be a rebel

We all have the choice of conforming or not conforming to the world at large.  We admire and write songs about those who think for themselves, who do it their way, who balk at tradition and the safest path.  Yet it takes real courage to stand up for what we believe in, if it contradicts what our “community” has taught us is right and set in stone.

“The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.”  Colin Wilson

Those decree authority do so by making rules, and they serve their power by ensuring that these rules never change. They become law or fact. Those who try to break the rules are either sinners or criminals. Very few people have the courage and ability to fight the law, and win. Especially when it is decreed that this is God’s Law.

How differently would people feel about their lives if they believed God did not care about human issues? Would the need for war not crumble if everyone believed that God only cared about you being a happy and loving individual?

“Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles, or a string of mold candles.  Why should we all dress after the same fashion?  The frost never paints my windows twice alike.” Lydia Maria Child

A child’s first word is rarely God, although it is as easy to say as Mum or Dad. God is a word taught to a child much later on, and in many communities, that child would be punished and rejected if they did not believe in this word exactly as they were taught to.

But each generation born has a duty to challenge the generation before it, yet we all crave and need acceptance. No man is an island. We are conditioned with and by the expectations of others.  We are told to modify our behaviour to their standards, and warned that failure to behave ourselves will end in punishment or isolation.

“The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.” Rita Mae Brown, Venus Envy

If you do something your mother or father approves of, you will be rewarded with love. If you do something your peer group approves of, you will be rewarded with acceptance.  Very rarely are we encouraged to be our selves.

But the history books are crammed with rebels, individuals who had the nerve to serve their own belief to the letter, even if it meant death and torture. Many men and women fought against the popular ideas of the time because what they believed in was far more important to them than public acceptance.

Darwin took a risk saying evolution may have had an important part to play in the human race being what it is today. Nowadays it is ridiculous to think anything else, we are evolved. But if someone challenged Darwin’s theories, they would have just as much a fight on their hands today in the scientific community as he did in his day. Is that really evolution?

“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.  The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary.” Albert Einstein

Think of the work of Gandhi, who believed the British had no right to India or South Africa, and fully believed that the way to take back these lands for the people was to be done non-violently. There is a reason people talk about him still. Dr Martin Luther King had a similar dream that was to uproot the belief that African Americans were less important citizens than Americans of European origins. Again, he believed that the way to do this was through non-violence.

Both died violently at the hands of their own people, but I truly believe neither would have changed a thing about their lives, even if they had known how they were going to end. Why? I think it was more important for them to listen to the beat of their own drummer, than to dance to the tune of status quo of their time. As Doug Floyd pointed out, “You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.”

We all have this important decision to make for ourselves, and most of those important decisions require challenging our own personal beliefs. Whatever people tell you might be right for them; they can never know with absolute certainty what is right for you. Courage is saying no to the authority, when you know the only authority that matters is the authority you have over your own life and freedoms.

“Read, every day, something no one else is reading.  Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.  Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.  It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.” Christopher Morley