On Conformity

One way or other, we have to conform? What happens to our individual standing? our uniqueness in the human chain? And, who wins in practising conformity and who loses.

It starts with the family. Fathers secretly wish to see sons walking their paths. Mothers never allow their sons to grow-up- at least in their imagination, they do. What about daughters? they face challenges much thicker than their brothers face in treading the path of life.

Is it genetic? we are gene-wired to follow our parents? Or, are we culture-wired to follow a certain track? From where we did get the button of conformity?

I believe we abhor loneliness, but we can’t avoid it. We fill our lives with commonalities while pursuing to fill our solitudes. Conformities are our big and small comfort zones. Is it always needed to break conformity? or conformity is all bad?

I hope conformity is not all bad. Sometimes, we pretend to be different. However, in reality, we are the same people from whom we are pretending to be different. Hating conformity does not make us different or unique.

Traditions and social values do have their significance. They went deep into our cultural blood.

Conformity brings us friendship- a sort of social healing. In some ways, it also helps us understand who we are as a social or cultural entity. We do human bonding. Experiencing through complexities of the human chain, we learn what matters to us and why.

Forcing people to conform is what makes it notorious. It can be both external and internal. Forcing someone to conform is rigidity, which sometimes may take the form of coercion. Interestingly, sometimes we do coerce ourselves to follow certain rules or norms. It might be taken as insecurity on the part of conformist or conformer.

There is an interesting twist to the whole thing. What about souls who don’t wish to be free from their life of pleasant conformities- bonds of love and friendship, master-slave bonds, and cult communities.

We born unique, we die alone. But we conform in-between the both.