I’m tired of people trying to impose something on me. I would walk the corridors in my school and some random guy would just try to attract attention with what he calls his individuality. If you ignore him, he’d grab you by the collar of your jacket and scream his brand new stupidity in your face to see if he’d make an impression. And if you are still not interested or oppose, he’d try to show how uncool you are or just ignore you. Both options work for me as long as he is not screaming for attention anymore.
You’ve probably noticed that most trends are set by people who are in a way… mediocre, by the mass. And why is that? Perhaps because people feel they can do it because they’re a majority but that’s not the only reason at all. In order to win this majority, they have to gain it somehow. The mass is pushy and aggressive and even though they have the majority, they still seem to feel somehow threatened by people with different kind of individuality, so they try to find a way out. They try to make alternative lifestyles look weird, uncool or even dangerous. In a way they try to convince themselves and the others that this is something unnatural, so if you follow it, there must be something wrong. What they try to show is that they don’t care about alternative lifestyles but actually they feel uncomfortable when they face it, or even in a away insecure. I don’t know why. Perhaps they are afraid of changes, so they unconsciously try to make the others like them and have more people on their side. By showing that people wearing sweatshirts aren’t cool and get ridiculed, they hope to find cold comfort when others who still waver here and there start sharing their opinion, probably out of fear of reprisal, social opinion and how it would affect them, etc. That’s what they need to feel stronger and more secure. Another reason is probably that they are afraid of being lonely. It happens when you haven’t grown up yet – you need to be a part of a group and identify with it. That way you feel less lonely.
In Bulgaria we have a lot of chalga clubs, but only a few ones where they play alternative music. Imagine you are a child that is just getting to know the world of music. You either have no opportunity to hear different music or you see that people from unpopular groups are mocked and segragated and you just choose the easiest way out – to be a conformist and become part of the bigger group. The mass is not only satisfied with its own ordinary lifestyles, they want everybody else to become like them, so that their comfort is not disturbed. So they choose attack as the best defence. Nevertheless they boast they’d rather die than live those people’s lives, deep inside themselves, they envy them, because those people are brave enough to choose something different, because they took more advantage of the freedom they are given. This reminds me of a lyrics by A Perfect Circle:
“Freedom of choice is what you’ve got,
freedom from choice is what you want.”
Sad but true. This is also how peer pressure works. You either agree with the group, or you’re an outsider.
It’s sad that sometimes we realize this pressure but perhaps because we don’t feel strong enough we still try to live up to the expectations, because we’re supposed to do what our environment demands. As a friend you are supposed to do this and play that role, as a son/daughter this and that, etc.. we deprive ourselves of our true aspirations and freedom.
