“I think the reward for conformity
is that everyone likes you
except yourself.”
~ Rita Mae Brown
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As a life long "artist", I think I've always seen things from a right brain perspective and been a bit "different" from the flock. A strong aversion for conformity really took a stronghold in my life after experiencing my very first rock concert, The Rolling Stones, in 1969 when I was barely 15. I was indoctrinated into the exhilarating freakiness immediately. I joined the "counter-culture" and "became a hippie" almost overnight. While braiding my long, poker-straight hair so that it would be frizzy, my younger sister asked what I was doing. I answered her back with a family classic; "I'm a hippie now". I was never really a "Black Sheep" though, because it was a time when weirdness and individuality was really being encouraged, even celebrated. Some kids were just conforming to the nonconformity of it all, but for the first time, I felt liberated and free to show my true inner spirit. Even today, at the age of 60, people who know me well are never totally surprised by my outlandish imagination, childish enthusiasm, unorthodox beliefs, crazy ideas and unconventional plans. I think it helps keep me young. Like a close friend always says, I scan in at about 40. Do you have any thoughts to share on conformity vs. nonconformity or on being a "Black Sheep" and/or "artist" yourself?
"We grow primarily through our challenges, especially those life-changing moments when we begin to recognize aspects of our nature that make us different from the family and culture in which we have been raised." ~ Caroline Myss
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