towards these wondrous souls.

Little Victories

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Posted by on in impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Striving

December 17, 2020-

Today, I restrung nineteen beads, which had fallen off when the original string broke. I learned to use a beading needle, kept very calm and focused, even when running out of original string, buying another spool, tying the two cords together and summoning my best hand-eye coordination to thread the beading needle and run it through the infinitessimal bead holes. Once again, I have an intact set of Prayer Beads.

As I mentioned yesterday, I completed and mailed off the Beta Version of my life story. It was something put off for at least five years. Seventy is a good place to end the first volume, at least. Maybe, there will be a second one.lse

Not sleeping in is actually a good thing. When asked whether I favour sunrise or sunset, I have to say I enjoy both,

The bottom line is that small things that I get myself to do are of special significance, just because so much has taken me so long to master, even if the task is “easy for everybody else.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but there is no “everybody else.”.

End of Humble Bragging.

The Queue

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

January 6, 2020-

I have long been tagged as “an individual”, mostly in an admiring way.  The practice of setting one’s own course is often seen with adoring eyes, from a distance.  It is at the same time true, of many of those who look favourably upon the people who chart their own course, that there is a compelling need to follow the herd.

I have actually, in these later years, especially, found a fair amount of satisfaction in fitting in with society’s reasonable expectations.  I derive pleasure from honouring the queue, the sense that everyone else is just as entitled to respect, kindness and regard for their time, their hopes and dreams as I am.  Being a Bull in The China Shop stopped working for me, even before I met Penny.  Patience, indeed, has provided me with a keen sense of observing what is going on around me-things I’d have missed, in my late teens and twenties.

These thoughts came to mind, as I read Jordan Peterson’s notions on conformity.   It is true that the majority of things that society at large does, in a day, and the way in which these are done, is composed of what works.

Generations, though, will have their own take on matters, and the practice of the quotidian will change, with time.  I have found some of the methods put forth by the rising generations, in facing our day -to- day problems, actually make perfect sense-and so, I have adapted some of these in my own daily life.  I do so, knowing that I am not a Baby Boomer trying to be a copy cat, but a sentient being, gratefully adapting to a rather promising time.  My use of paper and plastics is down, for example, and I am maintaining a keen interest in the more organic foods and medicines that have emerged, over the past decade.

I do not sense the queue will disappear, nor will its underlying sense of order- but it will be accompanied by a stronger sense of inclusivity-not willy-nilly, but sensible, as we recognize a more unified order.