'To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest human battle ever and to never stop fighting.' ee cummings
Lately I've been thinking a lot about peer pressure.
It's not just something that teenagers encounter. And it doesn't stop when we grow older, although it often seems to lessen, thankfully. My stories are often about people who are a bit different, who don't necessarily 'fit in' with everyone else. (Although being 'different' can sometimes become a label in itself, a way of feeling special and justified about being unlike everyone else. There is a balance in there somewhere.)
It can take quite a while to find out who you are, to live within the boundaries of your personality, and at the same time to not be defined by it; to realise that who you are is so much greater and so much deeper than this. Young children tend to live naturally from this place of being 'truly themselves' - expressing a distinct personality yet living so purely in the present that they haven't yet made an 'identity' out of it; they haven't limited themselves by it.
I work a lot with adults with learning disabilities, and I often see similar qualities in them; a lack of guile, a lack of pretence, a lack of 'social editing'. These people are often at the bottom of the hierarchy in our society, and frequently break social codes and expectations, but we have so much to learn from them. They remind us of what matters, what is real, what is simple, what hurts, what brings happiness; they can cut through the complexities of social relationships and go straight to the nub.
It's not just something that teenagers encounter. And it doesn't stop when we grow older, although it often seems to lessen, thankfully. My stories are often about people who are a bit different, who don't necessarily 'fit in' with everyone else. (Although being 'different' can sometimes become a label in itself, a way of feeling special and justified about being unlike everyone else. There is a balance in there somewhere.)
It can take quite a while to find out who you are, to live within the boundaries of your personality, and at the same time to not be defined by it; to realise that who you are is so much greater and so much deeper than this. Young children tend to live naturally from this place of being 'truly themselves' - expressing a distinct personality yet living so purely in the present that they haven't yet made an 'identity' out of it; they haven't limited themselves by it.
I work a lot with adults with learning disabilities, and I often see similar qualities in them; a lack of guile, a lack of pretence, a lack of 'social editing'. These people are often at the bottom of the hierarchy in our society, and frequently break social codes and expectations, but we have so much to learn from them. They remind us of what matters, what is real, what is simple, what hurts, what brings happiness; they can cut through the complexities of social relationships and go straight to the nub.
A few films that remind and inspire me to be myself regardless of judgement from others: Ernest and Celestine (French animation), Forrest Gump, Lars and the Real Girl.
Do you know of any other films out there that celebrate 'being yourself'? I'd love to know about them...
2 comments :
I enjoyed reading this. We can definitely learn a lot from people who say it like it is and in a lot of ways it's a shame we are not all 'allowed' to be like this.
I agree. Imagine the chaos - and the freedom!
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