Venting "Be yourself"

[TheSoulless]

Why would I? There are no positives to being different. It's just a virtue signalling thing that "normal" people say, or something that "different" people tell themselves to justify their hardships.

For example, when people praise babies or animals with birth defects like, I don't know, being born with no nose? Or having Down syndrome? Those people are different, but I wouldn't want that for myself.

 

[Deleted member 19654]

I don't like when someone tells me that because it just reminds me of how much I don't like who I am as a person.

 

[checkouttime]

I like to be different. I'm not a sheep!!!

 

[TheSoulless]

I like to be different. I'm not a sheep!!!

I understand, it's not good to be a sheep. The philosophy I follow makes me different, but the urge to stand behind(?) my principles is stronger than the comfort I get from giving in to popular opinion.

It's just that being different for the sake of being different doesn't sound very appealing. It's unnecessary and troublesome.

 

[checkouttime]

I understand, it's not good to be a sheep. The philosophy I follow makes me different, but the urge to stand behind(?) my principles is stronger than the comfort I get from giving in to popular opinion.

It's just that being different for the sake of being different doesn't sound very appealing. It's unnecessary and troublesome.

I agree with following what certain people do for certain things, if i agree with it. but in regards to say fashion etc or what people think of ceratin issues. i have my own mind, not saying im always right whatsoever. i don't feel the need to follow what others to do to get attention or be liked etc, things like that don't bother me personally at all. i don't have a problem with others being like that. people have a right to choose what they want, just as i do.

 

[TheSoulless]

I agree with following what certain people do for certain things, if i agree with it. but in regards to say fashion etc or what people think of ceratin issues. i have my own mind, not saying im always right whatsoever. i don't feel the need to follow what others to do to get attention or be liked etc, things like that don't bother me personally at all. i don't have a problem with others being like that. people have a right to choose what they want, just as i do.

That's understandable. Good for you. I don't have the mindset for that at all, hahah.

 

[checkouttime]

That's understandable. Good for you. I don't have the mindset for that at all, hahah.

hey, everyones different. your right though it is your mindset, i guess confidence can have a lot to do with it. When i was at school at used to dress like i was a rapper, baggy clothes etc. People used to comment, slag me off whatever. it never bothered me. probably made me more determine to do it, just to piss them off lol. i was never bullied though!

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

From a biological perspective, we benefit from diversity. In fact, humans are here largely because our distant evolutionary ancestors developed differences from their peers that caused them to be able to survive better.

I think this is true in sociological terms as well. Societies, I believe, are enriched by diversity of thought, backgrounds, and beliefs. It makes them better able to withstand change or other situations beyond their control. Economies are stronger when contributions are made by diverse sources.

In this sense, we should prize members of society who are different. We should be open to them and learn from them. I understand that reality is often different. We tend to shun "the other." Strangely, this seems to be anthropologically-rooted desire to stick with our "tribe." It goes against what we know from other sciences, though. The only way for humans to overcome this is for us to be proud of our differences and open about them. This is where I believe the notion of "be yourself" originates. We can take pride in being different. Not to be overly dramatic, but the future of our society and species may actually depend on it.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

From a biological perspective, we benefit from diversity. In fact, humans are here largely because our distant evolutionary ancestors developed differences from their peers that caused them to be able to survive better.

I think this is true in sociological terms as well. Societies, I believe, are enriched by diversity of thought, backgrounds, and beliefs. It makes them better able to withstand change or other situations beyond their control. Economies are stronger when contributions are made by diverse sources.

In this sense, we should prize members of society who are different. We should be open to them and learn from them. I understand that reality is often different. We tend to shun "the other." Strangely, this seems to be anthropologically-rooted desire to stick with our "tribe." It goes against what we know from other sciences, though. The only way for humans to overcome this is for us to be proud of our differences and open about them. This is where I believe the notion of "be yourself" originates. We can take pride in being different. Not to be overly dramatic, but the future of our society and species may actually depend on it.

I think that too much difference in the context of modern day society could also have a sort of centrifugal and fragmenting social effect, as unfortunately the tribal mentality is still very much a dominant feature of human nature. We evolved from small uniform hominid communities, and modern day societies with sprawling urban area and vast populated alienating spaces are diametrically opposed to our genetically determined need to belong to smaller groups operating within restricted areas to play a meaningful part in them. So maybe difference itself isn't the main issue, it's actually the way modern societies are configurated, which creates existential voids and alienating environments for people, whose only outlets when they aren't working a menial unfulfilling job are to consume the latest ephemeral gadgets and shows or ingest copious amounts of alcohol or drugs. Many people don't feel they 'belong' anywhere anymore, they feel divorced and disconnected from any kind of meaningful locality, which is a function of the way modern societies and economies have evolved and grown, in ever increasing outward circles which overlap with others to create a globalized system of commerce and capital flow. This is what I would call the globalization paradox, that the more the world becomes an integrated global village linked by telecommunications and multinationals, the less the majority of ordinary citizens of such a global community feel that they belong anywhere or have any meaningful role to play, the effect of which is alienation and disconnection from the world itself.
In this context, some people may experience 'difference' and 'diversity' policies and agendas as ways to further fragment and divide an already vastly dilated, nonintegrating and hostile socioeconomic order, hence the recent rise in nationalism and rejection of/hostility towards supranational entities like the EU and UN or global finance and banking organizations which pretty much amount to transnational virtual senates with no democratic accountability.

As an interesting sidenote, look at the oldest continuous civilization, China, which has always been quite uniform and homogeneous (although modern day social-credit system china isn't exactly a haven of freedom and tolerance).

Saying all that, I still agree with the spirit of your post.

Also, I've just remembered that the original thread is about 'being yourself', so apologies if this veered too much off topic.

 

[catalepsy]

I think when people say, "Be yourself, " they're telling you to stop trying to conform to whatever you think other people want you to be. So if you stop people-pleasing it would please those people. But if you keep people-pleasing, you would be fulfilling their request in regards to them. It's a kind of paradoxical sentiment.

 

[mooncake]

This thread reminds me if this

 

[Lupgevif]

Being myself meant being ridiculed by everyone around me. Luckily I found good friends who like me for who I am. But then, they are close friends, and very, very few. If I wanted to expand my social circle and create new bonds and relationships, my true self would just ruin it (like it has before).

So this advice is bullshit. It only works if your true self is not too apart from the "normal". And don't @ me with the "but what's normal?" platitude.

 

[_Kaira_]

I despise that quote so much. No one likes my "true self" and I get demonized for it.

 

[checkouttime]

Being myself meant being ridiculed by everyone around me. Luckily I found good friends who like me for who I am. But then, they are close friends, and very, very few. If I wanted to expand my social circle and create new bonds and relationships, my true self would just ruin it (like it has before).

So this advice is bullshit. It only works if your true self is not too apart from the "normal". And don't @ me with the "but what's normal" platitude.

people should always like you for who you are.you should never have to act/behave in a way to make other like you. maybe you might have less friends, but they will be the ones you actually want.

I had alot of friends, and you know what 2 of them are real friends and thats it.

 

[Lupgevif]

people should always like you for who you are.you should never have to act/behave in a way to make other like you. maybe you might have less friends, but they will be the ones you actually want.

I had alot of friends, and you know what 2 of them are real friends and thats it.

Except people can rarely climb social ladders with only 2 or 3 close friends by their side. Yeah, true friends are the ones who will stay by your side and truly make you happy (still debatable, though. Not really what happens with even who I consider my best friend), but you must, to some extent, act in order to make other people like you. My true self won't find a romantic partner, my true self won't convince people to hire me. It may even be in order to manipulate others and throw them away after I got what I wanted, but I must pretend to be someone I am not. So being yourself is generic advice people who can easily fit throw at you because they have no idea how much it sucks to be so detached.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

As a piece of advice it's either trivial or unattainable.

Trivial in the sense that we cannot be anything other than ourselves. Logically a thing can only ever be equal to itself and can never be another thing.

Unattainable in the sense that it assumes that beneath the layers of social conditioning and culturally determined behavior there is a 'real' self which would emerge if only it could be given the chance, a Rousseauian noble savage or Hobbesian aggressive beast in the state of nature. Even if such a mythical self exists, it can never be reached except perhaps through aggressive psychoanalysis whilst hypnotized.

 

[checkouttime]

Except people can rarely climb social ladders with only 2 or 3 close friends by their side. Yeah, true friends are the ones who will stay by your side and truly make you happy (still debatable, though. Not really what happens with even who I consider my best friend), but you must, to some extent, act in order to make other people like you. My true self won't find a romantic partner, my true self won't convince people to hire me. It may even be in order to manipulate others and throw them away after I got what I wanted, but I must pretend to be someone I am not. So being yourself is generic advice people who can easily fit throw at you because they have no idea how much it sucks to be so detached.

what makes you easily fit in though? i mean i love to be different and i couldn't care what people think. i be myself, but i had alot of friends. I can tell you something though. when i was younger alot of people didn't like me(they never knew me) just disliked me because i was different. when i grew up we crossed paths again through my friends. alot of them said they were wrong about me etc because they were young and visa versa.

but i know everyone is different just wanted to give an example

 

[Lupgevif]

what makes you easily fit in though?

"but what's normal?"

 

[checkouttime]

"but what's normal?"

fuck noes!!!! i don't want to be normal and like everyone else, so no point in asking me lol.

 

[Wisdom3_1-9]

"We become what we see of ourselves in the eyes of others."
- V.S. Naipaul

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I make it a point to make people who try to tell me this regret it. Myself is not a very good person.

 

[XYZ]

"We become what we see of ourselves in the eyes of others."
- V.S. Naipaul

This quote is so true. How others see us and talk about us shapes our identity.

Why would I? There are no positives to being different. It's just a virtue signalling thing that "normal" people say, or something that "different" people tell themselves to justify their hardships.

For example, when people praise babies or animals with birth defects like, I don't know, being born with no nose? Or having Down syndrome? Those people are different, but I wouldn't want that for myself.

In my interpretation, "Be yourself" means: don't emulate others if their behaviours, beliefs or moral standards feel off to you.

It's not that you should be yourself coz everyone else is taken, but that you should not to do things that go against who you are, just for the sake of feeling that you fit in.

Faking who you are (i.e. what you belive in, how you like to behave) backfires in the end, because you either get tired of playing a role, or your peers smell your dissimulation and lose their respect for you.

 

[sufferingalways]

From a biological perspective, we benefit from diversity. In fact, humans are here largely because our distant evolutionary ancestors developed differences from their peers that caused them to be able to survive better.

I think this is true in sociological terms as well. Societies, I believe, are enriched by diversity of thought, backgrounds, and beliefs. It makes them better able to withstand change or other situations beyond their control. Economies are stronger when contributions are made by diverse sources.

In this sense, we should prize members of society who are different. We should be open to them and learn from them. I understand that reality is often different. We tend to shun "the other." Strangely, this seems to be anthropologically-rooted desire to stick with our "tribe." It goes against what we know from other sciences, though. The only way for humans to overcome this is for us to be proud of our differences and open about them. This is where I believe the notion of "be yourself" originates. We can take pride in being different. Not to be overly dramatic, but the future of our society and species may actually depend on it.

Wow. I like what you've said there. I may pinch some for a difficult letter I'm working on. (Re, Disability discrimination)

 

[262653]

Except people can rarely climb social ladders with only 2 or 3 close friends by their side. Yeah, true friends are the ones who will stay by your side and truly make you happy (still debatable, though. Not really what happens with even who I consider my best friend), but you must, to some extent, act in order to make other people like you. My true self won't find a romantic partner, my true self won't convince people to hire me. It may even be in order to manipulate others and throw them away after I got what I wanted, but I must pretend to be someone I am not. So being yourself is generic advice people who can easily fit throw at you because they have no idea how much it sucks to be so detached.

I agree that wearing a mask has its benefits. I think ideally it would be a lightweight mask that comfortably sits on the face, very beneficial to wear in public but flexible enough, not too tight, and fits the outlines of the real face. A sort of compromise between self and society.

 

[ocd is bad]

I've found that people don't really like it when I be myself, and it's better to give the appearance of fitting in when possible.

 

[Sensei]

And don't @ me with the "but what's normal?" platitude.

As I see it, to be normal is to be average or close to it. Average equals boring in my mind. Just my two cents.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I don't think it's wise to idolise anything that is not considered normal anymore than it is wise to vilify it.
I do think it's wise to try and accept the truth of what you are, whether you like it or not.