POLARIS/WE SHALL LIVE – THE CONFORMISM GIANT
The world often looks like a bi-polar place: you’re either a hero, or a zero. A winner or a loser. A lab coat or a lab rat. There’s no place for people living in the margins. For those who create their own way of life. You conform to the system or you don’t. You obey the Conformism Giant or you end up alone. You join the body snatchers whether you fall asleep or not. When in fact we should all celebrate misfits and marginals. Because if they are different from everybody else, they have clearly understood something: you don’t have to conform. You don’t have to obey. You are free to do as you please. To prolong the cinematic metaphor, in an alien invasion movie, there’s always a bunch of people resisting the invasion (that’s the misfits) whereas most people simply get sucked into the giant collective mind of some alien from wherever (that’s the rest of us…). So yes, when you do the exact same things as your neighbours, co-workers, friends and family, you’ve probably been alienated already. Or zombified if you’re more into Romero’s work. You’re already owned by the Conformism Giant. Don’t be scared of looking crazy. What a colourful world we’d live in if everyone was a marginal! A misfit! That’s the kind of world I want to live in. I want to meet people who are different from me. Not robots or clones. I want to meet people who have different opinions and ideas. So we can discuss and share and even argue. I want to meet YOU. But the real you. The true you. With each and every difference you have to offer. “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.” (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)